Talk:White privilege

Problematic edit claiming white privilege originated in the US

I reverted this edit because (1) white privilege is a phenomenon, not merely a "concept" or "theory," and (2) as a phenomenon I don't believe it originated in the US. European colonizers benefited from it before the US existed, I would think. If you want to state that white privilege originated in the US or that academic writing about white privilege originated in the US, that needs a source. NightHeron (talk) 16:21, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I guess this is just going to go on forever, but "white privilege" is a concept in Critical Race Theory. The constant POV pushing that CRT concepts are reality is not appropriate. It undermines Wikipedia's credibility. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:02, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure it's a concept. Racism is a concept. Is there actual racism in the real world? Doug Weller talk 17:53, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Thuc's attempts to narrow and constrain the scope of this article have been rejected rather decisivley in lenghty talk page discussions. I don't see any reason to reopen or validate that effort in the absence of probative new arguments or information. SPECIFICO talk 18:59, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Existence is a concept. Still trying to figure out if it's real. If it is, so is white privilege. O3000 (talk) 19:04, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

The fact that you guys are comparing a Critical Race Theory concept to the existence of racism, or to existence of existence itself, just makes it clear how futile it is to try to discuss this issue. This page is a political manifesto, not an entry in an encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Your two edits in this thread are not furthering your position. O3000 (talk) 20:18, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Could not agree more with Thucy. White Privilege is a concept within CRT in just as much as Capital & Labor is a concept within Marxism. Again, suggesting White Privilege ist just as real as existence itself is just spewy and undermines the theory of CRT (which has credible point imo) itself. If I take a look at Wiki's page about Capitalism, there is huge swath of critism to be found on the page (and justifiably so) and I just do not see that here. --- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuedex (talk • contribs) 11:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

"Proponents have noted that"

Proponents have noted that in the lead has two problems: (1) proponent means someone who has proposed something, and this doesn't seem to fit; and (2) "noted that" should be avoided, per WP:SAID. I'm changing it to "Some have commented that." NightHeron (talk) 11:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

'White Privilege' Is A Societal Theory/Concept Not Fact

Hello, just jumped on after noting that the article was written as fact as opposed to theory, this is completely unacceptable for an encyclopedia. I refer editors to this article by Cory Collins published on Tolerance.org, Collins expounds on the theory is some detail: What-is-white-privilege-really? . Seriously, Wikipedia will become a laughing stock if this article is left worded in such a manner, best wishes. Roland Of Yew (talk) 12:37, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:White_privilege#RFC. O3000 (talk) 12:47, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Roland Of Yew: Could you please summarize the article you linked for us? We can read it, but I don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing and I suspect the other editors won't either. The Collins article doesn't use the word "theory." Outside of one sentence noting that some white people (not used to being classified by their race and not understanding how much worse they could have it) get defensive at the term (the "concept that has fallen victim to its own connotations"), it does accept that the concept is describing a social reality where white people have "greater access to power and resources than people of color [in the same situation] do." Ian.thomson (talk) 12:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure: Belief Roland Of Yew (talk) 14:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Roland Of Yew, I read that article. I agree with his contention that white privilege is "all of this, all at once". So it's a bit of a mystery why you made the change you did, which goes against the thrust of the article. He argues (convincingly) that white privilege is a thing. He also argues (convincingly) that we should explain it in a way that minimises cognitive dissonance for those who either don't see their lives as privileged, or are in denial of their own racism. Guy (help!) 12:58, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty gobsmacked, an article that concludes with suggestions as to what people can do to recognise their white privilege isn't considering white privilege is a fact? Doug Weller talk 13:19, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, motivated reasoning is a wonderful thing to behold. Guy (help!) 13:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Considering that the Tolerance article is the very first result when one Googles "White Privilege", I'm guessing that Roland, looking for confirmation of his bias, did just that and didn't read past the words "This idea of white privilege as unseen, unconscious advantages took hold. It became easy for people to interpret McIntosh's version of white privilege—fairly or not—as mostly a matter of cosmetics and inconvenience." After all, the very next paragraph treats the reality of white privilege as a given, as in "They overshadow the fact that white privilege is both a legacy and a cause of racism", so Roland apparently missed the actual meaning of those preceding words. Carlstak (talk) 01:14, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

