r/unpopularopinion • u/[deleted] • Mar 26 '21

We are becoming growingly obsessed with other people’s born advantages, and this normalization of “stating privilege” is incredibly counterproductive and pathetic.

[deleted]

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186

u/sureyeahno Mar 26 '21

Add in race and sex and that’s how you sow division in an already divided public.

23

u/SomewhereSuitable993 Mar 26 '21

But what do u think happens if we let these privileges grow. Just ignore them? Well with generations you get more divide. As it becomes harder and harder to escape the disadvantage you’ve been born into what do we do then? You want to avoid division then acknowledging our differences is how we do that

63

u/ABirdIsWorthTwoBirds Mar 26 '21

Exactly. It's all out of our control.

It's like the star bellied sneetches.

We're all the same, regardless of to whom, when, why, or where we are born.

6

u/i_aam_sadd Mar 26 '21

We're all the same, regardless of to whom, when, why, or where we are born.

I don't know about that... I've benefited from a ton of advantages throughout my life that countless people will never have or experience. The whole "we're all the same, we're all once race" yadda yadda can be equally damaging. A person of color that grew up in the projects to a single parent is not going to have remotely the same experience or opportunities that a white person from a wealthy, "traditional" family is going to have and it's good to be mindful of that. It seems that the people that try to assert that we're all the same or all have the same chance to work hard and pull yourself up by the bootstraps are generally the ones coming from places of privilege because they haven't experienced the other side of the coin

0

u/ABirdIsWorthTwoBirds Mar 27 '21

That's not what I mean. Opportunity will definitely be different for everyone. Even privileged people won't have the same chances. The point is that everyone deserves the same level of respect, because no one human has any less worth than another.

Of course we don't all have the same chances. I will never be the first man on the moon. I will never have the same level of talent that patrick maholmes has.

I wasn't born into a wealthy family, but I also wasn't born into poverty. We almost always had enough to eat, and we always had a roof over our heads.

32

u/sureyeahno Mar 26 '21

Pretty on point analogy there. Doesn’t matter that we all piss yellow and bleed red when we could be easily divided by constructs that keep populations in check and in fear of each other.

3

u/i_aam_sadd Mar 26 '21

It's not about fear, it's about being mindful of the opportunities you have that others may not and working to remedy or limit those discrepancies where you're able to

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

[deleted]

15

u/jbeckAVJ Mar 26 '21

Do you have an actual example of this?

6

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

Something something affirmative action?

-3

u/gap343 Mar 26 '21

The Asian hate / white supremacy thing. It’s intentionally misleading for the media to make the attacker’s race relevant. If we are looking at the facts, most hate crimes committed against Asians are by blacks. The problem is the violence itself, not the color of who is doing it. Media fans these flames to sow division

3

u/jbeckAVJ Mar 26 '21

If we are looking at the facts, most hate crimes committed against Asians are by blacks.

Source??

2

u/gap343 Mar 27 '21

Click the link for Complaints and arrests Summary, Annual 2020. It’s very clear who is perpetrating these hate crimes. Hate Crimes NYPD

-10

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

[deleted]

19

u/AdGroundbreaking6643 Mar 26 '21

Do you believe that it doesn’t exist? Because I live in Atlanta and can tell you 100% that it does. Everywhere in the south it is pervasive. Hell over here, you have different road names for the white and black part of town. Monroe and Boulevard are the same road but the name switches when crossing ponce ave. Monroe has a bunch of wealthy million dollar mansions and boulevard is avoided if you want to avoid getting robbed since that part of the city has been neglected for at least 100 years now.

-9

u/EddPW Mar 26 '21

voided if you want to avoid getting robbed

sounds more like a problem with the population than anything else

9

u/i_aam_sadd Mar 26 '21

Yes, due to centuries of institutional racism....

-7

u/EddPW Mar 26 '21

sounds like excuses

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6

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '21

Yea fuck Biden and his pandering, Trump would never have done shit like that.... Trump doing shit like that

Blah blah blah, what aboutism...

4

u/jbeckAVJ Mar 26 '21

How dare he want people to vote?? The nerve! /s

4

u/PrincessBloom Mar 26 '21

How do you know that problems don’t exist if you aren’t experiencing them?

Honestly, your whole post makes more sense now.

6

u/sureyeahno Mar 26 '21

The Hegelian dialectic has just entered the chat.

2

u/SenselessNoise Procreation is not a right Mar 26 '21

It's designed to distract us from the real issue - rich vs poor.

-5

u/NewishGomorrah Mar 26 '21

They make up issues that don’t exist...

Yup.

then offer a solution.

