White privilege isn’t guilt by association (at least when explained by anyone halfway competent) because, fundamentally, the concept doesn’t really have anything to do with guilt or blame. I do of course realize that many of the people throwing the term “white privilege” around are not people I would personally consider to have a “halfway competent” understanding of the concept.
But to pick an explanatory article I found on Google which I consider to be written by someone at least “halfway competent” in the area of understanding this particular concept, please see:
White people have distinct advantages in life over people of color because of structural racism, discrimination, and disenfranchisement both past and present.
This is not something to feel guilty about, but it is something to act on. Guilt is not productive. But conscious awareness is. White people should not feel guilty about the discrimination of the past but should feel compelled to help correct the inequalities of the present.
This really isn’t the wording I would use if I were trying to explain the concept myself, but anyway. Suppose there’s a gang of murderers running around the fictional city of Brunetteville killing everyone they can find who doesn’t have brown hair. And confiscating all the hair dye so no one can dye their hair. And the police won’t arrest the gang because they’re all members in it. Anyway, in such a fictional city, we might say that brown-haired people have brown hair privilege. Oh, and some brown-haired folk get killed too for hiding blondes, red-haired people, black-haired people, etc from the gang and being seen by the gang as “hair traitors”. And some brown-haired-but-balding people and people-of-brownish-but-indeterminate-hair-color get killed for being insufficiently “pure”. And some brown-haired people get killed by stray bullets intended for blondes, red-haired people, etc. So, what does “brown hair privilege” really mean in this context? That they aren’t at lower (but still non-zero) risk of being slaughtered by a brutal gang for no reason other than some weird hair obsession?
Yeah, that’s nothing to feel guilty about. Because, quite frankly, not being murdered because of some crazy person’s hair obsession is a privilege everyone should have. It would be something to feel sad about, that not everyone has that privilege. But not guilty.
Actively participating in the killings of non-brownhaired people would be something to feel guilty about. And there are other forms of complicity too. So there are some fictional people in the above given fictional scenario who fictionally deserve to fictionally feel guilty. But not merely for passively receiving the privilege of having a lower risk of being slaughtered by crazy Brown Hair supremacists.
What would be an appropriate use of the term “brown hair privilege” in the above given fictional example?
Blonde-haired person: We need to board up the windows so the police can’t shoot us so easily!
Brown-haired person: I don’t think we need to board up the windows. The police have always been nice to me. Just yesterday, they helped me rescue my cat from a tree.
Blonde-haired person: Check your brown hair privilege! Just because the police are nice to you doesn’t mean they are nice to those of us without brown hair!
Or, you know, we could skip the term “brown hair privilege” entirely and accuse the fictional brown-haired person above of making a part to whole fallacy, because that’s another term for what the fictional brown-haired person is doing. Making the assumption that the fictional police are nice to people in general just because they have always been nice to that particular fictional person.
Now suppose there’s another city, New Brunetteville, where murder is a rare crime and not something the police are actively perpetrating on a regular basis. But there are other problems. Judges and juries are significantly less likely to convict a brown-haired person than a person of any other hair color, even given the same level of evidence. Brown-haired people are significantly more likely to get the best bank loans and the best jobs, regardless of merit. And so on.
We could say that there is, fictionally at least, also such a thing as brown hair privilege in the fictional New Brunetteville, but it is clearly a very different sort of brown hair privilege than what fictionally exists in Brunetteville. The term lack precision. It can mean different things in different fictional historical contexts. For that matter, it can mean different things from one person to another (especially where statistics are considered), since people do not live their lives as statistical averages.
To expand on our above example of the use of the term “brown hair privilege”:
Blonde-haired person: We need to board up the windows so the police can’t shoot us so easily!
Brown-haired person number 1: I don’t think we need to board up the windows. The police have always been nice to me. Just yesterday, they helped me rescue my cat from a tree.
Blonde-haired person: Check your brown hair privilege! Just because the police are nice to you doesn’t mean they are nice to those of us without brown hair!
Brown-haired person number 2: Hey, I got shot in the shoulder yesterday because I kissed a red-haired person and the police said I was a hair traitor! And that was only because the police officer was a bad shot; he was shooting to kill. What brown hair privilege? It didn’t stop me from getting shot! But yeah, Brown-haired person number 1, you’re an idiot who’s likely to get us killed with your idiocy and we should board up the windows.
Blonde-haired person: Well, brown hair privilege is kind of a statistical thing. You had a statistically lower chance of being shot. Anyway, I was talking to Brown-haired person number 1 because he’s the one who thought we shouldn’t board up the windows.
Great Song, and Content!
