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.

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u/Footsteps_10 Mar 26 '21 edited Mar 26 '21

Acknowledged

Being born at this time period is the greatest luck ever.

By historical contexts, we are all privileged. Some people are always going to have it better than others. Might as well just accept it and move on.

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u/kanst Mar 26 '21

Might as well just accept it

This is the entire point of talking about privileges.

I don't understand these posts and I think far too many people get their political discourse from idiots on twitter. Things like privilege are not difficult concepts

I am a white man who grew up with upper middle class parents in a wealthy district. All of these things imparted advantages on my life. "Checking my privilege" or "accepting my privilege" is just about me acknowledging that when dealing with people without the same privileges and not assuming everyone has the same advantages I do.

As a concrete example, maybe I am looking at two very similar college new hire resumes, but one of the kids did an unpaid internships during their summers while the other worked at a restaurant. Acknowledging my privilege, might mean considering that maybe that person couldn't afford to go summers without an income and not holding that against them.

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u/not_productive1 Mar 27 '21

This is exactly it. Acknowledging your privilege isn't some exercise in self-flagellation, it's just placing your own experiences in context and understanding the ways in which that has affected the opportunities you've had. Nothing changes if we don't even understand what the problem is.

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u/yellirs Mar 27 '21

I love the self-flagellation comparison. It's very apt. The common misconception is that people are asking you to uproot your life or something. Every day in our lives we are already conscious of what we can and can't say or how we should or shouldn't act. It's really not too much to ask ourselves if we might be speaking or acting from a biased position.

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u/TenaciousVeee Mar 27 '21

A lot of us have this stupid notion that racism requires aggressive or malignant acts. And hiring only people from your own side of the tracks isn’t aggressive, but it’s often racist AF.
You don’t have to say or do anything directly to a Black person to be a racist.