Wednesday, April 30, 2014

White Male Princeton Freshman "Checks His Privilege"

Apparently we white males are supposed to feel guilty about being white and male, although so far as I can figure, only racists and sexists could consider it a crime to be a particular race or sex.

Some commenters shriek and froth at the mouth at his temerity.

More here.

Labels: , , ,

2 Comments:

Anonymous Sam said...

Is he really rejecting the concept of white-male privilege? Or is he asserting that white-male grandson-of-Holocaust-survivors privilege exempts him from accusations of white-male Mayflower-descendant privilege?

Friday, May 2, 2014 at 10:12:00 AM HST  
Blogger TTB said...

Good question, Sam. Without bothering to re-read it, I think he did not make the answer clear: He seemed to object to the assumption that he was privileged because of his whiteness and maleness.

The assumption is racist and sexist, but I don't think he crushed the suggestion that there is an overall advantage to being white and male.

I would enjoy it if the same schools which promote "Check Your Privilege" also promoted "Check Your Victimhood" campaigns. Victimhood seems to me far more destructive to achievement than acknowledging that other people have advantages, and working harder.

In other words, college students ought to realize that life isn't fair, and to work with what they have, not try to drag down and blame those who have advantages.

We all have our disadvantages: many people are smarter, many people had more supportive families, many people went to better schools, many people have better voices, or have better acting skills, or greater willingness to take risks.

That's life, and wasting energy feeling sorry for one's self and angry at others just makes achieving goals all the harder.

Friday, May 2, 2014 at 11:40:00 AM HST  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home