Study: White people react to evidence of white privilege by claiming greater personal hardships

[alarimer]

104. There are many types of privilege.

Race, gender and wealth being but three of them.

A smart guy once likened privilege to video game difficulty settings and I think it's a very good analogy. In that analogy, straight white and male is the lowest difficulty setting (easiest to play) and it goes up from there.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

On edit:

I forgot to say that white men are basically the default human being. Women and people of color are basically not seen as people, or treated as such, in many areas. I think most people who object to the term "privilege" are white men. I know that I myself have had advantages because of my background that I might not have had otherwise. But as a woman, I also know that some avenues would be closed to me (or at least made much more difficult), no matter how hard I worked. But I can't entirely blame my failures on the "system"; some of them are personal failings.

This is where it gets tricky. People think they work hard and that hard work is rewarded, but it often isn't true. For anyone. People are excluded for a lot of reasons. Numerous studies have indicated that hiring is often biased. Older people certainly know this. It's insidious and I don't what the answer is. I don't know if anyone does.

But I think constantly asking people "to check their privilege" is kind of obnoxious and not really going to accomplish a lot. Maybe a less loaded way of talking about it would go further. I don't know.