Is it productive to repeatedly remind white people of how privileged they are?

[BainsBane]

199. Racism is racial prejudice

Last edited Tue Jan 7, 2014, 04:27 AM - Edit history (1)

The experience of racism is felt by people of color. The ideology of racism is about how white people think, consciously and unconsciously, about race and how they benefit from structural racism. To pretend one can understand racism without interrogating privilege is false.

We on DU, like all Americans, could benefit greatly from insight into what it is like to experience racism, but posts like the OP--in response to a single thread on white privilege, show how much hostility there is to points of view that differ from the hegemonic, white male culture. The response to threads on feminism are the same. Too many are openly hostile to not only anything that challenges their own privilege, but even many threads that don't challenge privilege but simply express concerns voiced by women or people of color. In complaining that posts about racism, rape, rape culture, etc. .. are a "distraction" from the real agenda (whether that's old guys in congress, Social Security, the NSA, etc....) demonstrates their insistence that acceptable discussion is limited to a very narrow conception of politics. That narrow conception of politics is itself a function of racism and sexism.