Irish White Privilege......Yeah

The problem is you're claiming there is no connection between the two concepts of unearned benefit, and guilt. You're advocating to legitimise the radical concept of "privilege". Unearned benefits that we have access to that others don't. That's all, right? No harm. There is two major concerns I have with this though.

It's weird to pretend that recognising the unearned benefit is of no importance, it's meaningless. It's just a statement, so why deny it? Humans clearly associate guilt with unearned benefit - survivor guilt for example, where humans feel shame for surviving when others did not. You're really concerned to argue for the concept of "privilege". It's important to you that it be recognised and legitimised rather than treated as the crank theory it is. It's just academic right? You're essentially trying to reinforce to that survivors really were incredibly lucky to have not died, while pretending you're not trying to induce survivors guilt - as if there is no connection at all. That's very suspect to me.

The other issue with "privilege", particularly where it comes to "being born in a developed country" is that it is not unearned privilege. It was earned. It was earned by our parents, and their parents, and their parents before them. Just as we try to earn it for our children today. There is no "privilege" about Ireland being one of the better places to be born - our ancestors earned that for us. And they didn't listen to people who tried to make them feel guilty about it.

Start another thread about them then….jesus, are you just going to repeat the same thing over and over!!! This thread is about Irish White Privilege specifically…the clue is in the title to the thread. Start one on male privilege, which is also mentioned in the NCCA see how that goes.

And you wonder why people are sick and tired of this woke nonsense.

Fair play to you. Where I'm from (Bray), we didn't. The doctors in hospitals (all GP's were white) mostly tended to be white or Indian-Asian back then, if memory serves correctly.

No, no. It was utterly irrational and let’s moderate a little, borderline insane.

The notion that Irish children should atone for their original sin of being white and demonstrate to immigrants that they are striving to do better. Really?

It’s lunacy borrowed from extreme fringes of the internet. I suggest you re-examine the material you’re consuming if it’s engendering thought processes of this nature.

Is Acknowledgement of all privilege a good thing? Or just some types?

I feel sorry for your six year old if you’re promoting that nonsense to a child.

You made the statement. Maybe you need to think about your statement through a bit more. Answering my question might help you.

I understand that you are exposing a young child to fringe ideology. Childhood is time for exploration and fun. It’s not a window for adults to inform them of their ‘privilege’ as perceived by some rather twisted adult minds.

Man, people here have a hard time with complex feelings/emotions.

Here's another one.

"Sadly happy"

Surely these two emotions are direct opposites of each other, therefore as non-sensical (allegedly) as being aware of privilege, yet not feeling guilt or shame over it?

Then I put an example to you, a mother, waving goodbye to their last child going to college. Happy that they're on their own journey now, sad that that time of their life is now over. They are, "sadly happy".

Handling complex emotions is a very important step in our maturity, and it's a skill that appears to be fading.

I don't see any sign of context in what the poster teaches their 6 year old though - do you?

Moreover, "white privilege" is not a synonym for racism, yet posters arguing that it exists in Ireland have only given examples of racism. So I think the issue of context is actually one you need to raise with those posters rather than with me.

So do you think what I described isn't already happening regularly??

I can promise you it is. Nothing imaginary about it.

And you sabotage your own argument when you "nuance" your point about jobs by admitting that it only really works if the (white) kid is involved in the GAA etc. Like - maybe being part of the community is the real difference?? What about a black kid, born and grew up there, GAA star player for the local team, versus a white outsider that nobody knows who walks into the local bar: who do you think gets a better reception?

But more fundamentally: What differences do you see in the concepts of racism and white privilege?

Because it looks to me like you confuse the two. Your examples are all of racism (something that white people experience in Asia and Africa, by the way) rather than of "white privilege". For instance, is there any equivalent in Ireland to the policy of red-lining areas of towns such as existed even in cities like Chicago until recently?

No, I think you do. If you can't understand how you can't accept or acknowledge something without feeling guilt or shame over it, I'm not going to sit here spoon feeding you the differences between white privilege and racism.

Do your own homework.

Sinister? Are you having a laugh?

