(06-04-2020, 09:02 AM)jj82284 Wrote:

(06-03-2020, 08:17 PM)Last42min Wrote: So, I think most people could agree to a form of wealth privilege. There are definitely class issues that impact opportunities. There is also intelligence privilege and beauty privilege. There is also a majority privilege. If we started analyzing every difference by trait, I am sure we could list out a ton of disparities between groups. There are benefits derived from each of these.

As to majority privilege, I get that it would kind of be odd to be raised in a society that tailors certain elements to skin tone (like dolls, action figures, movies, bandaids, etc.). I could see how this could make some people feel alienated or create a sense of longing. This is also true for every other difference between groups. Do short people long to be tall? Ugly people pretty? Etc? Some of life is luck, and it's unfortunate when people are put in those situations, but it's not something that can't be overcome. I am also sympathetic to creating some kind of atmosphere that helps reduce those disparities. That said, it's going to be difficult to adequately mitigate all differences.

I also accept some form of wealth privilege, comparatively, between whites and blacks. I am all about changing this, but, in my opinion, the way to solve this is by addressing the problems that create wealth disparities. No data suggests this is intrinsic to RACE. Strong family units (don't have kids until you're married and raise them in a joint home), Education (graduate highschool), Hard work (get and maintain a full time job). 75% of poor children who follow these rules make it into middle class (making more than 55k a year). To this end, I feel like whites are in a better position to move into middle class, because these are values that are emphasized in middle class families. I blame welfare for contributing to the degradation of poor families. I will even concede that whites had the privilege of not needing to go on welfare and were therefore insulated from this kind of deterioration to a degree (though it is growing in white communities).

I have said it before, and I will say it again, that I think the single greatest benefit of white privilege is the freedom to shed poverty without judgement. Blacks do not get this luxury. They get some form of discrimination both from ingroup ("Uncle Tom"ism) and outgroup (You're not like those other ones). Whites may get some of the former, but none of the latter. Imo, the single greatest obstacle to culture change is the threat of losing black identity. The 90's were a battle ground among blacks for the future of black identity, and progressives won. Now, the Biden's of the world get to use the "You ain't black" line as a way to encourage proper group think. I'm glad to see blacks are wising up to this with the standard Joe's, but, unfortunately, they are being heavily influenced and recruited the socialist wing of the democratic party. We will never be able to solve race issues if they believe it's fundamentally necessary to overthrow capitalism for these problems to disappear.

All that said, whiteness is not inherently a privilege. I think whites by and large to benefit from many values passed on by middle class families (this is true for higher class families, also).

The largest middle calss expansion of the 20th century was black America between 1950 ish to 1960 ish.  From that time you had a drop in the poverty rate from somewhere near 87% to 47%, you had black family structure, and unemployment numbers on part with or in some cases better than whites.  During the 60's and the shift away from traditional values towards collectivism, secular progressivism etc. along with the inherent structure of the great new deal is what eroded the black family unit and hence the mechanism for transferring positive values from successful family members to aspiring children.  

In other words, had the left decided to just leave well enough alone and allowed that expansion to continue then Black Americans would be much more similar to their asian counterparts instead of 60 years as a permanent underclass.

This is true, but I wonder how much these values had to ingrain themselves in black society. Before the welfare program, the ONLY way to work yourself out of poverty was to work hard. Traditions do play a role generationally speaking. You can see this with Hispanic communities. Iirc, the first generation immigrants are poor, but don't accept welfare. Second generations tend to out perform their parents, then third and fourth generations move towards welfare. Haven't looked at the numbers in a while, so I can't recall exactly.

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