White privilege isn’t guilt by association (at least when explained by anyone halfway competent) because, fundamentally, the concept doesn’t really have anything to do with guilt or blame. I do of course realize that many of the people throwing the term “white privilege” around are not people I would personally consider to have a “halfway competent” understanding of the concept.
But to pick an explanatory article I found on Google which I consider to be written by someone at least “halfway competent” in the area of understanding this particular concept, please see:
“‘White privilege’ is not something to feel guilty about. Here’s what it does mean.: On some level, we can all agree that things aren’t exactly where we’d like them to be.”
by Phoebe Gavin
https://www.upworthy.com/white-privilege-is-not-something-to-feel-guilty-about-heres-what-it-does-mean
To quote a part of that article,
This really isn’t the wording I would use if I were trying to explain the concept myself, but anyway. Suppose there’s a gang of murderers running around the fictional city of Brunetteville killing everyone they can find who doesn’t have brown hair. And confiscating all the hair dye so no one can dye their hair. And the police won’t arrest the gang because they’re all members in it. Anyway, in such a fictional city, we might say that brown-haired people have brown hair privilege. Oh, and some brown-haired folk get killed too for hiding blondes, red-haired people, black-haired people, etc from the gang and being seen by the gang as “hair traitors”. And some brown-haired-but-balding people and people-of-brownish-but-indeterminate-hair-color get killed for being insufficiently “pure”. And some brown-haired people get killed by stray bullets intended for blondes, red-haired people, etc. So, what does “brown hair privilege” really mean in this context? That they aren’t at lower (but still non-zero) risk of being slaughtered by a brutal gang for no reason other than some weird hair obsession?
Yeah, that’s nothing to feel guilty about. Because, quite frankly, not being murdered because of some crazy person’s hair obsession is a privilege everyone should have. It would be something to feel sad about, that not everyone has that privilege. But not guilty.
Actively participating in the killings of non-brownhaired people would be something to feel guilty about. And there are other forms of complicity too. So there are some fictional people in the above given fictional scenario who fictionally deserve to fictionally feel guilty. But not merely for passively receiving the privilege of having a lower risk of being slaughtered by crazy Brown Hair supremacists.
What would be an appropriate use of the term “brown hair privilege” in the above given fictional example?
Blonde-haired person: We need to board up the windows so the police can’t shoot us so easily!
Brown-haired person: I don’t think we need to board up the windows. The police have always been nice to me. Just yesterday, they helped me rescue my cat from a tree.
Blonde-haired person: Check your brown hair privilege! Just because the police are nice to you doesn’t mean they are nice to those of us without brown hair!
Or, you know, we could skip the term “brown hair privilege” entirely and accuse the fictional brown-haired person above of making a part to whole fallacy, because that’s another term for what the fictional brown-haired person is doing. Making the assumption that the fictional police are nice to people in general just because they have always been nice to that particular fictional person.
Now suppose there’s another city, New Brunetteville, where murder is a rare crime and not something the police are actively perpetrating on a regular basis. But there are other problems. Judges and juries are significantly less likely to convict a brown-haired person than a person of any other hair color, even given the same level of evidence. Brown-haired people are significantly more likely to get the best bank loans and the best jobs, regardless of merit. And so on.
We could say that there is, fictionally at least, also such a thing as brown hair privilege in the fictional New Brunetteville, but it is clearly a very different sort of brown hair privilege than what fictionally exists in Brunetteville. The term lack precision. It can mean different things in different fictional historical contexts. For that matter, it can mean different things from one person to another (especially where statistics are considered), since people do not live their lives as statistical averages.
To expand on our above example of the use of the term “brown hair privilege”:
Blonde-haired person: We need to board up the windows so the police can’t shoot us so easily!
Brown-haired person number 1: I don’t think we need to board up the windows. The police have always been nice to me. Just yesterday, they helped me rescue my cat from a tree.
Blonde-haired person: Check your brown hair privilege! Just because the police are nice to you doesn’t mean they are nice to those of us without brown hair!
Brown-haired person number 2: Hey, I got shot in the shoulder yesterday because I kissed a red-haired person and the police said I was a hair traitor! And that was only because the police officer was a bad shot; he was shooting to kill. What brown hair privilege? It didn’t stop me from getting shot! But yeah, Brown-haired person number 1, you’re an idiot who’s likely to get us killed with your idiocy and we should board up the windows.
Blonde-haired person: Well, brown hair privilege is kind of a statistical thing. You had a statistically lower chance of being shot. Anyway, I was talking to Brown-haired person number 1 because he’s the one who thought we shouldn’t board up the windows.