White Privilege

Since you're the only one in the thread who's ignorant of the meaning of "privilege", you seem to be shooting yourself in the foot again.

It's a privilege that many of us are born with, like white skin. Unlike skin colour, it's a privilege that you can lose.

The point is that people who are privileged are the least likely to notice that they are privileged.

I didn't say you should call it a privilege. You can call it "George" for all I care. I said you should recognize that it is a privilege - or at least equivalent to a privilege. You should recognize that it's something you have that others don't have. I didn't say it was better.

It's a figure of speech. It stretches the dictionary-boy meaning of the word to make a point, the point of the whole friggin' thread - i.e. that people who are privileged don't know they're privileged. On the contrary, it broadens its meaning.

It's a privilege that can be taken away at a moment's notice, like any other privilege. Coins have two sides. Having an advantage taken away from you - or not being given an advantage in the first place - is what makes you disadvantaged. Can you really not see the similarity between privileged and advantaged?

Thank you. I try to rise above the lowest common denominator.

But more so for those who were born into it.

No.Children who were born into the "English culture", like me, heard the nursery rhymes in the nursery before we could even talk. It's a very different situation for children whose families come from other cultures, whose mothers don't even know our nursery rhymes. Sure, they can look up The Three Little Pigs on the Internet but why would they? They clearly do not have the "privilege" of knowing the English culture from birth, so references to English culture are not a valid reflection of their intelligence.

Of course it isn't valid. Would a test in Arabic be a valid test of your intelligence?

I won't presume, like you do, to know how everybody reacts to my position. (I did get a cheer, which makes your claim mathematically false.)I will point out, however, that you have done nothing to show that there is anything wrong with my position.Let's try again: Would a test in Arabic be a valid measure of your intelligence?

On the contrary, the specific example we're discussing - nursery rhymes - is something we certainly do learn from birth. For myself, another example is the Bible; I literally knew Bible verses from memory before I could read. They're still with me sixty years later even though I haven't been to church in thirty years. Asking Hindu children about the Sermon on the Mount would not be a valid test of their intelligence. Nobody has suggested any such thing. What I've said is that things you learned from birth should not be used as a measure of your intelligence - i.e. as a measure of what you can learn. The tests used a vocabulary that the children didn't know. Big Bad Wolf? Chinny chin chin? It might as well have been Arabic.

Tie me kangaroo down, sport.

Again - explain why you disagree. I read where he said, "A child of Asian ethnic origin stood no chance, because Asian origin parents don't generally read their kids traditional white British nursery rhymes," in Message 261, which is exactly what I've been saying. Maybe you can explain why it's ridiculous when I say it, yet you try to use it as an argument against me.