UKH

...a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

"education is a right, not a privilege"

Not being discriminated against is a human right.

The fact that I am a white male living in a liberal democracy means that my life is free from discrimination and prejudice. That's the way it should be for everyone, everywhere.

So please don't call me privileged. I'm not.

Compared to other people you/we are, but I get what you mean.

"a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group"

But then you have an advantage only available to a particular group. Therefore you (we) are privileged. 

I'm reading Stamped (a remix) now. Incredible. We still see the influence of slavery in the US, in sports in particular. Black players are still talked of in terms of power, all power but a lack of intelligence. There was a recent article in the NYT on this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/sports/soccer/soccer-racism-broadcasting...

You are, as the other people already pointed out, by definition, privileged. Don't feel bad about it though, being privileged is freaking awesome, I mean where's the downside to having all this cool stuff others don't have?!

I am fortunate, not privileged.

It is not special, it is a basic human right.

That isn't provided. Therefore until we all get that we are priviliged.

Even in the US many millions can't afford to get a COVID test. A basic right such as healthcare is not provided to all, and we've made sure black people are largely the poor in US society. It wasn't by chance. 

"..o.immunity granted or *available* only to a particular person or group"

Not being discriminated against *should* be available to all - until it is, those of us who have it are privileged. Privilege is not theoretical.

As a kid, I was not afforded this right in central Scotland due to the church my parents baptised me in and the Irish name they gave me. (And on the flip side potentially advantageous allegiances quickly formed on the same basis).

After several years in London, it dawned on me one day that nobody cared about finding that piece of information out any more. Nobody was looking at my name on my CV and thinking "taig... reject pile". Nobody had threatened violence or caused confrontation on the basis of who my forefathers were.

That's how it should be, but not how it is still for a great many people in this country.

Right so by dictionary definition no you are not. However, that's not what is meant be "privilege" when talked about in the sense of "white privilege". Language changes, the meaning of "privilege" has changed. And your fortune (and my fortune, and the fortune of so many other people on UKC) isn't entirely based on luck as the term "fortunate" implies. It's based on a system which has favoured and gives privileges to one people group over others.  

Privileged is being born with a title, or having a billionaire parent who can drop you off at Eton in a car costing more than most us will earn in a lifetime. 

A white western male still can't take anything for granted, million across Europe fear for their jobs right now, struggle with mortgages and housing etc.. have a look at the ethnicity of those sleeping rough on the streets. 

Yes, some folk are disadvantaged, that doesn't mean everyone else are privileged. By definition, millions can't be privileged. 

It's a privilege which shouldn't exist, but fortunate works as well.

That's a ridiculously narrow definition of privilege. Privilege is a spectrum. I can be privileged in some aspects of my life and discriminated against in others. At the trivial end, I can have the privilege of giving the best man's speech at a mate's wedding.

Of course they can, there's about 7.5 billion people on the planet. There are going to be many millions of people who would be privileged compared to the mean.

Exactly and it's what makes the debate so pointless... millionaire celebs like Lewis Hamilton living in his tax haven trying to preach to many who are far less advantaged than him. As disadvantaged many might be in the west, there are millions or billions in Asia worse off. Indian caste system? China? Regions in Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh... that's ignoring Africa and south America. 

To be born in Europe or north America, regardless of anything else, is fortunate in itself.  

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."  Cecil Rhodes quote late 19th Century

Think what you like of him as an imperialist, but he at least appreciated that he was privileged by birth.

"Yes, some folk are disadvantaged, that doesn't mean everyone else are privileged. By definition, millions can't be privileged."

Of course they can. Just because you say they can't be doesn't make it so.

When this part:

... goes from "should" to "is", I'll stop calling you (and me, and - I would imagine - most of us here) privileged.

Most discussions on UKC eventually end up as an argument about semantics, this thread has started there.

I wonder if this thread is going to run in reverse and the last post will be an innocent question about belay devices?

Millions are living in abject poverty so all debate about equality of opportunity is pointless?

That's a pretty bleak way of looking at things IMO.

I've got loads of privilege.

