the example of walking through a dark parking lot to demonstrated 'straight white privilege' is pretty shitty. in fact it's probably the worst example you could choose.
his 'privilege' of not worrying about being assaulted comes from the fact that he is 6' 280 pounds, not because he's white or male or straight. a big gay black man (or woman, for that matter) of the same stature probably doesn't feel that twinge of fear his petite asian female colleage felt walking through a dark parking lot.
smaller/shorter straight white guys still have to worry about getting beaten up or bullied or robbed. in fact bullying it's kind of a wide spread problem these days affecting everyone.
in my experience most straight white guys have no problem understanding their privilege in society, i work with a lot of them and they joke around about how being a "white dude" is awesome. it certainly doesn't suck. lots of these guys grew up in diverse neighborhoods or went to school with people from different backgrounds so they have heard stories or seen first hand how people different from themselves go about life. anyone with average IQ and
however, there are some that just don't get it and no amount of reading blog posts is going to help them understand, it just takes time (age) and personal experience. or they're just a couple of IQ points below the threshold it takes to think about these things in an abstract manner (beyond "my life is all that exists in this world.")
I am a 5'6" white guy weighing 120lb. I don't feel fear walking through dark parking lots. The shortest path between my house and the closest grocery is through a large, poorly lit lot. The better lit street route would add, oh, about a minute to the walk.
I would absolutely not walk through there if I was a woman. I don't really mind the small chance of being robbed -- a small chance of being raped is a completely different thing.
do it in a bad neighborhood at the wrong time/place and this turns into "large chance of being cornered, beaten for being white/outsider/unknown, robbed, and if you put up any resistance, killed."
all your anecdote tells me is you don't venture far from your own safety zones.
my point is a bank, board room, police station, or any number of other places is a MUCH BETTER place to illustrate the "white, straight, male" privilege that exists.
Sure, but when relating a personal story about it, you have to go with what you got.
For the record here's mine:
I was the white employee at a hip hop club. The owner was black, as were my co workers. The clientele of the club was mostly black. I was a manager, but the owner was there most nights too - making me not the senior person. The cops were there a lot waiting outside to harass people leaving. I saw an awful lot of cops fucking with people for minor things, that the same cops didn't even glance at in other parts of town [1]. Incidents like fights were met with forceful reactions by the police - full out "lay on the ground and get cuffed" responses to small brawls, but worse fights at the other bar, the response was "hey break it up, go home, and don't come back tonight". This gave me an inkling to privilege.
Then one night some hoodlums were causing a lot of mischief in the street out front and the cops initiated a full on riot response. Woah - tear gas, arrests everywhere, 40+ cops. Again, the last time I saw something on the same scale of disturbance on campus, it was 5 cops, a couple of arrests, and a "disperse and go home" on loop on the PA. During the riot response, I was standing in the entryway with my boss, the club owner. The cops came up and tried to usher me to safety and arrest my boss for loitering. It took a lot of effort on my part to find a cop who would listen to the fact that the guy wasn't loitering, he was standing on his property for sane business reasons. That was privilege right there.
The other thing I constantly encountered was that delivery people, job applicants and so on, always assumed I was in charge, no matter if I was sweeping or counting money, and no matter if the boss was sweeping or counting money. In well over 75% of cases, it was just assumed I was the boss. Again, privilege. (I mean seriously, I dressed like a bum, and the bos had style. It was absurd).
[1] All my cop behavior comparisons are based on the job i had before that working at a college bar in the same town, closer to campus, where the clientele was mostly white college kids.
Ah, sorry -- I somehow misread your initial post. I was speaking specifically about male privilege.
But to be fair, so was whoever used that example. It is talking about a particular type of privilege, and how we might not even notice when we have it. It wasn't supposed to indicate all types of straight white privilege.
his 'privilege' of not worrying about being assaulted comes from the fact that he is 6' 280 pounds, not because he's white or male or straight. a big gay black man (or woman, for that matter) of the same stature probably doesn't feel that twinge of fear his petite asian female colleage felt walking through a dark parking lot.
smaller/shorter straight white guys still have to worry about getting beaten up or bullied or robbed. in fact bullying it's kind of a wide spread problem these days affecting everyone.
in my experience most straight white guys have no problem understanding their privilege in society, i work with a lot of them and they joke around about how being a "white dude" is awesome. it certainly doesn't suck. lots of these guys grew up in diverse neighborhoods or went to school with people from different backgrounds so they have heard stories or seen first hand how people different from themselves go about life. anyone with average IQ and
however, there are some that just don't get it and no amount of reading blog posts is going to help them understand, it just takes time (age) and personal experience. or they're just a couple of IQ points below the threshold it takes to think about these things in an abstract manner (beyond "my life is all that exists in this world.")