Edit: holy batman the downvotes. I never considered the possibility that maybe #hnwatch is right.
It would be absurd to tell someone to recognize their privilege that the odds were in their favor but nonetheless they rolled poorly. It's like telling some white guy on death row to feel privileged he had a lower chance of being there.
Being a white male is being allowed at a table in a casino where the expected value of the game is positive, and much higher than any other table. You can still lose, but the players in general don't. You should be thankful for being allowed to play a game with the highest expected value.
Oh, never mind, I forgot for a second you're addressing something/someone specific with generalisations that are meaningless to him and have nothing to do with his life or status.
Your argument is piss poor; that's why you were downvoted (not by me). Congrats on your successful upvote fishing, by implying/imagining some kind of HN conspiracy/agenda/hive mind.
> Edit: holy batman the downvotes. I never considered the possibility that maybe #hnwatch is right.
Its unfortunate that you are being downvoted without comment. The downvotes may or may not be evidence that #hnwatch is correct, it would depend on the motivation. It would not be rational for us to assume that the downvotes are evidence that #hnwatch is correct, in the absence of any explanation for the downvotes.
IDK why, but people tend to not like being blamed for things they didn't do.
If that's not the mesaage we're supposed to take out of the concept, them somebody has got a lot of work to do to figure out a better way of communicating it. Someone who is not me, because I'm a programmer, just trying to take care of my own family, not a sociologist.
Being poor and white is a lot better than being poor and black or poor and <not white> because you're not fighting additional problems that come with being a minority.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34667100/poor-white-bo...
> If you're white, male and poor enough to qualify for a free meal at school then you face the toughest challenge when starting out in life.
> That's what the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said in "the most comprehensive review ever carried out on progress towards greater equality in Britain".
Frankly the debate should really be "How do we give everyone the best start in life" rather than "how do we cripple some groups so everyone gets an equal start in life".
Poor students have an immensely huge problem already (being poor), the problem is how do they climb out of poverty? There is no easy path but being "white" is easier in that (for ex.) looking for a job, there won't be people who discriminate against you because you're black, asian or latino. The same minority applying to the same job now also has to deal with any preconceived discriminatory outlooks of the hiring manager. that is the _out_ that white people get.
I agree that we should, "we give everyone the best start in life", but you act as though whites don't already get that or are being penalized now by your, "how do we cripple some groups so everyone gets an equal start in life" statement. White people have always been unequal from other minorities in that they've always had an advantage. Your view of "crippling" is everyone else's view of a level playing field.
No one talking about white privilege says it means white people can't ever have a tough life. Just as being black doesn't mean you can't ever be successful.
It's simply argued that if all other things were equal, chances are you'd have it harder as a minority.
As an example: http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
> a white name yields as many more [job] callbacks as an additional eight years of experience
False. Many people who speak frequently about white privilege actually do sometimes make the argument that white people's lives are so intrinsically easier than POCs, that we need not ever worry about harming any white people.
This mentality is most visible when a gang of righteous ideologues are waging a vicious doxxing or "harass their employer until they fire them" campaign against an accused white person.
harder as a minority.