Wisconsin's "White Privilege" Wristbands

[Pliny]

Good post, AN. Racism was in our past institutionalized - in other words legally approved of.<br /><br />Unfortunately, through such programs as affirmative action, it is still institutionalized.<br /><br />Society is recognizing what it is and if the race card weren't so valuable racism would eventually disappear and<br />animosities would pertain more to cultural differences than racial but

[Michael Hardner]

You can believe the sky is purple but that does not make it true. The assertion I made is quite simple: the choice of the word 'privilege' was made because the campaigners want self identified people to feel guilty.

Simple and still unproven, yes.

There is simply no other rational conclusion if one looks at how the word in understood by the majority of people.

The organizers perhaps would like to raise awareness. Your awareness about an issue can be raised without an emotional response too.

You are obviously entitled to your opinion but your opinion in this case no more rational than claiming you believe the sky is purple.

At least if I claimed that, I wouldn't just try to push the fact that it was 'obvious' over and over again, without providing proof.

You have done this on other debates, namely climate change - try to base your argument on "hidden motives" of those you disagree with. Your argument becomes subjective, and thus not convincing to anyone besides yourself.

If you don't have any more proof to add, I don't think I have anything else to say on your assertion.

[Pliny]

C'mon Tim. Give Michael the peer-reviewed double blind study published in a reputable scientific publication or else how

can we determine the sky is purple or not?

[Michael Hardner]

C'mon Tim. Give Michael the peer-reviewed double blind study published in a reputable scientific publication or else how

can we determine the sky is purple or not?

I won't dispute the obvious, nor should anybody.

But since I don't feel guilty, how am I supposed to take it as a given that everybody else does ?

Maybe conservatives are more bleeding heart than any of us suspected !

[Shady]

The consensus seems to be that this idea was pretty dumb.

[GostHacked]

The consensus seems to be that this idea was pretty dumb.

Science should never work on consensus. And that is seemingly how this climate change thing is done. Sorry getting threads confused with each other ...

Edited March 26, 2013 by GostHacked

[TimG]

You have done this on other debates, namely climate change - try to base your argument on "hidden motives" of those you disagree with. Your argument becomes subjective, and thus not convincing to anyone besides yourself.

I am not the one criticizing people for reacting to the most obvious interpretation of the evidence. If you were as open minded as you claim you would acknowledge that my interpretation is a plausible interpretation of the evidence and people are reacting exactly as the organizers intended. Instead - you want to presume (without evidence) that the organizers where oblivious to the meaning of the words they choose and are not responsible for the reaction to it.

With the climate science I make no presumption of people's motives. I look at the evidence. The arguments we have arise because the evidence invariably makes climate scientists look bad so instead of acknowledging the evidence you arbitrarily dismiss it and basically say "I can't explain why you are wrong but I don't want to believe that scientists could do bad things so I declare you to be wrong"

[Michael Hardner]

I am not the one criticizing people for reacting to the most obvious interpretation of the evidence. If you were as open minded as you claim you would acknowledge that my interpretation is a plausible interpretation of the evidence and people are reacting exactly as the organizers intended. Instead - you want to presume (without evidence) that the organizers where oblivious to the meaning of the words they choose and are not responsible for the reaction to it.

Ok, it's plausible. I don't see why that changes anything.

With the climate science I make no presumption of people's motives. I look at the evidence. The arguments we have arise because the evidence invariably makes climate scientists look bad so instead of acknowledging the evidence you arbitrarily dismiss it and basically say "I can't explain why you are wrong but I don't want to believe that scientists could do bad things so I declare you to be wrong"

You have no evidence as to what goes on in someone's heart. You want to put evil motivations, corruption and so on into the mix, but it's not necessary.

[g_bambino]

The organizers perhaps would like to raise awareness.

The organisers must want an end to a problem they think exists. Putting aside the question of whether this problem of "white privilege" exists or not anymore, awareness may be required in the process of change, but awareness is not, in itself, change. To instigate change, a motivator is required. TimG is quite reasonably pointing out that, in this case, guilt is the intended motivator; the term "privilege" being employed as the guilt trigger, since the very definition of the word is "an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others [emphasis mine]". What other reaction to the assertion "hey, Whitey, you're an unwitting racist" could be hoped for?

[Canuckistani]

Awareness is good. You'd have to be very stupid to not be aware that African-Americans are an economically disadvantaged group. But putting it in racial terms just sows conflict. Make people aware of the lack of social mobility and great income inequality in the US, and you maybe move toward changing conditions for all poor people, no matter their color. Or is that not good enough, are black people supposed to get an extra hand up to make up for their suffering? That seems to be behind a lot of these race based arguments. Not just a fairer deal for everybody, but some people should be more equal than others.

[eyeball]

Science should never work on consensus.

Never ever? We should eschew it and strive for endless disagreement instead?

That doesn't sound very scientific.

[Canuckistani]

Science always works on consensus - there's always the accepted paradigm subject to revisions, and once in a while there's a paradigm breaker comes along, that in turn becomes the new paradigm. I don't think there's ever 100% agreement in science, and that's a good thing. But if 90% of scientists in field belive the date points to theory x, and 10% believe it points to y, then x seems like the better bet to go with.

