Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

103. It's a bit confusing that you started your response to my post that ended with, "It's complicated,"

by saying, "It's not that simple." Um, yeah. Like I said.

It also makes me unsure sure which of your points you think are antithetical to mine and which are in agreement.

Perhaps, to clarify my thoughts, I'll say that while, yes, Thomas's family would agree with a message decrying police brutality, despite the fact that it statistically disproportionately effects black people, the idea of white privilege still may not resonate strongly with them. And may even piss them off. Especially if, before joining with others to fight police brutality they're told, "First you must admit you're racist." (From DU post another DU post on white privilege, I had in mind.)

But I my point is supported by reply #78 of this thread:

I really started to understand 'white privilege' only when people instead started talking about the bad things that DIDN'T happen to me because of my skin colour, and when I was shown items about practices like redlining, and statistics about housing, income, employment and wealth. McIntosh's list might be useful in teaching some folks about white privilege, but I think it actually gets in the way for others. Lots of people are going to think you're being weird if you start talking about crayons and bandaids as being 'privilege', but everyone can understand that not being harassed by police simply based on the lightness of your skin is pretty obvious. And when you're first teaching people about new concepts, it helps to start with the most obvious and blatant examples that they can grab onto, not more subtle and presumably less consequential ones.

Again, small, things do matter, but we have to understand the failure of disadvantaged whites, particularly ones like Kelly Thomas's family, to grasp the insidious power of white privilege in the midst of their own overwhelming powerlessness.