Maybe we should start teaching them theoretical physics while we're at it. F*CK taking baby steps, and age appropriate lessons, yeah?

LOL So much for this education you're intending to do with your child. What will you do when she starts to argue back? Throw a strop like the above and tell her to do her own homework? Because you haven't answered any actual questions - and kids pick up on that once they get near adolescence.

(And I still haven't said anything about guilt or shame, so I've no idea why you keep putting those words into my mouth. That's not part of my argument at all. As I've made clear previously. By the way - I'd love to be a fly on the wall when your six year old gets old enough to develop her own opinions - you are going to have a tough time if this is the best you can do!!)

I'm not saying there is "no connection" between privilege and guilt, simply that one is a distinct concept from the other. That things can be connected without being the same is hardly an act of intellectual contortion — pride in oneself is connected to arrogance, positivity is connected to complacency, generosity is connected to being exploited, patriotism is connected with war and atrocity. Many positive traits and mindsets are connected to, and can become, something negative without invalidating the fact that they are positive and things to be encouraged.

On top of that, using survivor's guilt as an example is fairly extreme — not least given the added facets of the trauma inherent in experiencing a near death situation or witnessing other people being killed. But I don't think the acknowledgement of good fortune to have survived is automatically and invariably the same as encouraging survivor's guilt.

Finally, you say the good circumstance of being born in a developed country was earned by our parents / ancestors — OK — but that's the very point I'm making. You didn't earn it. The choices they made in life are not your achievement, any more so than the choices made in life by the parents / ancestors of children born in impoverished circumstances are their failing. Using the roundabout argument that it's earned because previous generations earned it on our behalf is, to me, the same erroneous logic on which white guilt is advocated — the idea that from birth you inherit moral culpability for any immoral or wrong thing an ancestor did to improve their lot. Ultimately, I'm only rejecting the logic of your "hereditary earning" argument (to give it a name) on the same basis that I would reject the white guilt argument.

And privilege isn't about telling children they are privileged, it's
country might have had a better time of life if schools acknowledged and
encouraged students to understand the social and familial obstacles
that young gay people faced versus young straight people. Having grown
up, and now having heard many of the sad stories of gay friends — I
certainly think I would have benefited from better understanding the
obstacles and challenges they faced that I didn't because I wasn't gay.

I'm calling shenanigans on this. I'm a gay male, have had loads of gay male friends, house shared with them, had many gay acquaintances, and noone has ever told me 'sad stories' or neither do I have any for you to weep over.

If there is any truth to what your saying I think you might tend toward the more melodramatic types, which I can tell you is a bit of a thing in gay culture. Seems to be rubbing off on you as well.

You're a gay male and have never heard stories of young gay people being bullied, excluded or made fun of because of their sexuality? You've never heard stories of the stress and difficulty gay people faced in coming out to their parents? You've never heard of any gay person who ever encountered any sad circumstances on the basis of their sexuality? Like it doesn't even have to be bullying, even just being a young person having to hide or suppress a fundamental part of who you are because of shame and stigma is sad to me — or maybe I'm just melodramatic.

Feel free to reject the idea of privilege if you want — but acting as if it's incredulous that many gay people have faced certain sad circumstances on account of their sexuality is a pretty weird take.

OK that's fine but I don't see why you're telling me any of this as I'm not arguing otherwise on any of the points you raise there. . .

I'm entitled to bring up anything that I find in my opinion to be relevant or instructive to the points I wish to make on the existence of privilege. The other reason it's important is because looking at other types of privilege helps to make it clearer that there can be many types of privilege that people can simultaneously benefit and not benefit from — so white privilege doesn't mean that white people can't lack privilege in lots of other ways.

Not sure where I said they weren’t entitled to respond — I was merely pointing out that the points being made were not in response to any argument I was making.

As for the relax / kool aid sage wisdom, go back through the thread — responses to me have been constantly forcing words into my mouth on shame and guilt, people giving me the “who do you think you are” shtick and assertions about sowing division and corrupting the minds of children. Not sure I’m the one who needs to relax.