Summations Only

If it's not causing confusion for anyone else here then it doesn't matter what I, arriving late to the party, think.But though I don't think my opinion should count for much in this thread, it sure feels confusing to me. It seems like you're claiming that the definition of discrimination under the law doesn't include privilege because the law must be neutral according to wealth, even though in this context privilege actually means power and control. I don't think that argument holds up because you've changed definitions in midstream.--Percy

The problem with Crash's position isn't the idea that discrimination is exerted through the possession of privilege per-se. It is his insistence that a specific form of privilege is required in order to qualify as a specific sort of 'ism'. I think the following exchange demonstrates this: I haven't discussed racial discrimination with Crash in this thread. But if you were to ask him to give an example of a black person racially discriminating against white people in present-day-America or put to him the scenario of a black boss in modern day America blatantly discriminating against white subordinates on the basis of their race he would be equally forced to contradict the fact that this is blatantly, and very definitely legally, a case of racial discrimination.Because in modern day America black people as a race don't possess the sort of race-privilege Crash requires for a black individual to be racist towards a white person no matter what other forms of power they may or may not have over them.

This brings me back to my point that crash's "model" - as he called it - to determine whether something is racist or not on the basis of privilage IS inherently racist in and of itself.Which becomes circular, as I stated earlier. How can you use a model to determine whether something is racist or not that FIRST has to determine who is privilaged or not on the basis of race? It is utterly ridiculous.- Oni

As a white man, I am more privileged than black women like Michelle Obama , Oprah Winfrey and Rosalind Brewer.Can I please swap to being as unprivileged as they are, as my own privilege appears to be broken.

I agree with you.To determine whether racial discrimination has occurred using Crash's "model" you first need to sort the various races into a sort of hierachy of privilege. In modern America Crash would presumably put white at the top and black at the bottom with Hispanic, Indian, Oriental etc. jockeying for position between the two (this is the impression I get from his posts) So if an Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin or an oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin-colour then everybody here except Crash can see that both are racially discriminating and being racist.But in Crashland we have to ask whether Indians or Orientals have greater racial privilege in modern America before we can decide who is and isn't being racist. Yup.

There's a relevant case being argued before the Supreme Court today in that it also hinges on the definition of a word, in this case "supervisor". The law here in the US states that an employer is automatically responsible for harassment committed by anyone in a supervisory position over an aggrieved party, but not for harassment committed by other employers unless the problem has been reported and the company found negligent. One side claims that a supervisor is someone who has the power of fire, hire, promote and demote, while the other side argues that that is too narrow a definition and that it must include anyone who has any sort of control or power over the individual, for instance by assigning work duties or setting schedules.In hearing the lawyers present their respective positions in a BBC broadcast, it seemed to me that one side is insisting that a supervisor is only a supervisor if they have the title supervisor (or manager or other approximate synonym), while the other side is arguing that what matters is who has power or control.I guess my relevant point for Crash would be that if he means power and control then those are the words he should use. I understand I may be having a bigger problem with using the word "privilege" than others here, but I find it terribly confusing because when I try to incorporate it into my thinking I can no longer make sense of racism being exerted against privilege, or of reverse discrimination as exercised in the US by colleges and universities, and so forth.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.Edited by Percy, : Grammar again (sheesh!).

I would go further, and suggest that the principle of "equal before the law" implies that the law has to be neutral according to almost everything - gender, race, class, sexual orientation wealth, and so forth. Isn't that what we demand from the law? Like I said a dozen times before, I'm trying to evaluate these competing models by how they accord with reality, not how they perform in a handful of extremely unlikely hypothetical corner cases. I don't think I have. Being able to control someone, having power over them, or being afforded special treatment that they aren't - all those things are privilege when they stem from membership in a restricted group.

We don't even have to presume that:in Message 324, he says:

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And since there's no race that has privilege over people of the white race
  —crash

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(there's one less thing he can change and claim misrepresentation about since following his arguments to their logical conclusion constitutes misrepresentation) I asked him about exactly this sort of thing (racism that doesn't involve white people) in at least 3 replies (Message 352, Message 328 and Message 315) and he never answered. He did, however, make damn sure to answer and clarify that black on white is NEVER racism. Instead, he calls me racist for using racist terminology.Oh, and Oni did in Message 358 and Message 378, which crash conveniently failed to respond to. I guess he can only identify racism where he thinks he can see the inherent privilege: white pride.

