Irish White Privilege......Yeah

I'm a zealot? How so? What zealous things have I said and do you have any particular substantive response to them, aside from just calling me stuff?

Ah, so I'm the zealot even though you're now descending all the way down to the "you shouldn't be allowed near kids" stuff. Great.

Not only that, you seem to just be shoving opinions into my mouth that I neither hold nor have expressed. I don't think white straight males are the most privileged of all kids — some of the most underprivileged kids in Ireland are white males, regardless of orientation. They may benefit from certain privilege from being male, white, straight etc, but they also lack privilege in lots of different ways, not least by virtue of the much tougher socioeconomic conditions they face. Indeed, in my view, socioeconomic privilege is probably the most significant one in the country.

And you know, for someone who seems to portray themselves as a champion of not dividing people etc, your posts seem to do nothing but summarily dismiss my views and declare me someone who shouldn't be allowed near kids. So maybe you should take a look in the mirror when it comes to divisiveness and try to actually engage respectfully when debating others — ya know — the way we try to promote healthy debate in schools (or does that scare you too?).

What do you teach your kids about this?

Such a strange thread. Were people not told when they were kids that there were a lot of people in the world that were not as fortunate as they were?

that was completely normal for me, and all my contemporaries. I most certainly was not a privileged person in Ireland, I grew up below ' working class ' but I was always taught by parents, grandparents, teachers and anyone else in authority, that I was privileged, compared to some.

And I was. As are all the children growing up in Ireland today, extremely privileged. We were taught that we were lucky, nothing wrong with teaching kids today that they are lucky.

Would you look at this….

We are a long way from what you are describing, we were all told we were more fortunate than others in far away countries…

What didn't happen was that the class would be divided up in and told of their different privileges within that classroom…along the lines of skin colour, gender or sexuality.

You are forgetting, many Irish workers have been exposed to "Training" of this nature, so a lot of people know exactly what is being suggested here. I love the way the zealots act like it is all so harmless and virtuous. But I bet you wouldn't put it to the parents to vote on.

So tell us about your classroom where the kids were divided up along the lines of their gender, skin colour and sexuality?

This is a false equivalence though. The title of the thread is not "is society perfectly equal?". Clearly it's not, and in the case of disabled people, it's not a matter of other commuters becoming conscious of things like the lack of lifts - because frankly that "consciousness" doesn't actually help disabled people one bit unless practical steps are taken - and those practical steps are easy to identify.

What would make a difference is society deciding to spend the extra money needed to provide access to all. Of course that would mean increasing taxes or else spending less in other areas, and it's an unending process because there will always be extra needs that the latest improvements aren't fulfilling - for instance, what about the mentally handicapped who might need help with signs being read out to them? Or the deaf/blind etc etc? Where does society decide to stop spending?

But the thread title is not about that sort of extra spending, which wouldn't help in the case of "white privilege". There's no identifiable issue to "fix" like putting in new lifts. Because "white privilege" is the claim that people are being deliberately excluded from society, not from a lack of public spending but purely because of their skin colour. A claim of systemic racism in Irish society that has only been able to be made by conflating anecdotes of individual racists (mostly vague and/or hypothetical) with the notion that the whole society is organised in such a way as to keep black people down. Which to be frank is complete nonsense. But also - and this is why it needs to be opposed - deeply harmful to creating a cohesive society in schools and the workplace.

The consciousness does help though — I mean that's the very base foundation on which stuff like disabled access is built, right? But where the consciousness also comes to the fore is how people interact with and understand disabled people who they may encounter. Look at Jack Grealish at the FA Cup final at the weekend, taking the time to chat to the child who I understand is blind. What's great about that is, for the other kids there, it's a lot just to see the big stars — but him taking the time to actually chat to her meant that she got to experience a moment that took into account her particular sensory barrier.

It's things like that where I feel that understanding privilege can help — being conscious of the lived experience of another person, the barriers or negative experiences they might face that you and others don't, and this can also help you think critically about their perspective in life. Note how in this example it should be obvious that nobody is asserting that sighted people should feel guilty or attacked because they aren't blind.

Also, I'm not arguing that Irish society is systemically racist. In fact, I don't think Ireland is systemically racist. I also don't think that white privilege means, as you put it, the "deliberate exclusion" of non-whites, it's simply a reference to some negative experiences a non-white person might person might encounter that a white person might not.

This stuff is really just a replacement of religion, original sin is white privilege under a different name. It conveniently ignores wealth which is a far bigger advantage. Wander around the Middle East or Africa alone as a white person and see where that privilege gets you. It’s amazing how the left have gone to other end of the spectrum on this stuff.

Well I don't think it ignores wealth at all but let's consider your view on the "shame" point. As you say, wealth confers certain advantages on people. On a relative basis, you are wealthy versus others and others are wealthy versus you. Those in particular who are born into a relatively wealthy position might have certain opportunities to secure comfort, invest to increase passive income, have family properties handed to them for free, pursue their passions and interests with less concern for financial risk. People with less money on the other hand face more financial barriers in life.

Does acknowledging this make you feel "ashamed"? Do you think acknowledging this is invariably an attack of the relatively well off or an attempt to divide people between rich and poor forevermore? I

attempt to divide people between rich and poor forevermore?

