White privilege is a myth

[canpakes]

Your last paragraph is a perfect summary of what privilege means. But I’m betting you knew that.

This is something that Ceeboo and I were talking about on the side. Privilege isn’t exactly apparent to the folks in the privileged position. And it isn’t, by definition, gravely insidious. It just ‘exists’, and manifests across multiple boundaries, be they class, sex, or race. Society will always have biases like that.

[ceeboo]

Ceebs, just between us raccoons and whales, I don't think you are either an inferior or superior brand of human. I think you're just human -- like me. And you have a human brain, just like me. And human brains are great at creating after the fact rationalizations and treating them as motives for our actions. But the plain and humble fact is that we really can't tell why we acted in a certain way. Some part of our brain supplies the reason, but commonly after the act -- not before it. And we know from lots of studies of the brain that what we say and think and do is influenced by tons of sensory inputs that we aren't even conscious of. And it is really hard for the conscious part of our brains to spot our own biases. It's much easier to spot them in others.

So, maybe it makes sense to give serious consideration to the possibility that when we offer up a detailed explanation for past actions, it's really just a part of our brain telling us a story that makes us feel good about ourselves. And that we should always suspect that its fudging -- at least a little bit.

You had lots of possible ways to respond to Lem. One of them was to not respond at all, which would be a fairly sensible way to respond to a comment that you felt had little bearing on the conversation. Or to acknowledge the correction and move on. But what you did was focus attention on the comment that you thought had little relevance, thereby treating it as if it were important. That might be evidence of part of your brain fudging a little bit -- feeding you a rational sounding story but a story that isn't really consistent with what you did.

Given what we know about how brains work, I don't think any of us can speak with confidence as to our motives for our actions. I don't think you can, with confidence, discard out of hand the notion that the way you responded to Lem has nothing to do with her sex. For me, that doubt is reinforced by your last post, which could be held up as a classic example of "mansplaining." I doubt you see it that way, but then you aren't a woman who has encountered the phenomena day after day after day from man after man after man. That, after all, is what is meant by privilege. Your brain treats the way you experience your life as normal. So it tends to dismiss criticisms from others, who experience the world differently than you do, of what your brain considers normal.

Please don't confuse what I'm saying with being a bad person. I'm saying we all have gigantic blind spots, especially when it comes to our own behavior. And if we're going to be honest with ourselves, I think we have to acknowledge that our perceptions of our motives are at best incomplete and at worst dead wrong.

RI - I often read your board posts when I see them. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don't agree with you, and sometimes I'm really not sure. At the end of the day, I read them because they quite often make me think and they almost always contain positions laid on the table for consideration. In this particular case, your post to me, like other before, is making me think, evaluate and consider several things about me and what motivations might have been in play while I was hitting letters on my keypad.

While I really appreciate your entire post (Read it twice so far) - I found this part of your post (bolded below) to be especially worth serious consideration:

I'm saying we all have gigantic blind spots, especially when it comes to our own behavior. And if we're going to be honest with ourselves, I think we have to acknowledge that our perceptions of our motives are at best incomplete and at worst dead wrong.`

Thanks!

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Why did that part stand out to you?

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

Your last paragraph is a perfect summary of what privilege means. But I’m betting you knew that.

This is something that Ceeboo and I were talking about on the side. Privilege isn’t exactly apparent to the folks in the privileged position. And it isn’t, by definition, gravely insidious. It just ‘exists’, and manifests across multiple boundaries, be they class, sex, or race. Society will always have biases like that.