I try to use it for good. I don't always get it right. 

If you win a lottery you're lucky, not privileged.

No because the word implies that whatever you have that others don't is something that can be taken away and you will not be put in an unfavourable position.

Not if you only win because of your parents. You're only white and British because of them.

It's a privilege, do something useful with it. To compare with your Eton analogy - what would you have that offspring do? Use their education to rise to the pinnacle of politics as a force for good or shit on 70 years of European relations?

You have some advantages in life over others and you use those advantages to help those less fortunate than yourself.

And the reverse.

Potato, potato.

I'm going for a run!

I disagree, it could be argued that privilege is a result of birth which is a lottery. As has been said we are in the realm of semantics here, and going around in circles.

I don't know if I'm privileged or fortunate. I was born in to a hard working family and brought up to work hard to get the nice things in life. On the privilege scale its well below the old school tie brigade but far higher than a lot of people. 

I could easily have been born on a sink Estate to a family of professionals scroungers. 

When you look at things in context though, the dole dossers (by that I mean the can work but can't be arsed chavs) have shelter, food, heat and stuff that some poor bastard born on a waterless village in Africa can only dream of. 

I think privilege theory sounds odd too, and when people talk about it it also sounds like they want to level down, not up. Not to mention it ignores, or at best pays lip service to, class which is a really major division in society that adversely affects the majority of us. 

Of course. I just find it odd that any white person born in a developed nation can say they aren’t privileged. That doesn’t mean they can’t be born with or suffer significant hardships to be considered privileged.

But even having a ‘white‘ name is an advantage. Walking into a place of work and everyone being your race. 
 

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-inter...

(I’m posting this more just to piss of Coel and Thrudge tbh.. )

Hardly.  Anyone losing a privilege would consider themselves in an unfavourable position to the one they had before.

Only much of this is like the person in a flat versus the semi detached house, they both benefit from the same health and education system etc..in a safe democratic nation. 

Privilege or lack of, slavery... try the Asians working as literal slaves for Arabs in any middle East nation, or those who probably made the components of whatever device folk are posting on. Etc.. these are the people blm should fight for, not toppling statues of folk who died 200 years ago. 

If you have been born into poor circumstances and have suffered hardship all your life, but happen to be white, how does that compare to a person born into wealthy circumstances who lives a life of comfort and even luxury , who happens to be black?

Is the white person's circumstance caused by his failure to capitalise on the privilege he had at birth, this innate socio-political  characteristic which is assumed to exist  purely as a corollary of one's skin colour?

Yes, I think you've hit on what annoys me about the word. It makes it sound like I should be discriminated against or that I should have a poor education.

So wasters on the dole in Britain are privileged? Actually I think you have a point there as the money they get is something they wouldn't be given in many other countries.

Where did you get that from?  Families First Coronavirus Response Act mandates that COVID-19 tests and care related to the diagnosis of COVID-19 must be free for anyone, insured or not.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6201/text

Any other costs will be billed to your insurance however.

Example:  If you go direct into the ER because you are sick and sit in an ER bed for 6 hrs, you'll be billed for 6 hrs in the ER + anything else they give you/do to you while there but the COVID test that was administered during that time will be free of charge.

You might have to front costs if the hospital cannot get confirmation from your insurance that they will pay up, and you might have to argue with your insurance to get them to sort it out with the hospital down the road, and you will have to pay for everything else except the actual COVID test that you incur alongside it.  But the COVID test itself is ultimately free.

I think you can probably discriminate different types of privilege. 

So wealthy privilege is not having to worry about money for rent or how you're going to afford clothes for your kids (plus lots of other implications). Nothing explicitly to do with skin colour except that if you are black you're more likely to be in that situation.

White privilege is where you don't have a big worry about being stopped by the police for driving a fancy car (amongst many other things).

Or something like that.

But if you actually listen to what a lot of BLM campaigners or black intellectuals say, they are not arguing for this it all. They’re just saying that as black people they would like some of the same things you enjoy. 
 

The interesting question is of course why do you think a statement like “I’d like not to be suspected of criminality for no reason, like white people” means a worse outcome for you...

