The point of the statement is explaining that only a white American male, raised in privilege and cosseted in the belief that nothing really bad ever happens to people like him, would be so oblivious as to the potential consequences of such an action. It is not that others would have been treated better or worse, but others would have been acutely aware of the dangers of such a risky action in the same way they were constantly made aware of the dangers of being not white or not male and taking such risky actions as speaking out or standing up for their rights in 1960s America.
Sometime privilege is not just in the outcome of your actions, but the range of consequences you can possibly imagine as a result of an action. Privilege is what led him to conclude that his plan was not suicidally stupid.
> only a white American male, raised in privilege and cosseted in the belief that nothing really bad ever happens to people like him, would be so oblivious as to the potential consequences of such an action
> Privilege is what led him to conclude that his plan was not suicidally stupid
I disagree with this completely. I think you're giving too much importance to something quite insignificant here, his race and background. What's with this profiling? "White male makes stupid decision, it's because of privilege." This needs to stop.
Disclaimer: I myself am not white, but I can see the unfairness of this bullshit association.
>I think you're giving too much importance to something quite insignificant here, his race and background.
It's not insignificant. People from non-privileged backgrounds know that things can happen to them if they cross some lines.
If it was a black man in the 60's (same era as Mott) he would know that he could be beaten up for just going to the wrong restaurant, or sitting at the wrong side of the bus, in his own home country.
Which means he would for that reason alone think thrice about crossing an international border of a cold war enemy illegally...
>It's not insignificant. People from non-privileged backgrounds know that things can happen to them if they cross some lines.
So do most "privileged people". The propensity to ignore borders has a lot more to do with your views of the countries and international politics than it has to do with privilege.
"Privilege" is an original-sin like concept concocted entirely by sheltered sociologists who don't understand how to do science. It was predictable that they would come up with such a Puritanical and moralizing concept.
On a larger note, the "privilege" concept appeals to people on the left with moralizer- and justice-oriented, self-righteous personalities, who are in other words the psychological equivalent to the zealous religious conservative right (who they would likely have belonged to, had they been born a few decades earlier, since personality traits always precede political ideology). It's not just rationally incorrect, but pretty cringeworthy.
No. That's a bizarre concept concocted by angry people on the Internet who have overdosed on Tumblr, attempted to derive a first-principles explanation for why people appear to believe strongly in the importance of otherkin rights, and arrived along the way at the notion that "privilege" means white people have done something intrinsically wrong just by being white.
Privilege as used in the real world (leaving out, perhaps, postmodern literature) is a simple, common-sense observation. Having privilege isn't wrong or evil; it's unavoidable.
The problem isn't people having privilege. Rather, the problems are:
* Just-world-fallacy beliefs in nonexistent level playing fields, where people experience benefits clearly attributable to some privilege and then claim that people who don't receive those benefits don't deserve them, when really they just lack the privilege.
* Knowingly and deliberately protecting some privilege, overtly denying benefits and recognition to those without it so that you can remain a member of an elite.
The way I know this is noncontroversial and common sense is that nerds have no trouble recognizing the concept when discussions turn to venture capitalists, to hedge fund financiers and banksters, to congresspeople, to prosecutors, to jocks in high school, or to abusive monopolies.
> No. That's a bizarre concept concocted by angry people on the Internet who have overdosed on Tumblr, attempted to derive a first-principles explanation for why people appear to believe strongly in the importance of otherkin rights, and arrived along the way at the notion that "privilege" means white people have done something intrinsically wrong just by being white.
You are making many assumptions on my beliefs, which are not true (Strawman!)
> Privilege as used in the real world (leaving out, perhaps, postmodern literature) is a simple, common-sense observation. Having privilege isn't wrong or evil; it's unavoidable.
Yet it's never used in the context of being grateful for the things one has going for them, but always used to discuss what others have received. "Privilege" is always tinged with negative connotations. It's always something that requires you to give away something else (going at the back of the BLM demonstration, for example, or "shutting up" and letting "less privileged" people speak). It's used to shame or guilt people into things. You could probably show scientifically in a lab setting that reminding men of their "privilege" would quickly lower their testosterone levels, make them more passive and submissive, and more self-effacing. This is a case of "raising waves where there is no wind". You're pretending that you're just making people "more aware" of themselves and the world, when it goes much beyond that, psychologically. Unfortunately, most people don't understand the psychology behind "privilege", and just focus on the fact that "privilege" superficially sounds "rational".
> where people experience benefits clearly attributable to some privilege
"Clear" is wrong. The world isn't black and white.
> and then claim that people who don't receive those benefits don't deserve them, when really they just lack the privilege.
"Privilege" is the mirror narrative of the "you only have what you deserve" crowd. It's another side to the same coin. Empathic listening is the solution to both. To the latter, I say: "not everything went their way, they're doing their best, always be generous to those in need" and to the former, I say: "don't assume that someone who has more than you didn't work to deserve it". That would be a psychologically-correct position.
> Knowingly and deliberately protecting some privilege, overtly denying benefits and recognition to those without it so that you can remain a member of an elite
You don't need this whole "privilege" narrative for that, only empathic listening to both sides (the one who feels wronged and the one who's accused) and reaching a conclusion yourself. Wanting to fit everything into a simpler ideology of "privilege" is dogmatic.
It's really mind-boggling how deeply the "privilege" narrative has been anchored in the minds of people who see themselves as rational, which is very insidious. A proper understanding of psychology can simply neutralize this "privilege" narrative, which is not based in empathy, or in a correct understanding of people, but in browbeating.