And I'm a French model. O3000 (talk) 01:18, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Roland Of Yew: Could you explain how the article you cited supports your claim in the slightest? As I predicted, nobody seems to be able to read it the way you supposedly have. We wouldn't want anyone to become a laughing stock, after all. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:20, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not arguing against the concept I’m just stating a fact, that white privilege is a belief, supported by many people but still a Belief that does not belong on an encyclopaedia. Roland Of Yew (talk) 14:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

There's a rather large difference between faith and hard evidence based conclusion. You can claim anything, including existence itself, is just a belief. Kinda easy way to dismiss that which one doesn't like. O3000 (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• In other words, @Roland Of Yew: you didn't read the article you cited at all. That's assuming the good faith that you hadn't deliberately refused the responsibility to educate yourself on a topic which you are woefully ignorant, in a way that enables and reinforces white supremacist gaslighting to cover up crimes against black people. I would like to believe that you've actually got enough of a heart and brain that to look at that article and acknowledge that black people are treated far differently from (generally worse than) white people. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:23, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2020

Change this: “Sociologists in the American Mosaic Project at the University of Minnesota reported THAT widespread belief in the United States that "prejudice and discrimination [in favor of whites] create a form of white privilege."

To this: “Sociologists in the American Mosaic Project at the University of Minnesota reported THE widespread belief in the United States that "prejudice and discrimination [in favor of whites] create a form of white privilege." 2601:140:9080:2040:2858:CD14:7FFE:239A (talk) 04:45, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

 Partly done: Thanks. I have rephrased the paragraph. 2003 was 17 years ago, which seems important, so I rephrased it to more clearly indicate the time frame. It's still kind of awkward though. Grayfell (talk) 05:15, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2020

2601:181:402:23C0:40E7:97ED:2B7:9F4B (talk) 21:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

The term white privilege is often insulting and degrading to Caucasian individuals. The term has unfortunately be used to intentionally diminish accomplishments of Caucasian’s; many of whom overcame poverty, physical, sexual, and emotion abuse in childhood. The term “White Privilege” is racist in itself. The term implies that all caucasians enjoy privilege based on skin color. There are no scientific studies with control groups conducted specifically to substantiate this claim. There are look back studies which produce statistics in raw numbers but don’t these are not controlled studies.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Also see WP:NOTFORUM Cannolis (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is not neutral. There is not even a criticism section, while an article about a topic like this, with much criticism deserves its own criticism article. This article portrays white privilege as an undisputed fact, which it is not. It has been a controversial topic ever since it was proposed. Even if the criticism was not valid (which is debatable), it is significant enough to have its own article (and at the very least, a detailed section on this page). I-82-I | TALK. 07:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed at length on this talk page, and the consensus is that white privilege is a phenomenon that indisputably exists. Mainstream academic and other opinion agree on this, and white privilege denialism is a fringe viewpoint. For that reason, I'd oppose a general section on criticism. However, there have been mainstream criticisms of particular responses to and interpretations of white privilege. A few months ago I added some critical material, with about 4 sources, to the section White privilege#White privilege pedagogy, but it was reverted. In that section the general point of view of the critics would be that it's not effective pedagogy, especially when dealing with white working class students, to try to get students to acknowledge being privileged. Another good-faith criticism (e.g., by Blum) is that it's a misuse of the word privilege to call not being killed by a cop or not being murdered while jogging a "white privilege." NightHeron (talk) 11:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

The view among most editors active on this page is that academic disciplines such as Critical Race Theory and Whiteness studies should be treated as an authoritative discipline, on the level of scientific fields of study. Because these disciplines exist in large part in order to promote ideas like "white privilege," that means that if you only treat literature from fields like CRT and Whiteness studies as authoritative, then you will come to the conclusion that "white privilege" is a fact, and that all other views are WP:FRINGE. Indeed, in CRT and Whiteness studies literature, all other views are fringe. Of course, if you widen your scope to commentary outside of these narrow sociological fields, there is plenty of criticism of the idea of "white privilege." But given the insistence that CRT and Whiteness studies are the equivalent of hard sciences like climate science or biology, there's no room for any fundamental criticism of the concept of "white privilege" in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, well, that's an interesting series of straw men. The actual consensus here is that academic studies trump op-eds and self-published sources, even when those websites are dark and intellectual. Guy (help!) 12:22, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411: If you read Critical race theory#Critique and controversy and Whiteness studies#Criticisms, you'll see that criticisms of those theoretical frameworks are not treated as fringe by editors. It's the notion that there's no such thing as white privilege that's fringe. NightHeron (talk) 12:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