I wasn't really thinking about BLM, more the woke members of our younger generation.

Again, I don't think that. I thought my OP was fairly clear. We should all be free from discrimination etc, being free is a right and not a privilege.

But there is quite an overlap tho, wouldn’t you agree? And I’m not sure you have got their argument correct.

I’m confused!

You wrote: I think you've hit on what annoys me about the word. It makes it sound like I should be discriminated against or that I should have a poor education.

So it certainly sounds like you are saying describing your position as “privileged” means you might lose something. 
 

Anyhow, taking your view that they should be talking about rights not privilege, do you think black people in the U.K. enjoy the same rights as you do? 

What’s your point? 

That's not happening. They should be but some people are ending up paying one way or another and it puts people off getting the tests. Not everyone has insurance or more importantly good insurance. For many going to the Doctors always ends up costing even if they actual test is free. It all adds up to stop people being able to afford a test.

People are still being billed. Whether it should or shouldn't its putting people off getting tests.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/07/08/some-covid-tests-come-with-a-bill-...

https://khn.org/news/bill-of-the-month-covid19-tests-are-free-except-when-t...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/29/847450671/covid-19-tes...

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/insurance/congress-said-covid-19-tests-sho...

I get your point but it’s a very difficult and circular argument.

If a child is lucky enough to be brought up in a loving and non-abusive household you wouldn’t call them privileged. But someone brought up in an abusive household might say they were in comparison to them.

An able bodied person wouldn’t think they were privileged but a disabled person who has faced hardship all their life may see them that way.

It’s a difficult one.

The problem I have with the term "privilege" in a social justice context is that it's impossible to quantify and is specific to very particular elements of a person's situation to the point that's basically a meaningless term in my view.

For example, who is privileged between a white woman or a black man? One may get sexism or domestic abuse the other may suffer racism. Or a wealthy upper middle class black barrister Vs a poor uneducated white guy from a council estate? An able-bodied black homeless man Vs a rich white disabled person? And you can go on and on. 

Also, it's unique to the individual, you can be black, gay, disabled, trans etc, and have suffered a great deal of discrimination that's genuinely held you back in life, or you could have suffered little to no discrimination, it completely depends on your situation and those around you. 

So although discrimination exists for all manner of things in life, to hold up one type of person and say "you're privileged" or "you're disadvantaged" is a very broad brushed, and almost certainly incorrect assessment. Because the truth is who we are is defined by any number of stats, everyone having a unique combination, and how those stats affect us depends completely on the environment you exist in.

To pick out one stat of your choosing such as wealth, class, race, sex etc and compare it the same one stat of someone else to say "check your privilege" is nonsense.

??? Doesn't your link support what I said ???

The covid test itself is free, but everything and anything that happens alongside it is not.

Example:  (I did not read all your links)

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/07/08/some-covid-tests-come-with-a-bill-...

"Should you be charged for a COVID-19 test? No. ... To avoid charges, you need a doctor's referral for the test — and it needs to be in your insurance company’s network.  Meanwhile the state periodically opens pop-up testing sites around the state that bypass insurance all together. The tests are free and covered by the state."

Everything else apart from the covid test ... you are liable to be charged for as per normal.

Not suggesting the system in the US is good or fair or helpful.  Only calling out that you said "In the US many millions can't afford to get a COVID test."

Hmmm... it feels like a few people here are missing the point a bit? It's very much accepted that white privilege doesn't exist in a vacuum but that there's also privilege based on wealth, class, gender, sexual identity etc. In fact, the idea that these forms of privilege not only exist but interact in complex ways is exactly what people mean by "intersectionality" - another term that seems to irrationally upset the "anti-woke" brigade.