Had to make another comment, since I reached the length limit.
> to jocks in high school
Also keep in mind that seeing everything under the lens of "power" is deeply misguided. You might say that the jock is "privileged", but he might have had a poor, neglectful, abusive childhood (trauma, which changes your brain deeply), and have as a result developed a more charming personality because his subconscious felt that this was the only way in which he would be accepted and loved. Some of the most sociable people you know are so because of a "people-pleaser" tendency and a desire to "fit in", not because they're on top of things, or more mature. I know some people who are very charming, more than the average, and well-respected by our friends. Yet I also know some things about their (painful) past, and wouldn't wish it on anyone. Would they then become "less privileged"? Except psychological pathologies (low self-esteem, excessive fears, reality distortion, trust disorders, inability to bond) are simply hereditary. If you were raised by parents that had very low self-esteem, were often overwhelmed, and had intimacy issues (meaning emotional, not physical; inability to give or receive love), you'll grow up with these exact same traits, or you'll be similarly wounded but in a different way than your parents. In addition, if your parents were neglectful or abusive, they likely grew up in a neglectful or abusive household, because psychologically wounded, decided to marry with an equally-wounded mate (as we all unconsciously seek to reproduce the nurturance-level of our childhood relationships in all relationships) and you'll raise wounded children in a low-nurturance family of your own. Who's "privileged", and who's not? Since psychological wounds are hereditary, there's no one to "blame", or more deserving of empathy than others. Other example: someone who was abused as a child goes on, as an adult, to abuse children himself. Most would see him as a monster, but I disagree. Gerry Spence said (paraphrased): "nobody is evil enough that you can't become empathic towards them if you really know them". His abusiveness towards others is his own doing, but it's also inseparable from what he went through as a vulnerable young child.
You simply can't make assumptions about people and judge them on a one-dimensional scale, and you doing so is disrespectful to them because it removes their humanity. And again, it doesn't come from a position of empathy on your part, which would require the use of empathic listening, indiscriminately. Everyone has a story.
I repeat my point that the "privilege" narrative is psychologically-incorrect and made irrelevant (or worse) if one understands psychology, and people, properly. That's the most central point of my claims.
You seem to mistake me from some r/TumblerInAction regular, which is just not where I'm coming from (not least because I don't go to reddit).
Where you and I both live (Europe) white men may work hard but also have a much higher employment rate, so they actually have a greater chance of getting the job in the first place. The only justification they have to be frustrated is if they expected 'enjoy middle class life' to be the normal outcome of having a job, which is the essence of privilege. Privilege is not a US thing, but pointing it out is much easier because the inequality is much greater and class distinctions are much clearer in the US when you take race and gender into account.
> The only justification they have to be frustrated is if they expected 'enjoy middle class life' to be the normal outcome of having a job, which is the essence of privilege
That's very uncharitable and reductionist of you. Average people, no matter who they are, lead average, unfulfilled lives with unrealized dreams.
Not only are your facts wrong, as pointed out below, but reality is always more complex than that, and it's incredibly manipulative to present it like you did. Women go to university more than men, for example. You're absolutely not entitled to determined whether which of their frustrations are "justified" or not, and everybody is frustrated for a whole range of reasons all the time, not just economic reasons, but psychological, emotional, relationships, hobbies, and more. Why are white men suiciding so much? Is that a privilege?
You're not saying any of this out of empathy, as some in your cohort like to pretend. You're generalizing people by their race, essentializing them to their economic status, which dehumanizes both "privileged" and "unprivileged" completely. It's just a cheap ploy to frame yourself as righteous and "good" ("pointing it out"), and without question this fake social "science" is the biggest problem I have with the left.
> This statistic shows the unemployment rate as a percentage of the total workforce, by gender, in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2000 to 2016. The rate for women was consistently lower than that of men during this time period.
And yet among minorities in the UK the unemployment rate is almost twice as high (https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jan/08/rising...) and while your selected chart shows a slightly higher unemployment rate for men than women (by 0.2%) it neglects a much lower labor force participation rate for women than for men (~8% lower according to OECD stats).
There are people who are very invested in pushing that narrative, but it's a complete fiction for all but the richest 1% of US white men. The reality is no different than you describe.
The undertone of this (hopefully unintended) is that non-whites don't have to work hard or pay alimony. Atop of being non-white with all inconvenience it involves, that is.
Against the rules I'm creating a second throwaway, but I felt the need to clarify that the undertone was not intended.
Non-whites (mostly immigrants where I live) absolutely work hard and pay alimony, but getting into the social structures of their families (where male privileges do exist) would probably lead to a heated discussion.
Gender rights is a bit of a different topic, but I can point out that what you call "male privilege" is common still throughout most of (near exclusively white) Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. So let's not mix that with skin color: it is a cultural problem first and foremost, and yes, it's pandemic throughout the world.
As to the white privilege in Europe, it definitely exists. People change their names to "native sounding" just to land the job interviews; you never hear a slur on the street for being white. At the same time, in the better part of Europe this issue is acknowledged and there's an effort to counter it, mainly throughout education. Expecting it to disappear completely is unrealistic, but I'd say Europe is doing an honest effort.
Sometime privilege is not just in the outcome of your actions, but the range of consequences you can possibly imagine as a result of an action. Privilege is what led him to conclude that his plan was not suicidally stupid.