The existence of white privilege is not something concocted by CRT or Whiteness Studies, since white privilege predates those fields by hundreds of years. Whites in the antebellum south of the US, European colonists in Africa, India, etc., and many other whites received plenty of undeserved or unearned benefits from being white and from the suppression of non-whites. The British upper classes often sent their least talented offspring to the colonies, where they would occupy privileged positions in commerce or government despite their lack of qualifications. NightHeron (talk) 14:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I-82-I, criticism sections are frowned upon. There are articles here and there that still have them, as not everything has been brought up to current standards, but the general consensus on Wikipedia is that any critique of the topic should be placed naturally into the article instead of cordoned off into its own section. As other editors have pointed out, multiple discussions here have dealt with the "it isn't real" argument. Please see the archives. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:37, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

What do we need to do to put a stop to the FRINGE denialist nonsense, which has disrupted this article for way too long? RfC? ANI? It needs to stop. Editor time is valuable and it mustn't be wasted on the inevitable responses to tendentious repetition of rejected narratives. SPECIFICO talk 15:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, we could start by adding a FAQ. That doesn't stop it, but it makes it much easier to curtail. Guy (help!) 15:14, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

There's already been a lengthy RfC [1] lasting 2 months and closed on 7 March 2020 that reaffirmed that white privilege is a phenomenon (i.e., a fact) rather than just a theory or concept. Shouldn't it suffice to cite that RfC? NightHeron (talk) 16:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, and as a facebook friend noted today, if you've never had to have the Supreme Court determine whether you have rights, that's privilege right there. Guy (help!) 00:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG: Sure, but it might be better to use the word privilege in the sense of its usual meaning, which is very different from a right. A right is something that everyone is entitled to, while in common usage a privilege is something that's undeserved or available only to a select few, like a special perk. When a group is deprived of rights, that doesn't automatically mean that the group that's not deprived of their rights is "privileged." There's a scene in "The Great Debaters" where the Denzel Washington character (who in real life was Melvin B. Tolson) explains to some white workers that the company is using divide and conquer along racial lines to weaken the union struggle. He's basically saying that the oppression of black workers is against the interests of the white workers. It's not bringing them privilege, quite the contrary. His approach to educating the white workers is the opposite of white privilege pedagogy.

On the other hand, there are plenty of situations where racial oppression does bring privileges to many whites --- plantation families in the South, European colonists, farm owners who exploit undocumented Latino immigrants, incompetent white political candidates who get elected by appealing to racism, less qualified whites who get hired because management believes that white customers will be more "comfortable" with them than with the more qualified people of color. All of those whites receive undeserved benefits, which is the common usage of the word privilege. NightHeron (talk) 02:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31033321/ 2601:405:4A80:B950:9D0F:56C8:6014:7ADE (talk) 23:31, 17 June 2020 (UTC) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477878508095586?journalCode=treb2601:405:4A80:B950:9D0F:56C8:6014:7ADE (talk) 23:37, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Neither of these sources appear to be on point to this discussion. They may make good points -- but, do not deny the existence of white privilege. O3000 (talk) 00:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

IP-2601:405...: The second of the two sources you cite (the one by Blum) is already being used in the article; in fact, it's cited 9 times. By the way, the reason your first edit appeared to me to be vandalism was that it appeared in a place by the section title where it made no sense. Thanks for fixing that. NightHeron (talk) 01:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2020

The title of this page should be change from white previlege to majority previlege. As people with white skin do not have previlege in places dominantes by other majorities such as china india etc. Also calling it white privilege is altogether biased in itself 115.188.160.148 (talk) 05:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)