Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Meet me at Camera 2: White Privilege

Rebecca Williams

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 10:06:47 +1200

@ moz rather than "quite liking" using privilege against itself, some would say it's the only way forward. Men speak up about sexism, whites about racism, able bodied about disabled. It's talking to people like you about what is wrong with our behavior and holding yourself and others to account.…

vram putatike

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 09:50:52 +1200

shit's always been hard for me. "but it would have been harder if you wuz brown." cool hypothetical.

Joe Wylie

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 08:13:00 +1200

I’m not sure Forbes would welcome being co-opted into another discussion of white privilege derailed into what’s really wrong with brown people. Again.
Common self-interest, Craig. Whether it's Helen Clark protecting a cosy fiefdom with her haters and wreckers outburst, or Ngai Tahu being employed as a willing stalking-horse in…

Craig Ranapia

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 07:47:02 +1200

As Mihingarangi Forbes’s resignation illustrates, the feudal aspects of Maoridom can once again be relied upon to find common self-interest with white privilege.

I’m not sure Forbes would welcome being co-opted into another discussion of white privilege derailed into what’s really wrong with brown people. Again. Which is not to…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 06:52:01 +1200

In this context, white privilege is a subset of bad old Social Darwinist dogma, with the worst of both worlds of old money and new money: the 'born to rule' aspect of old money, and the 'taking away the ladder after climbing it' aspect of new money. All the above…

Kumara Republic

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 00:18:25 +1200

If you strip back the racial elements of white privilege, and imagine everyone is wearing masks and gloves so that no one can tell skin colours apart, you'd have to tell them apart by the power structures and cliques they form.

In this context, white privilege is a subset of…

PJ

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 15:27:04 +1200

I don't get why people can't understand this concept.

Louis CK explains it pretty simply though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7FawbAJpoQ

Also great:
Aamer Rahman on reverse racism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M

linger

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 13:31:30 +1200

And the analogy gets muddied because all America’s Cup competitors are so privileged that it’s harder to sympathise with any of them: it’s not a bike vs. truck scenario.
A closer aquatic analogy would be swimmer vs. motorboat.

(Actually, I dimly recall Piers Anthony used a similar set of analogies…

Raymond A Francis

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 13:20:31 +1200

May be but more people ride bikes than sail, certainly in my part of the privileged world

Rich of Observationz

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 13:13:23 +1200

I can’t really be bothered to engage with some people today, so have an interesting article:
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid

Steve Barnes

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 11:12:46 +1200

White Male Privilege is like thinking you are great on your bike forgetting about the tail wind going your way, you just don't notice it

You could substitute Yacht for Bike and the analogy works even better, think America's Cup.

Moz

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 09:46:21 +1200

What my bike has taught me about white privilege

Thank you, that's a much better description of the parallel I've made a few times. I have to bookmark that!

Hilary Stace

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 08:31:02 +1200

I have middle class privilege. I have secure housing (currently). Both my parents attended boarding school and university during the Depression and barely noticed it. We were all expected to get not only university qualifications, but post graduate ones. So having a child with an impairment who will not follow…

Craig Ranapia

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 08:20:02 +1200

No need to feel guilty about something that you didn’t make happen, but do be aware that it helps you in all sorts of unexpected and often invisible ways.

Well... exactly. To be blunt, straight white middle class "guilt" is no bloody use to me or anyone else. Perhaps, just…

oga

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 06:06:43 +1200

Get a bit funny about the idea of privilege. I know it's there...but I don't know if it has quite the influence people say it does.

Said the white male. As another white male who experiences barriers from able-bodied privilege, I find the bike/car analogy to be quite effective in…

merrica

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:46:52 +1200

White? Check. Well, mostly puce really. Depends on the sun.
Male? Last time I checked. Yes.

Also part Romani. Lucky I grew up in Nz where being Roma doesn't hold the stigma ot does in Europe. Mind you, we never told anybody our background all the years I grew up…

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 19:43:08 +1200

I lived in Sydney for 11 years. Worked in Redfern, central city and other areas. Know what you mean, came home disillusioned. So tired of the prejudice..

Moz

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 19:18:03 +1200

As he left this hearing he walked chatty with his lawyer to the escalator where a young woman was also approaching. She saw the 2 of them and stood aside so they could walk in front of her to embark on the escalator. WHY?? She was first.