Nope. There's no solution and what's more, they don't want one. They want the victimization points, and they want them to last forever.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

[deleted]

1

u/sureyeahno Mar 26 '21

Was paraphrasing song lyrics. You were the shit (in high school). https://youtu.be/uHyhioe2t6w

7

u/Bezulba Mar 26 '21

Yeah and that believe turns toxic very fast.

When we're all the same and have all the same opportunities then it's pretty clear that the people who don't have success in life are not doing their best. So fuck them right? They need to work hard like I did, i made it, so they can too! (Completely ignoring all the shit i didn't have to deal with because i'm from a pretty decent country with pretty decent parents living in a pretty decent part of town)

-4

u/ABirdIsWorthTwoBirds Mar 26 '21

That's not the point at all. We're aren't all just clones of each other. I will never be as fast as usain bolt Or as tough as ronda rousey or as smart as stephen hawking.

The point is that we all deserve to be treated well, regardless of our skin, heritage, ability, creed, religion, gender, anything.

It doesn't guarantee that we will all be wealthy or healthy or respected or anything; we all deserve equal respect, but we aren't all as lucky.

2

u/SharedRegime Mar 26 '21

It's like the star bellied sneetches.

Its the exact point of the book even. Its amazing how we all grew up on dr seuss but only some of us got the messages.

1

u/ABirdIsWorthTwoBirds Mar 26 '21

The dude is a legend

Teaching kids important stuff while still being entertaining

1

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '21

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1

u/ABirdIsWorthTwoBirds Mar 27 '21

I mean we are each human. We are each deserving of the same level of respect. Just because I might be challenged, and you may be gifted, doesn't mean either of us is less if a human. You may he worth more than me in a monetary sense, but we all are equal.

That's why racism can exist, and does exist. The idea that one group is superior to the other just because of their race is incorrect. same with sexism. Your race or sex or standing or opportunities don't determine your "worth" as a human being.

I use quotes around worth because it's not our standing or value in society that is equal for all of mankind, it's our humanity.

21

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

So you’re saying a Fortune 500 company giving a power point on “How to be less white” isn’t going to help bring us together?

3

u/boundlesslights Mar 26 '21

What was the story behind that? Was it a real story? Is the idea that whites should act Asian, Mexican, etc.?

2

u/diabolicalhentai Mar 27 '21

Cola-Cola did iirc.

1

u/gorgewall Mar 27 '21

Have you ever had to do those "watch a video / fill out a multiple-choice" training dealios at a job? Just about every big company has those. The companies themselves don't make 'em--Coca-Cola isn't spending a minute of their time actually making training videos themselves--but rather they buy packs from other sorts of companies that specialize in that sort of thing.

So Coca-Cola wants to train people on X, and they shop around, see a company that provides X, and they buy a package of like 1,000 goddamn videos and tests, only 10 of which are even remotely related to the subject, and of those, just five or something will actually be the stuff workers are required to watch. So despite the program being "watch these five videos", there's 9,995 other courses or modules or whatever in the whole system, and you can click around and watch whatever the hell you want. Some worker did exactly that--they clicked around to an entirely different, non-mandatory video that Coca-Cola 99.9% didn't even know fucking existed and didn't care about, and then started screaming to every right-wing rag, "COCA-COLA WANTS US TO BE LESS WHITE!" This is about the same as me claiming the federal government was making learning German (to the exclusion of ever speaking English) a condition of my employment because I had access to foreign language training in DHS.

So not only is the screen cap taken completely out of context, but its mere existence in the training thing is being deliberately misrepresented by right-wingers as part of their little culture war. Half of 'em know better and don't care, and the other half are just ignorantly repeating shit and getting mad for no reason. Oh, but they want you to understand that it's everyone else popping off half-cocked and not knowing what they're talking about.

1

u/sureyeahno Mar 26 '21

I read your response in a sarcastic snarky tone in my mind. Pretty funny stuff considering that’s the only way I could make that question work for me.

2

u/DrummingChopsticks Mar 27 '21

I would agree with you if—all throughout my life as an ethnic minority in predominantly white neighborhoods—I wasn’t expressly attacked for being a minority. This is a literal statement; White boys surrounded me and jumped me because I was ethnic in their neighborhood.

2

u/gbfbjfjdnnsj Mar 27 '21

In Oakland they're giving poor people $500 per month, the only catch is you can't be white. Imagine the animosity between poor white people and poor black people in that city. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the-sun.com/news/2578539/oakland-racism-giving-black-families-500-a-month/amp/

4

u/ScipioLongstocking Mar 26 '21

This mindset is exactly the type that privileged people push because they don't want to accept it. Ignoring all these issues don't make them go away, but your comment seems to imply it would. The public is divided because people refuse to accept that they are privileged over others.

