General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I keep hearing people talk about privilege. What is it? [View all]myrna minx
(22,772 posts)who suffer "driving while black" or "shopping while black" or like Trayvon Martin, walking while black, may seem rather privileged to many of us here- especially when it appears that these important issues are **boring** to those who appear to be oblivious to the plight for equality of others. "Talking to death" these issues is not a frame I'm willing to accept (I can make a loaded frame too - what ~I guess the NRA prefers we shoot to death our problems?).
Discussing issues of oppression and privilege on a liberal message board (which is what DU has been since I desperately washed ashore here in 2002) calls us to eliminate the racist neo-Jim Crow-esque laws erupting all over the country, eliminate voter suppression laws, illegal voter caging and purges that focus on African American, Latino and other minority voters, and draconian anti-woman reproductive health care laws, help augment Marriage equality laws for LGBTIQ, promote comprehensive immigration laws and promote mental health parity - which was a major cause for Senator Wellstone before he died. If these actions make those who have privilege uncomfortable : good.
When an uber privileged wealthy man from birth like Paul "P.D." Ryan, a man who perhaps *encountered* - *at most* 10 people of color at Craig Senior High School (and that includes the wonderful people in the foreign exchange program) took complete advantage of Social Security survivor benefits as a teenager *and* benefited from the world class Janesville public school system that the UAW help to fund, wax on his racist dog whistle about the lazy inner city men, that "inner city men" have no culture of work, Um, that lace curtain Janesville tax payer funded family legacy brahman defines the "man of the people" privilege.