And I don't see what's contentious about that in the least, since it's just a form of the argument that "words mean things." How do we know when discrimination is "sexism", or "racism", or "classism", or any of the other "isms"? Well, quite simply, when the discrimination is on the basis of privilege that accrues according to race, that's racism. When it is on the basis of privilege that accrues according to sex, that's sexism. And so on.Words mean things. Why would we use the word "sexism" when someone is discriminated against on the basis of their race? That would make no sense at all. Ergo, it's certainly the case that discrimination on the basis of a specific form of privilege is required to qualify as a specific form of "ism", otherwise how on Earth would we know which "ism" it was? But would it actually be? You never responded to the examples I gave. Why would an academic merit scholarship only given out to white people be considered racist, while a academic merit scholarships only given out to black people (for instance, any of these) aren't? By the definition I've been defending, it's easy to see why. By the definition Straggler, Rahvin, and others are defending, this is an intolerable, ongoing racist outrage. But then they'd have to explain why nobody seems all that outraged by it. Like, nobody at all - except white racists.How do they explain that? They can't, without privilege.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

In this, at least, you're not misrepresenting me in any way. Exactly as you say, Straggler need not presume that I would put whites in America "at the top" of the racial-privilege pyramid; the white race is the race afforded the most racial privilege. I don't see how that can be disputed. That's false, Hooah. I've given many examples of racism that doesn't involve white people, including an example that involves only blacks, and you failed to respond to any of them, or supply any reasoning according to your definition that would indicate how you know they're racist. No, I didn't. As far back as Message 290 I told you that a black person could perpetrate racism against a white.

Well, yes. We do. What's the issue with that? That it doesn't allow you to reduce the complex phenomenon of racial discrimination in America to an absurd simplicity that equates being called a "cracker" with being called a "n*gger"?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

That's not "confusion", that's the clarity of using the privilege model. It reveals the fact that it's not "reverse discrimination" when colleges use Affirmative Action, that there is no discrimination "against privilege", and so on. The confusion you're feeling is the confusion that comes on when you try to understand racism without the notion of privilege, and you erroneously categorize a lot of things as "racist" that, confusingly, nobody ever acts like they are except a handful of white racists.

Crash's use of the term "privilege" is derived from a certain sort of academic sociologists use. It is most commonly referenced in (some) feminist circles but can be applied to race, sexuality etc. etc. The following example is from a feminist blog mentioned earlier in this thread.

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Given the historical and continued imbalance of power, where men as a class are privileged over women as a class (see male privilege), an important, but often overlooked, part of the term is that sexism is prejudice plus power. Thus feminists reject the notion that women can be sexist towards men because women lack the institutional power that men have.

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Male privilege is a set of privileges that are given to men as a class due to their institutional power in relation to women as a class. While every man experiences privilege differently due to his own individual position in the social hierarchy, every man, by virtue of being read as male by society, benefits from male privilege.

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Feminism 101 BlogThus in modern western society women cannot be sexist towards men because men as a class possess privilege based on sex. Thus in modern western society blacks cannot be racist towards whites because whites possess privilege based on race. In modern western society homosexuals cannot discriminate against heterosexuals on the basis of sexuality because heterosexuals possess privilege based on sexuality. And so on and so forth.As the wishy washy liberal that I am I'm not entirely un-sympathetic to the well-meaning intentions behind this attempt to definitionally provide some sort of redress for historically derived inequalities.But ultimately I think despite it's well meant intentions it actually achieves the opposite by classifying certain groups as victims. I also think foisting academic and ideologically driven definitions that contradict both common and legal conceptual meaning is doomed to failure.At the very least advocacy of these sociological-academic definitions is certain to inflame much derision outside the rarefied circles that they originate from because they just don't conform to the real world. Most notably in the form of discrimination laws that we all have to adhere to.

Scenario 1: An Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and overtly refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin.Scenario 2: An oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and overtly refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin colour.In the eyes of the law both of these are examples of racial discrimination. Everyone here except you recognises both acts as racist.1) By the terms of your argument here which (if either) of the Indian guy or the Oriental guy possess race-privilege?2) By the terms of your argument here which (if either) of the above scenarios qualifies as racial discrimination and is recognisably an act of racism?

They both possess racial privilege; I think you're asking who has more than the other, and that I can't tell from the information given. Where is this, for instance? America? Where in America? Somewhere else?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.