Because I am not Trayvon, I had the privilege of taking a walk at 2am

[hfojvt]

23. no some people accept that the world is never gonna be perfect

and strive for small improvements which are more realistic, instead of expecting sunshine every day, even in Minnesota (which you well know is not gonna happen).

As for those concepts of privilege, I think they are kinda stupid. Perhaps partly because I am a straight white male, but also because there is a basic contradiction between

1. white people are privileged because they can walk at night without being seen as suspicious characters
and
2. everybody should be able to walk at night without being seen as suspicious characters.

That does not fit the definition of privilege. A privilege is a "special benefit".

Let me try an example or two. Let's say that my dad is President of the School Board (which it happens that he was for a time while I went to school) and because of that, I get a free school lunch every day. That would be a privilege. However, if the advantage went in the reverse, you would not call it a privilege. Suppose, instead of a free lunch, I was getting my lunch money stolen every day by a bully who threatened to beat me up if I did not comply. Would I then be able to say to all the other students who were not getting robbed that they had a "sansbully privilege"? Wouldn't it be quite ridiculous to call "not getting robbed" a privilege?

I think it would be.

Take it further though. Suppose I am one of two black kids at school and we were both being targetted by a racist bully because of the color of our skin.

Would it now make sense to say that the white students were privileged?

Nope, I still do not buy it. You can say that the kids being bullied have an unfair disadvantage, but that does not translate into an unfair advantage for all those not so handicapped. Further, telling them they have a privilege is NOT conducive to getting their help to rectify any problems. That's two strikes, and it becomes a third strike when you realize that there are variations in the categories, where I have supposed straight white male privilege as I clean toilets and Ellen DeGeneres doesn't have such privileges in her rich and famous life. Now suddenly the kid getting bullied is privileged over the one getting free lunches?

Nope, if ten years of cleaning toilets have taught me anything, it is that I know excrement when I see it. The notion of white privilege and male privilege and straight privilege need to be wrapped in toilet paper and flushed into the sewer of bad ideas even if they are liberal shibboleths.