Likely she's been…

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:46:42 +1200

An example that irks me in society.
T'other night on the news some doc had a medical tribunal hearing over his prescription of drugs for sports people regarding performance problems. He was issuing these pills for hormone enhancement for an enormous range of problems many of which were not related…

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:36:35 +1200

like thinking you are great on your bike forgetting about the tail wind going your way, you just don't notice it
I haven't worded as well as she does but it is a good analogy

You are not always aware of how easy your life is thanks to race etc…

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:25:44 +1200

Which is exactly privilege.

Thanks.

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:17:09 +1200

I loathe the pointscoring that goes on around some discussions of privilege

What are they? Genuinely interested in what you interpret them as.

Hilary Stace

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 17:42:04 +1200

The white middle-aged middle-class non-disabled employed man is the norm against which all other people are measured. It is surprising how few of them recognise that, or realise that they are in reality such a small minority of humans.

James Hart

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 17:33:57 +1200

I personally think our economic system and the way it is organised (drives other inequalities) is a more pernicious power structure that people should focus on. But, yeah, I'm an educated cis heterosexual 'white' male with two parents and no disabilities from an urban area, so I guess I would…

krothville

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 17:29:05 +1200

What you're missing out on there is 'intersectionality'. So a disabled Berkeley academic's dis-privilege intersects with the privileges that go with coming from a rich family, for instance, being white, or being educated.

If, for example the Chancellor of Auckland University was Maori, they would have the dis-privilege of being…

Kumara Republic

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 17:05:53 +1200

I quite like the idea of using privilege against itself. Being the white bloke who stands up and derails a panel that’s talking at the women present by saying “hey, you rich white men are ignoring the experts on this subject who are right here"… is more likely to be…

Moz

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 16:04:36 +1200

I quite like the idea of using privilege against itself. Being the white bloke who stands up and derails a panel that's talking at the women present by saying "hey, you rich white men are ignoring the experts on this subject who are right here"... is more likely to be…

Raymond A Francis

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:44:51 +1200

Deborah made the point on her blog that White Male Privilege is like thinking you are great on your bike forgetting about the tail wind going your way, you just don't notice it
I haven't worded as well as she does but it is a good analogy

You are not…

Moz

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:40:19 +1200

This may be pedantic, but I think those bombs will kill you regardless of your skin colour.

It's not about whether the weapon, when used correctly, will kill. It's about who the weapon is most likely to be used on. And overwhelmingly, those weapons are used on poor brown people.…

Joe Wylie

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:30:55 +1200

Let's look at that esteemed liberal institution, the University of California at Berkeley. Use the wrong words to describe non-white people there, and you will be in serious trouble. However, for the last sixty years, tucked away on a mesa in New Mexico, UCB has run a lab...
Sounds as…

izogi

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:26:50 +1200

And yet the comment thread underneath it is still depressingly full of people who aren't getting it. :(

Shaun Lott

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:10:41 +1200

However, for the last sixty years, tucked away on a mesa in New Mexico, UCB has run a lab developing a range of nuclear and non-nuclear means to kill said non-white people.

This may be pedantic, but I think those bombs will kill you regardless of your skin colour. And,…

Russell Brown

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 14:34:34 +1200

That cartoon just got a link from the Huffington Post.

Kumara Republic

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 14:08:29 +1200

If anyone hasn’t already seen it, XTOTL’s cartoon on privilege (via The Wireless) neatly sums it up. And yet another real-life example has surfaced in the form of Brandon Lipman. (Of Auckland, that is, not of San Francisco.)

If there’s only one thing right now that makes me threaten to break…

Russell Brown

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 13:19:55 +1200

Also, it’s part of an obsession with language.

All that drives me nuts. But I wanted to put it aside and acknowledge the reality of being the default. As I said on the programme, my way in to it is through my sons and their reality – and believe me,…

Deborah

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 12:41:32 +1200

Great post, Russell. Especially the last paragraph. I loathe the pointscoring that goes on around some discussions of privilege (and other topics), and I think it's destructive. But trying to remember to be mindful of one's privilege is a good approach. No need to feel guilty about something that you…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 12:40:37 +1200

Actually, I think that "privilege theory" is one of those academic ideas (like Baudrillard's concept of Simulacra and Simulation) that don't really map into the "real" world.

It's keenest exponents are US academics. I'm sorry, but if you are a tenured academic at Berkeley, for instance, then notwithstanding your being…

Public Address

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 12:40:37 +1200

Discussion from blog post.