[Pliny]

The organisers must want an end to a problem they think exists. Putting aside the question of whether this problem of "white privilege" exists or not anymore, awareness may be required in the process of change, but awareness is not, in itself, change. To instigate change, a motivator is required. TimG is quite reasonably pointing out that, in this case, guilt is the intended motivator; the term "privilege" being employed as the guilt trigger, since the very definition of the word is "an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others [emphasis mine]". What other reaction to the assertion "hey, Whitey, you're an unwitting racist" could be hoped for?

Ahhhh....inductive reasoning, all but abandoned by the deductive reasoning crowd.

[Canuckistani]

What other reaction to the assertion "hey, Whitey, you're an unwitting racist" could be hoped for?

"Hey Whitey, you're an unwitting beneficiary of racism."

[Michael Hardner]

The organisers must want an end to a problem they think exists. Putting aside the question of whether this problem of "white privilege" exists or not anymore, awareness may be required in the process of change, but awareness is not, in itself, change. To instigate change, a motivator is required. TimG is quite reasonably pointing out that, in this case, guilt is the intended motivator;

You had me up until 'intended'. Guilt is an emotional state, quite apart from a mental process of analysis, assessment and realization of a problem. Some may experience it, and some not.

You may even say many or most will experience guilt, but it's another thing entirely to state that it's the *intention* to manipulate emotions, much less to say it's the *obvious* intention.

And - here's the important part - it's beside the point. Why am I responsible for the brittle feelings of certain members of the white race ? Can they not see what a double standard is in place here when we have to tiptoe around their frailness in the same environment that tolerated lower status for races until very recent memory ?

Please. The outrage store is having a fire sale, it seems to me.

the term "privilege" being employed as the guilt trigger, since the very definition of the word is "an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others [emphasis mine]". What other reaction to the assertion "hey, Whitey, you're an unwitting racist" could be hoped for?

Hop, skip and leap. And we're back where we were ... nowhere.

Would anybody else like to repeat the baseless assertion that people are intending to make white people feel like racists, rather than what we know on the surface - that history and sociology tells us the fact that we had a race that was subjugated to the dominant race, and that we as a society are still dealing with it.

[g_bambino]

"Hey Whitey, you're an unwitting beneficiary of racism."

That doesn't seem to be an assertion that would drive Whitey to change, since it doesn't identify who's perpetuating the supposed racism Whitey benefits from (which is, of course, Whitey him or herself).

[DogOnPorch]

Meh..."privileged" means exactly what it says.

[Canuckistani]

That doesn't seem to be an assertion that would drive Whitey to change, since it doesn't identify who's perpetuating the supposed racism Whitey benefits from (which is, of course, Whitey him or herself).

That is the actual message tho, not that the wearer is him/herself a racist, but that they benefit from it. I'm not really sure what the benefit is supposed to be exactly.

[g_bambino]

You had me up until 'intended'.

Because you assume "privilege" was chosen for use simply by accident? If the intent is to invoke guilt, certain phraseology can be employed to do so; any mother knows that.

Hop, skip and leap.

Perhaps you'd care to show how I made some wrong hop or leap in an answer to the question I posed after I finished hopping and leaping.

[bush_cheney2004]

....Would anybody else like to repeat the baseless assertion that people are intending to make white people feel like racists, rather than what we know on the surface - that history and sociology tells us the fact that we had a race that was subjugated to the dominant race, and that we as a society are still dealing with it.

Compared to what ? When ? By Whom ? "Race" is only one factor among many in a complex and longer timeline than what you see on American TV or movies.

[Michael Hardner]

Because you assume "privilege" was chosen for use simply by accident? If the intent is to invoke guilt, certain phraseology can be employed to do so; any mother knows that.

"Guilt is the intended motivator"

Can we just leave emotion out of it ?

Perhaps you'd care to show how I made some wrong hop or leap in an answer to the question I posed after I finished hopping and leaping.

"Guilt is the intended motivator"

[Michael Hardner]

Compared to what ? When ? By Whom ? "Race" is only one factor among many in a complex and longer timeline than what you see on American TV or movies.

As always, you advance the discussion even as you disagree with me. These are all great questions B_C - we could have another thread perhaps on the relative status of other races and how they did in North America. Every race is different, but not every race has privilege, wouldn't you agree ?

[bush_cheney2004]

As

always, you advance the discussion even as you disagree with me. These

are all great questions B_C - we could have another thread perhaps on

the relative status of other races and how they did in North America.

Every race is different, but not every race has privilege, wouldn't you

agree ?

No, I would not agree. So called "whites" do not / have not enjoyed such universal privilege.....example from Mexico way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_North_America#Racism_against_Whites_in_Mexico

[Michael Hardner]

No, I would not agree. So called "whites" do not / have not enjoyed such universal privilege.....example from Mexico way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_North_America#Racism_against_Whites_in_Mexico

Universal ? I agree with you. Cossacks, Torys, Newfoundland Fishers... there isn't a common thread there - universally that is.

[bush_cheney2004]

Universal ? I agree with you. Cossacks, Torys, Newfoundland Fishers... there isn't a common thread there - universally that is.

Do all Canadians have "universal" health care, or is their Canadian 'privilege' ?? 'White Privilege' is too broad a term.

Edited March 26, 2013 by bush_cheney2004