No "Privileged" means having advantages that others don't.
Being white is highly correlated with being privileged due to historical circumstances, but it is only a racist reading of the word that thinks that being privileged is being white.
> No "Privileged" means having advantages that others don't.
When pro-white racists exist and are more common than anti-white racists in positions of influence, being white is, on its own, an advantage other people don't have.
It may also correlate with wealth, parental education, and other sources of privilege, but it is a source of privilege itself.
> but it is only a racist reading of the word that thinks that being privileged is being white.
Being white is, ceteris paribus, being privileged, not the other way around.
And, sure, that's a product of the existence of racism, but it's not racist thinking to recognize the effects of racism.
The author switches from using the term 'white' to 'privileged' halfway through the article to describe the parents who campaigned against the scheduling changes.
>One of the first things they showed us was a photo of the parents who had protested against the schedules devised by the algorithm. Nearly all of them were white. The majority of families in the Boston school system are not white. White families represent only about 15 percent the public school population in the city.
followed by:
>Optimizing the algorithm for greater “equity" also meant many of the planned changes were "biased" against families with privilege.
Since the author didn't clarify what they meant, or differentiate between them I am assuming they used the two terms interchangeably.
One funny thing I noticed. You could argue that since white families only constitute 15% of the public school population these changes disproportionately negatively affect a minority group.
Ahh but word games are par for the course in these discussions. A recent example is the humanities redefinition of 'racism' to mean 'power and privilege', instead of 'discrimination or bigotry based on race'.
Don't disproportionate negative consequences constitute a disadvantage? Especially when faced with the existing issues of being a minority in a school system? Who really is disadvantaged here?
You can compound that with the new racism definition and I'm starting to wonder where all this supposed privilege is.
privilege doesn't need to be all encompassing. I'd argue that just being white has some inherent privilege no matter how poor you are. Such as interactions with police. that doesn't mean you automatically do better in life, and you can be less privileged in others areas. white privilege =/= wealth
Being white is highly correlated with being privileged due to historical circumstances, but it is only a racist reading of the word that thinks that being privileged is being white.