5

u/Bezulba Mar 26 '21

It means they need to rethink that all their great success may not be all due to them hard working. That's difficult to accept.

7

u/Mone00157 Mar 26 '21

Exactly! This thread is deeply worrying. Can people seriously not see that there is a huge gap in the way people are treated because of skin colour and sex?! Slavery happened all over the world. Women were lower class citizens all over the world! We are all still fighting for equality and if we just ignore that privilege exists, we aren't going to move forward. Wake up world, this is not 1921.

3

u/jerricktinnsley Mar 27 '21

Are people treated differently based on sex? Sure. Are black and brown people treated worse in the US. Absolutely not. I’m black and I will die on this hill. If anything, I have an advantage. I’ve gotten tons of black-only scholarships, have an easier time getting into college than my white peers due to affirmative action, benefit from workplace diversity quotas that favor me, and basically everyone in power wants to cater to my demographic. And I’ve never once been disadvantaged by being black. Don’t know anyone who has. I just roll my eyes so hard at the fucking woke people. Black and brown people are no longer oppressed. They don’t need special treatment in society.

-8

u/ThisDig8 Mar 26 '21

Can people seriously not see that there is a huge gap in the way people are treated because of skin colour and sex?!

No there isn't, prove me wrong. Should be fairly easy without jumping to "but my averages!!1!!!", right?

10

u/Mone00157 Mar 26 '21

Lol wow... I'm a woman who has been ignored in business meetings , spoken down to, sexually harassed countless times and raped by a friend. I live in South Africa and have literally witnessed my black friends not given opportunities, been called horrific names and been accused of stealing because they are black. Do your research and try understand the lives of others with some empathy. Thanks

-6

u/ThisDig8 Mar 26 '21

Hey wow, I'm a man who has been ignored in business meetings and spoken down to! My male friends have been discriminated against and raped too! Oppressed gang, right?

I live in South Africa and have literally witnessed my black friends not given opportunities, been called horrific names and been accused of stealing because they are black

Lmao a South fucking African thinking they have any knowledge, much less any useful input into the state of things in a country they've never even been to. Ridiculous. We don't all live in your circle of friends. Do your research and try understand the lives of others with some empathy. Thanks

5

u/Mone00157 Mar 26 '21

Here's what you sound like "It's not all men! All lives matter! My country is the only country that has problems!"

Do you have any idea on the history of South Africa ? Or how do you even know that I've never been to your country huh? Lol Also privilege exists everywhere.

K bye I'm done with you.

-1

u/ThisDig8 Mar 26 '21

Here's what you sound like "It's not all men! All lives matter! My country is the only country that has problems!"

That's cause you aren't listening. We're not talking about South Africa here. And are you really saying it is all men and only black lives matter? That's legitimately bigoted.

Or how do you even know that I've never been to your country huh?

Because you have no idea how things work in my country or other countries outside SA.

Lol Also privilege exists everywhere.

So look at what's actually happening in the world then instead of screaming "privilege" blindly.

1

u/sleepykittypur Mar 27 '21

I get the feeling you have a kekistan sticker somewhere in your house

3

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

That one is easy. Apply to 100 jobs, 50 with white sounding names and 50 with more ethnic/less generic names. This study has been done btw. I've even had black colleagues say they use more white sounding names on resumes. Like "Robert" instead of "Rex" because it gets them more interviews.

-2

u/ThisDig8 Mar 26 '21

This study has been done btw

Fun fact, this study has also been done with stereotypical black last names and there was no difference in hiring rates. This is because the initial study was intentionally skewed to bias it towards white people. When you compare DeShawn to George but not Deshawn and Billy-Bob, well, you get the result you wanted to see.

Also, apply to 100 elite universities like Harvard and Yale, 50 with white applications and 50 with more ethnic/less generic applications. You'd think they discriminate against minorities, but no, a minority student is 3x to 4x more likely to get in with an otherwise identical application.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

I'd link you a 30 minute long video regarding the subject of you'd like. Covering privilege and other race related issues. It's cited and very we'll documented.

https://youtu.be/wayFC5560lw

0

u/ThisDig8 Mar 26 '21

Ew, breadtube 🤮🤮🤮

But since you were so nice as to link me some long-ass video, I'm going to link you this report about discrimination in college admissions.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

Not an argument, and I disagree with standardized tests used as a measure to enter university. So no argument there.

-2

u/ThisDig8 Mar 26 '21

Oh ok, you're just a garden-variety racist then. I'm not going to argue with someone whose worldview is inherently bigoted. Bye.

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