As a gay man, I think this privilege debate is kind of ridiculous.

[TeacherB87]

95. You misunderstand what is meant by privilege.

White privilege has nothing to do with denigrating the negative circumstances that many people, including white people, must deal with. It can best be summed up in an example: A group of white kids walks down the street in front of a group of people. The people only make negative assumptions about them if they are doing something the group obviously disapproves of (tattoos, clothes, piercings...come to mind among other things). A group of black kids walks down the street in front of a group of people, and I can guarantee you that, most of the time and no matter what the kids are doing, that group of people is going to make more consistently negative assumptions about that group of black kids than they would for the group of white kids.

White privilege is the ability to exist within the cultural/social hegemony and thus occupy an identity-less space in which they are not automatically assumed to be one way or another.

I'm not saying that there aren't other issues at play, but white privilege is a factor. And yes, even less-well-off white people from backgrounds of struggle still benefit from this.

Full disclosure, I am a white gay male from the south raised in a Christian family.

But I have seen white privilege play itself out enough for the black people with whom I've been close to know that it exists. I also have seen the knee-jerk reactions that white people have to black "youths," even well-meaning, liberal, and non-Southern whites.

Again, I'm not denigrating the struggles that any person on the margin faces. All I'm saying is that you need to think about the situation above. And also consider what the projection of that negative image does to young black children. I have taught and worked with so many black children who think that our society does not give a f*** about them. And who could blame them...all I had to do was ask and they provided myriad experiences of people in public looking at and treating them like garbage. I've even known of the very young siblings and neighbors of these kids who have been accosted and assaulted by the police for no other reason than they were visible and black. That kind of situation does not happen for little white children.

That is white privilege. End of story.