Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It's true that there are some people out there who say stupid stuff, but isn't this a little like saying there's no point in talking about music because some people like Vanilla Ice. Why get hung up on the stupid stuff that some people are saying?

Privilege is mostly Vanilla Ice.

Rather than define disadvantage as the baseline, which allows one to view people like me as "privileged," isn't the actual reality one in which my situation is (or should be) the norm, and the circumstances of those discriminated against an abnormality? Isn't it really a situation in which white, cis males are treated in an "average" manner, and people discriminated against for color, sex, or sexuality "unfairly disadvantaged"?

I'm not privileged so much as treated the way everyone ought to be treated. Instead of focusing on guys like me (possibly the least relevant humans in these debates) who are being treated in utterly average ways, isn't the proper focus placed on people who are being treated unfairly? People who are treated in a fashion below the baseline standard at which we should all be treated?

I'm going to tell you you're being frivolous if you tell me to check my privilege. But if you tell me other people are being unjustly treated below the standard at which we all ought to be treated, you've got my ear. You can appeal to a person's sense of disgust at others being treated horribly. That brings people to action. You won't be getting many ears trying to guilt someone about his luck of birth.

ETA: Stated more simply, isn't the better lens for this, "We need to even the playing field by brining everyone who is below to parity with everyone else" rather than saying, "Hey, you need to recognize that you're lucky." The former is compelling. The latter, I'm sorry, cannot be said without implying some form of guilt or ill-gotten advantage.