re: Forget about "White Privilege". Let's discuss "Pretty Privilege"

Ehhh yeah I won't dispute that I've been afforded some advantages and superior opportunities in life vs. others.

quote:

---

This is as true as anything in life.....and very few people will deny it. It is simply human nature....looking good is a little better than looking bad, period.


What's amazing is the number of people who will agree with this but who will also claim there is no such thing as white privilege.

---

A really good looking black woman will have more doors open for her in our society than an ugly white man will have opened for him.


There goes that theory of yours.

quote:

---

This is a class issue. The wealthy can more easily afford to look pretty (surgery, makeup, healthy food, clothes, gym,etc.). It's Class Privlege, rather.

---

That's true but someone who is naturally pretty gets the same privileges as someone who is rich and can pay to be pretty.

quote:

---

A really good looking black woman will have more doors open for her in our society than an ugly white man will have opened for him. There goes that theory of yours.

---

Apples and oranges. How would that woman fare against a good looking white man?

What about an ugly black woman and an ugly white man?

How many white men would swap places in life with a white woman, or a black person of either sex, if they could? Life is simply a,little easier for us than other people. It's not a chasm between us....it is a small gap....it's not a case of a white baby boy being born and he's is guaranteed success...it's a matter of his having a few more opportunities on average than a black baby girl.

If you have a wife who works for a living outside the home ( managing a home is more work than cutting pulpwood) take some time to watch what it takes for her to simply get ready for work. Take a look at he closet compared to yours, if both of you are average folks. Just the task of choosing shoes is more than I would stand for. How many black male bosses has anyone ever had? I've worked for white women....I have had on black male boss in my life and I was 17 at the time. He had been with company 17 years when I was hired and he was making $1.75 more per hour than me. A dime a year.

Again, it's not a matter of a huge gap...just a small one...but it's real

You mean that a smoking hot female gets catered to and treated better than everyone else? Shocking I tell you... I shall call it genetic privelage...

quote:

---

All the cornerbacks in the nfl are black because black people are better at it.

Why is it so outrageous that white people are better at other things?

It is the exact same concept.

---

There is nothing at all outrageous about that. Black men are better NBA players than white men. White men are better hockey players. I don't know that there is any evidence that white men are better accountants or engineers than black men. I don't even know that there is any genetics in play that make black men better athletes....there is a lot of culture involved. Young black kids play a lot of basketball and young white kids play more hockey, especially where hockey is a thing.

None of this has anything at all to do with the fact that human beings are prone to being more comfortable around people who are similar to themselves. It has nothing to do with the fact that there are more white men in decision making positions in the US and, given all things being equal, they are going to tend, slightly, to being more comfortable around other white men. The same is true of black men....in a position of decision making, given all things being equal, they will tend toward deciding in favor of someone who is similar to them. There is nothing sinister at play, as many people will claim. It's simply human nature.

Life is a game of inches. You don't need a mile wide gap to enjoy more opportunity. All you need is a few 16ths of an inch....over a lifetime, given all things being equal, those fractions add up to a slight advantage.

I have a great example of this. I am the fifth generation member of a building trade union. When I applied to our apprenticeship program there were 3500 applications for 60 slots. I met all of the qualifications, which weren't overly stringent....a HS diploma, a year of HS algebra, and being registered for selective service. We had to pass the standard square peg in a round hole dexterity test and there were about 400 of us doing it at the same time. There were black guys there with engineering degrees and women with college degrees who weren't selected but I was as a qualified "legacy" applicant. This was in 1984 and keep in mind I was the fifth generation....our local had never had a black member prior to 1974. They were not allowed the opportunity to have a second generation member, let alone a fifth.that is an undeniable privilege of birth circumstance that is undeniably rooted in race. And it is one of millions of similar cases.


I am 52 years old. Black people my age in Atlanta were bussed into white schools because the practice of separate but equal, which was never equal, was still alive and well in Atlanta in the early 70's. those same people are the people I have competed with for jobs, business, promotion etc my entire adult life. Is is insane to pretend that we started out in life at the same level. Again it isn't a huge gap....but there is a gap and it makes a difference. Denying it exists is as foolish as using it as a crutch.