@sorghum can you expound upon that for me? It seems like the popular audit studies found the opposite in relation to how employers responded to knowing someone is black, at least perceptually. It seems like cherry-picking exceptions to the rule just proves the rule.
Also, are you trying to say that all races are on balance treated equally in America, because that seems highly suspect. If you’re trying to say that being white (or male, or both) is more of a negative than a positive in society, that seems even more suspect.
People don’t have to be “always” advantaged to still be generally treated better by society. So I don’t really find your point responsive.
You seem @Atlantic, @sorghum is merely trying to point out to us that the person who seems to have it all may actually be suffering under terrible oppression. For instance, my good friend Baron–who I always thought hadn’t a care in the world–shook the scales from my eyes by telling me just the other day: “Marvin,” he said, “why, just the other day,” (and, as you can surely imagine, this is where my ears pricked up!), “the butler almost sassed me!”
I guess he just handles the hardships better than the rest of us. That’s probably why he’s earned his social status and wealth.
Well, @marvin100, if you bothered to befriend the butler, you could ask him how the intersection of white, male, elderly, immigrant English, and being called Simon is working out for him as far as privilege goes.
My son had to take a gender studies class a year ago. At one point, the teacher referred to my son’s “white privilege.” I felt like calling her up and saying, “Do you realize this privileged white male is about to move to Lebanon to help out Syrian refugees? What have YOU done lately to help unfortunate people?”
Hoo boy. These discussions always go the same way. I’m a white male myself, and I don’t shed too many tears for the travails of white people in this society, especially well-educated white people with good jobs.
As I said earlier, it seems to me that “intersectionality” is just a jargony term for the realization that (for example) black women may have some different concerns than all black people.
Seems that way to me. Another example would be that men are commonly privileged over women, but if they are gay/lesbian, men are often hated more than women on that basis.
@MaineLonghorn You can be altruistic and still have white privilege…Being the most caring person in the word doesn’t mean that your child is treated the same way minorities are. Similarly, being white doesn’t preclude someone from being a strong contributing member to society.
@sorghum nowhere in this thread has the assumption been made that white male privilege guarantees an easy life.
And just to try and tie this to College, being white, male/female and middle class or above is actually a disadvantage for financial aid in many if not most cases. Look to all of the aid given based on race and or economic need and is is all disadvantaging anyone who is white and/or above a very low bar on the socio-economic ladder.
While being “middle class” (upper income but not super-wealthy, if one goes by how people on these forums use the term) may be disadvantageous at the point of applying for need-based financial aid for college, it is typically highly advantageous for the previous 17-18 years of the student’s life in terms of in-school and out-of-school educational opportunities and opportunities to improve credentials (test scores, extracurriculars) to gain admission to colleges and earn merit scholarships.
Indeed, the advantage of coming from an upper income family is great enough that low achievers (by 8th grade test scores) from upper income families have as good a chance of earning bachelor’s degrees as high achievers from lower income families.
Why should those who are part of the upper/upper-middle class be given the same consideration for FA or scholarships based partially on need as opposed to those who are lower middle class(making $40-60k/year) or lower income folks who have legitimately greater financial need and didn’t have the same advantages as those from the former group?
This argument is reminiscent of a recent thread where a poster from an upper-middle class family was arguing that taxpayers should be paying for his/her kid to attend an elite private college and not doing so constituted a form of “discrimination” which didn’t garner him/her much sympathy from most posters.
I’ve typed and deleted several reactions to this statement. I lack the ability to respond in a way I am satisfied with , so I am going with a way I am not fully happy about:
I realize you are likely speaking explicitly of the relative size of highly competitive applicant pools to extremely selective colleges. Therefore I recommend you take greater care in your writing so that those that read your words have proper context and do not unfairly judge you.
I also realize you probably do not care about that judgement.