With the conversation about going on over the past couple of weeks, I was reminded of this article I read a few years ago. It makes a good argument that the idea of privilege is not a very useful one partially due to how many factors make up a person's "privilege". I agree with this.
I also feel that the term is now used in a way that is not constructive at all.
Pointing out someone's supposed privilege due to something like the color of their skin brings the conversation to a halt. Unless your goal is to shame them for it, it's not really productive. On that note, it often also seems to come from a place of resentment and trying to bring someone down rather than bringing disadvantaged people up. All that does is divide people further.
In addition, using a person's identity to determine their privilege or lack of it is also silly because identity is not privilege.
What I mean by this is that there is nothing inherently special about something like the color of one's skin. For example, even if you benefit from having the color of your skin, your skin color is not a privilege. Privileges are things such as having wealth, living in a stable society and having good parenting. Therefore, the term "white privilege" doesn't even make any sense.
An argument against this would be that having a certain skin color automatically puts you at a disadvantage due to systemic racism and that not having to face racism is the privilege you get from being white. The problem with this argument is exactly what I outlined above:"racism" is an extremely broad category of actions that can take place from slurs to police brutality. There's no specificity in the term "White Privilege" and it's therefore not a useful term.
It's important to note that I'm not arguing the privilege doesn't exist. I am arguing that when a person points out someone else's privilege based on their group identity, it not only is illogical, but it serves no purpose except for making people feel worse and ashamed. You can argue that guilt is a good motivator and I agree. However, guilt is not the same as shame which is what is really occurring here. Guilt is feeling bad about something you have done whereas shame is feeling bad about who you are. Feeling bad about something you never chose to be born with and have little control over such as the color of your skin is simply unhelpful.
It would be far more constructive if we started focusing on what a person does with (or without) their privilege rather than the privilege itself. We can't control the things we are born with but we can control how we use those things
