Summations Only

The problem with Crash's position isn't the idea that discrimination is exerted through the possession of privilege per-se. It is his insistence that a specific form of privilege is required in order to qualify as a specific sort of 'ism'. I think the following exchange demonstrates this: I haven't discussed racial discrimination with Crash in this thread. But if you were to ask him to give an example of a black person racially discriminating against white people in present-day-America or put to him the scenario of a black boss in modern day America blatantly discriminating against white subordinates on the basis of their race he would be equally forced to contradict the fact that this is blatantly, and very definitely legally, a case of racial discrimination.Because in modern day America black people as a race don't possess the sort of race-privilege Crash requires for a black individual to be racist towards a white person no matter what other forms of power they may or may not have over them.

I agree with you.To determine whether racial discrimination has occurred using Crash's "model" you first need to sort the various races into a sort of hierachy of privilege. In modern America Crash would presumably put white at the top and black at the bottom with Hispanic, Indian, Oriental etc. jockeying for position between the two (this is the impression I get from his posts) So if an Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin or an oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin-colour then everybody here except Crash can see that both are racially discriminating and being racist.But in Crashland we have to ask whether Indians or Orientals have greater racial privilege in modern America before we can decide who is and isn't being racist. Yup.

Crash's use of the term "privilege" is derived from a certain sort of academic sociologists use. It is most commonly referenced in (some) feminist circles but can be applied to race, sexuality etc. etc. The following example is from a feminist blog mentioned earlier in this thread.

quote:

---

Given the historical and continued imbalance of power, where men as a class are privileged over women as a class (see male privilege), an important, but often overlooked, part of the term is that sexism is prejudice plus power. Thus feminists reject the notion that women can be sexist towards men because women lack the institutional power that men have.

---

quote:

---

Male privilege is a set of privileges that are given to men as a class due to their institutional power in relation to women as a class. While every man experiences privilege differently due to his own individual position in the social hierarchy, every man, by virtue of being read as male by society, benefits from male privilege.

---

Feminism 101 BlogThus in modern western society women cannot be sexist towards men because men as a class possess privilege based on sex. Thus in modern western society blacks cannot be racist towards whites because whites possess privilege based on race. In modern western society homosexuals cannot discriminate against heterosexuals on the basis of sexuality because heterosexuals possess privilege based on sexuality. And so on and so forth.As the wishy washy liberal that I am I'm not entirely un-sympathetic to the well-meaning intentions behind this attempt to definitionally provide some sort of redress for historically derived inequalities.But ultimately I think despite it's well meant intentions it actually achieves the opposite by classifying certain groups as victims. I also think foisting academic and ideologically driven definitions that contradict both common and legal conceptual meaning is doomed to failure.At the very least advocacy of these sociological-academic definitions is certain to inflame much derision outside the rarefied circles that they originate from because they just don't conform to the real world. Most notably in the form of discrimination laws that we all have to adhere to.

Scenario 1: An Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and overtly refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin.Scenario 2: An oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and overtly refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin colour.In the eyes of the law both of these are examples of racial discrimination. Everyone here except you recognises both acts as racist.1) By the terms of your argument here which (if either) of the Indian guy or the Oriental guy possess race-privilege?2) By the terms of your argument here which (if either) of the above scenarios qualifies as racial discrimination and is recognisably an act of racism?

It's the modern day US.

New York City.AbE - Given the pedantic clarity being requested I should also point out that by 'Indian' I mean a guy of Indian descent rather than native American.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Scenario 1: An Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and overtly refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin.Scenario 2: An oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and overtly refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin colour.Every participant in this thread, other than Crash, can identify these acts as obviously racist. Our accepted and evidence based method of identifying whether or not racial discrimination has taken place (i.e. the application of discrimination laws) would indisputably class these as acts of racial discrimination (in both the US and throughout the EU)Yet Crash's privilege "model" results in the following response when asked if the above scenarios constitute acts of racial discrimination: Scenario 3: A man-hating-boss is mistreating male subordinates because of her anti-male prejudice. Giving them the worst shifts, verbally abusing them, publicly demeaning them, making offensive comments about their appearance and sexuality.Crash's response when asked whether this constitutes sexual discrimination: Yet - again - The law and anybody with a sensible view of discrimination can recognise this as sexual discrimination and sexism.So on one hand we have Crash and his rather esoteric and obscure academic definition of discrimination. And on the other hand we have the real life application of discrimination laws.Unsurprisingly Crash has failed to convince anyone here that obvious, and indeed legally defined, acts of discrimination should be re-classified because some ideologically driven sociologists want to define things differently.