And AIUI, the point of talking about privilege isn't to stick everyone on an absolute scale of less privileged to more privileged and declare the least privileged to be the only ones worthy of our concern, it's about understanding how all forms of privilege work so we can talk about how to do better in future in all respects. In particular, "you need to check your privilege" doesn't mean "get in the queue for the guillotine, aristocrat", it's more "you seem to be discussing this issue without being aware of some of the problems that other people face." See for example the routine of "I don't know what poor people are complaining about, if I was trying to cook healthily on a tight budget, I would simply drive to an out of town supermarket in my car, buy a big load of shopping at once, spend a few hours cooking in bulk in my well-equipped kitchen and freeze what I'd made in the chest freezer in the garage" with all the things it implicitly assumes people have access to.

Good post.

Which makes you wonder why anyone says "check your privilege" rather than explaining the problem; one is easily construed by many people as insulting and doesn't actually communicate the problem to many people, the other is more open and draws attention to the problem, and doesn't run the risk of nudging someone towards an anti-woke rant.

I tend to loose interest in the views of someone who comes out with terms like "check your privilege", where as I have no such problem with what they presumably mean, but it tells me a lot about their stance.

It’s still used as a tool for division. You’re creating a divide between normal everyday people and disadvantaged people by somehow implying that the normal state of affairs is not to have those things as anyone with those things is privileged. 
 

You then instil a massive feeling of guilt in anyone who really cares and all the people who don’t care, just get wound up. 
 

It’s not a way to win friends, influence people and make change unless you’re trying to make friends with angry middle class students or ex-princes in $20m borrowed mansions. 

So what you’re saying is that to point out an advantage (eg “you don’t have to live with some kind of racism”) is actually worse to you than the racism itself? And in fact that you will only listen to a discussion of racism if it’s done with your comfort in mind? Reminding someone of a social divide is, in your books, worse than the divide itself (otherwise you guys would all be - yeah, not the best way to phrase it but whatever, let’s sort this shit out - whereas this “can’t say privileged” argument seems to be of far more interest). 
 

So that basically, if non-white people want to air their grievances, you’re well within your rights to pass over the injustice and talk about the language they use. In fact, you want to control that discussion so your comfort is paramount, rather than deal with the injustice.

A cynic might, just might, suggest that those using this line of argument aren’t really serious about dealing with racism.

So?

No. 

I’m not even sure what that reply means! You disagree with exactly which bit I have written?

I think "check your privilege" mostly means "shut up".

I’m really curious to know, has anyone on the thread ever had anyone utter the phrase ‘check your privilege’ to them in real life?

Or online even?

I know I haven’t and I hang out with all sorts of left wing types...

I thought it was fairly clear. 

Don’t start a sentence with ‘So’ and expect a proper discussion.

 

Ok but it means they can’t afford to get tests. The test being free is just a small part. My wife worked at a free clinic for undocumented immigrants (she’s an MD), there’s huge financial stress associated with going to the ER or Doctors. 
 

she’s an oncology fellow now and will see people (young mothers and fathers) who have terminal cancer, 1 year ago they’d have survived.

Compared to people who have to pick through rubbish tips in the 3rd (now called developing) world, or work burning up bits of discarded electronics to salvage the metals from them to sell  (the toxins from which kills them early), even the unemployed in the UK and in Europe (white males and everybody else) are privileged. The psychological aspect of falling on harder times (including among people who haven't done) shouldn't be downplayed, but on a global scale regarding diet and safety it can still be a privileged position - IMHO.

Possibly even the homeless are, but it definitely feels cockeyed to see the homeless as being fortunate in any sense, it feels like a tough call between grinding poverty in the developing world in harmful conditions while working, and being homeless in the UK (which is also bad for the health and can be dangerous).

I guess one problem with referring to “fortunate” in this context is the connotations of the reverse. 

If you are the fortunate, others are the “unfortunates” which a) sounds like they are charity cases to be pitied and b) makes it sound like there is nothing to be done about their situation. If they are just unlucky then it is easily regarded as no ones fault and no ones responsibility, and thus nothing needs to be done other than to feel sorry for them and move on. 

“Privileged” might not be the perfect term but it implies those lacking the privilege are normal members of society (rather than being below baseline), and it challenges others to question their own position. Yes, it is an uncomfortable term but maybe that is the point- that discomfort has the potential to provoke both conversation and action.