Like many other topics of discussion, "privilege" has been caricatured by people that are uncomfortable having to think about it. It's simply assuming that others experiencing the world the way I do, and that how I experience the world is "normal." In my little suburb, we've been gradually installing curb cuts at intersections. In the '50s, when many of the sidewalks were first put in, most people experienced crossing the street as stepping off the curb, crossing the street, and stepping up onto the curb as normal. Only after folks who used wheelchairs for mobility made a ruckus did most folks think about how curbs interfered with the mobility of the disabled. What was normal for most folks was a serious disadvantage to others. Now what's normal? Curb cuts at intersections, wheelchair ramps, automatic doors with push button entry, etc. The design of streets and sidewalks was originally made by folks with abled privilege. The problem simply wasn't visible to them. Once they took seriously the concerns expressed by a discrete, defined group that was disadvantaged by the design, they could see the problem and do something about it.

Privilege isn't anyone's fault. It's not a moral defect. It's a big blind spot.

[Atlanticmike]

Jordan Peterson explaining the lie of white privilege
https://youtu.be/PfH8IG7Awk0

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

My dearest Brothers and Sisters,



Do not trouble yourselves with such matters as to who has more blessings than the other, or who was more valiant in the pre-existence thus securing a more favorable outcome in their earthly estate. To each of their own kind I counsel you to worry not whether or not a white person has it better than you. For he who tendeth his own garden will find great joy when it comes time to harvest the fruits of his labor. Cast not an envious eye toward your brothers and sisters who are blessed due to their valiant nature and their comely families. If you remain valiant in this life you too may become Kings and Queens, priests and priestesses in the hereafter.

Also, pay your tithing.

- Doc

[canpakes]

Jordan Peterson explaining the lie of white privilege

Oops. He got that wrong. : D

[canpakes]

Continues -

8. While I was writing on a television show in my 30s, my new white male boss—who had only known me for a few days—had unbeknownst to me told another writer on staff he thought I was conceited, didn’t know as much I thought I did, and didn’t have the talent I thought I had. And what exactly had happened in those few days? I disagreed with a pitch where he suggested our lead female character carelessly leave a potholder on the stove, burning down her apartment. This character being a professional caterer. When what he said about me was revealed months later (by then he’d come to respect and rely on me), he apologized for prejudging me because I was a black woman. I told him he was ignorant and clearly had a lot to learn. It was a good talk because he was remorseful and open. But the point here is, if you’ve never been on the receiving end of a boss’s prejudiced, uninformed “how dare she question my ideas” badmouthing based on solely on his ego and your race, you have white privilege.

[Jersey Girl]

(Lemmie makes an understandably sober point about men sperging out when even gently corrected by a woman)

I fully understand that Lem was correcting a mistake I made - I have no issues with that at all. So why did I "sperg out over nothing?" Because there is a long history with Lem - I'm not a fan. At all. So I made the decision to reply in the way I did. Hind sight being 20-20, I probably should have returned a dew dozen "sighs" as well.

Then, I was treated to see the courageous, balanced and deep wisdom on display when Jersey Girl flew in, on her cape, to lend support to the "possibility" that I am a misogynistic.

None of this has anything to do with gender - So they can both go kick rocks!

I don't fly on a cape. I didn't lend support. I am one of the female posters on this board who read the exchanges and wants to know why you flipped out over a benign correction. And now you are flipping out on me.

It's okay with me if you flip out. It's okay with me if any poster flips out around here. We're all human.

Notice your observation though. Two women show up on the same thread and one is working in support of the other. If that is the case, then what the hell are all the male posters doing around here? Working in support of each other? That's nonsense and you know it, Ceebs.

[Themis]

I understand that there was no confusion about which Harvard. I was suggesting that because it was Harvard (prestige/awesome/wow) the response was "You mean the one in Massachusetts?"

Keep in mind we are missing some context that she would be seeing. Many times we can tell by things like facial expressions what they are meaning or communicating. Her experience also seems to suggest she was not seeing the same kind of question of white people. Myself I don't respond like that unless I am questioning the accuracy of the answer. Given the time period I suspect people were questioning the accuracy of her answer because of her race, which was probably common. Stereotypes that even affect us unconsciously still exists, and the idea of blacks being lazy and stupid was a common stereotype of the past that can influence us even today. We even have a person who post's here that still holds that idea consciously.