Had a conversation with a couple of coworkers the other day.
I was late to an MS Teams meeting and when I joined I heard two White co-workers talking about George Floyd. I didn't hear a lot of it, but there was a lot of usual privileged, racist tripe you all too often hear up here in the Heartland™. Things about how Floyd was a criminal and "Why does the Black community always hold up these criminals as their representatives?" The other replied, "Well, I'm still trying to decide which side I fall on. I'm trying to decide ..." and I interjected, "whether you support murder? Look, we're all very White men here and we can choose to address the very many horrific challenges that the Black population faces. We can acknowledge it and try to address it . . . or not. The fact we don't have to is called White privilege."
The religious idiot you posted does describe what triggers a lot of White people in my neck of the woods (and it triggers Bill Mahr as well). People get their panties in a wad over the word privilege. To a lot of them, they hear that phrase and immediately think it means, "You were born with a Silver Spoon in your mouth and never had to work for anything. You didn't work for anything you have." They instinctively recoil at that.
Unless I've vastly misunderstood things spectacularly (not an impossibility), that's not at all what the phrase means. For me, it means I don't have to worry about a lot of things because I lack melanin that others possess. I don't even have to concern myself with the plight of those with more melanin and I have never faced even a second of the trials those folks have had to face and continue to do so today. I don't have to fear the cops in the same way Brown skinned folks must. I don't have to fear not getting into a college or landing a job because of my skin color. I don't have to fear the criminal justice system to the same extent Brown skinned folks must. And I know a cop/security guard/TSA agent/whomever is not as likely to stop me for walking in public with my Covid mask on because I am White. All of that (and more) for me is White privilege.
If you put it in terms similar to that, more White people will understand what you mean and won't be as apt to be turned off by word choice. My view of White privilege is that it is reflected in virtually every aspect of our lives and most White people have no reference frame at all to see it. It is part and parcel of our culture, always has been and does not create an environment empathetic to non-White peoples. The objective should be, imo, to get more White people to see it and understand it to the extent they are able. The fact that a White man working at Walmart for $10/hour, no vacation and no health benefits for a decade, who has never entered a Brown person's home or had a friend with more melanin than he gets riled when you tell him he's privileged is understandable from his point of view. We need to change his point of view to be not so myopic.
WRT my OP, can you image the same thing happening to a White former SNL cast member? No way. Like it or not, that is reflective of White privilege.
The religious idiot you posted does describe what triggers a lot of White people in my neck of the woods (and it triggers Bill Mahr as well). People get their panties in a wad over the word privilege. To a lot of them, they hear that phrase and immediately think it means, "You were born with a Silver Spoon in your mouth and never had to work for anything. You didn't work for anything you have." They instinctively recoil at that.
Unless I've vastly misunderstood things spectacularly (not an impossibility), that's not at all what the phrase means. For me, it means I don't have to worry about a lot of things because I lack melanin that others possess. I don't even have to concern myself with the plight of those with more melanin and I have never faced even a second of the trials those folks have had to face and continue to do so today. I don't have to fear the cops in the same way Brown skinned folks must. I don't have to fear not getting into a college or landing a job because of my skin color. I don't have to fear the criminal justice system to the same extent Brown skinned folks must. And I know a cop/security guard/TSA agent/whomever is not as likely to stop me for walking in public with my Covid mask on because I am White. All of that (and more) for me is White privilege.
If you put it in terms similar to that, more White people will understand what you mean and won't be as apt to be turned off by word choice. My view of White privilege is that it is reflected in virtually every aspect of our lives and most White people have no reference frame at all to see it. It is part and parcel of our culture, always has been and does not create an environment empathetic to non-White peoples. The objective should be, imo, to get more White people to see it and understand it to the extent they are able. The fact that a White man working at Walmart for $10/hour, no vacation and no health benefits for a decade, who has never entered a Brown person's home or had a friend with more melanin than he gets riled when you tell him he's privileged is understandable from his point of view. We need to change his point of view to be not so myopic.
WRT my OP, can you image the same thing happening to a White former SNL cast member? No way. Like it or not, that is reflective of White privilege.