I think rich and poor division is a diversion. The best good start in life an average young person can have is a healthy family environment with both parents as role models.

Most people in ireland are white this includes migrants and people from the eu who come here to work.

ireland is not america ,it does not have a history of slavery or racist treatment of black people or other minoritys. theres a large white working class population are they really priveliged or better off than other people who happen to be of other races .Middle class people and upper class people tend to have advantages in terms of income acess to education and the network effect ,eg middle class people tend to give jobs to people from certain area,s and people who speak with non working class accents.

i think gen z whichever racial group they belong to, are more concerned with the housing crisis trying to find a place to rent at a reasonable price or the looming threat of climate change ,than the problem of racism towards certain minority groups.

i think since the 80s ireland has been regarded as a modern western country ,our economy has been improving since the 90s especially since we became the eu base for various companys like google intel and facebook

Well I don't agree with the diversion bit but I do agree — if that's what you're saying— that being born into a stable family environment is definitely a huge privilege in life and definitely one of the most consequential. I was lucky enough to have that and, now that I have a partner who didn't have that, I do see the privilege I enjoyed in that regard.

And personally, growing to understand that privilege has helped me a bit in the stop-and-think process before giving a bit of advice that might be laden with bias I previously wouldn't have been conscious of.

Well, I'd probably see it as a healthier state of mind for relatively wealthy people to acknowledge privilege than to believe that they are wealthy because they are simply more naturally superior to poor people or have some unwritten entitlement to be better off than others. It's better than thinking poor people are poor because they are simply lazy and unindustrious.

It doesn't mean that wealthy people can't be proud of their achievements — and success in life comes from taking whatever opportunities you can — but acknowledging that you had certain privilege along way might go some way to giving you a healthier perspective as to why some kids don't just waltz as easily into stellar careers as others. That's just my two cents anyway.

The diversion bit comes from the fact that what we both agree on is now something that's not to be said, because a healthy functional two parents family somehow became a conservative right wing ideal.

Perhaps they feel ashamed by that and they are trying to shift the blame.

Seriously, white privilege drivel is just attempt at wealth redistribution. They think that having the same starting point gives everyone equal chances but it is not the case and it never was. There are people who are driven to get or achieve more and there are people who do not care or bother. That is why socialism failed and fail every time when implemented.

Even here, there are numerous non white people who were driven to achieve success and got good jobs, nice houses and worked their a$$ off to get where they are. And there are others who still sit in DP centers because they wait for the house they feel they should be getting.

White privilege my a$$.

I mean I thought it was pretty obvious with the word push, given the context of the thread.

I never said kids should only learn from their parents, maybe read it again as your post is ridiculous.

Interesting how you think people beside parents should 'push' views on children.

Well, firstly I don't think I ever said there's a need to "even things up". Even taking the simpler example of disability access, nobody is actually saying that things need to be evened out — i.e. stairs haven't been cancelled.

Secondly, I don't think the conversation has to be that one person is entirely privileged and another is entirely underprivileged. I also don't think that society is incapable of emotional intelligence when it comes to this. Problems in the home are obviously emotionally charged situations. I don't think any conversation on privilege needs to be held in the absence of cop-on, and if it's better to avoid talking about certain things in certain contexts then fine.

I also think the way we discuss these things obviously should vary greatly dependant on age. Older students in the mid to later teens, in my opinion, should be encouraged to think critically about society. Things like privilege form part of that because it's a topic that invites you to engage critically with the lived experience of others versus your own. This doesn't mean always taking big measures, but simply encouraging a better understanding of why some peoples' experience and perspective of life is different.

And look, maybe there's a better word for all this than "privilege", because the word seems to really set people off on a parade of assumptions about what is meant by it.

maybe there's a better word for all this than "privilege"

No, not when you're trying to shift the narrative. It's basically like saying that someone in a wheelchair is not disabled, but everyone else is overabled - hence you (you meaning state or society) shift the burden to people who don't owe anyone anything for being normal and average.

But the suggestion is that it should be taught as a fact, not as something to be discussed.

From the OP: The National Council for Curriculum & Assessment (NCCA) released a new draft for the secondary SPHE curriculum that wants “white privilege,” “male privilege,” & gender ideology taught to Irish kids. In the draft curriculum it urges children to recognize their “privileged status” as a “white, male or Irish person,”  

That's a terrible thing to teach children IMO. Not that different from back in my time where we were encouraged to pity the little black babies in Africa: it was no doubt well-meaning, but in practice it was deeply racist. Lots of black people in Africa were better educated than many Irish people, but you wouldn't have known that from the way they were portrayed in Irish schools.

And at least that was done in order to get money to feed people who were actually hungry, and who weren't in our classrooms: this proposed curriculum will do nothing except teach children to see each other as either victim or oppressor. It's a terrible way to go about encouraging friendship among children of different origins. It will do the exact opposite.

It's round the back from your cervix.

Being white or male in a country like Ireland gives close to zero advantage, so for a start it is a false statement. Traits such as intelligence or attractiveness give far far more advantages than race or gender.

We need to be honest, calling whites and males privileged is about bashing those groups, nothing more.