Posted on 05/26/2014 8:39:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
Before you read and critique this article, you need to “check your privilege” - the left’s latest phrase to silence free speech from conservatives, a silly sounding but totalitarian new phrase. The reasoning behind the phrase goes like this: if someone is conservative, they must have turned out conservative because they were given advantages in society, likely related to their birth, and they now want to protect those alleged advantages. Since white males tend to be more conservative than other demographics, it follows that white males must be privileged. Their conservative views are motivated by an innate, self-protective selfishness.
As typical, instead of debating conservatives on the merits, the left is responding with an attempt to silence conservatives using a ridiculous response. This type of argument is flawed because it essentially reduces people to their physical characteristics. The left claims that the phrase is directed mostly at white men, in order to fool people and gain sympathy, but the phrase actually developed out of hate and is being used to target all conservatives. It’s meant to make the recipient feel guilty for being white or not gay or something else not closely associated with left wing views. Unbelievably, MSNBC co-host Krystal Ball asserts that the failure by these supposedly privileged people to acknowledge the sins of past generations of Americans - to whom they’re probably not even related - is considered offensive to others.
Conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter says the phrase reflects simply what normal people refer to as “success.” He says what the left considers privilege, is simply “a result of not being a human sloth, of not doing drugs, of not having kids we can’t afford them...doing more with our lives than waiting for Uncle Sucker to refill our EBT cards.” The phrase is not really about privilege, but a reflection of anger and jealousy.
What about the poor white kid who grew up in a predominantly minority school, where he was picked on because he was white? Is he supposed to check his privilege? What about the handicapped white person, who perhaps has lived their entire life in a wheelchair or blind? Is a white person whose ancestors never owned slaves more privileged than a black person’s ancestors who owned slaves? One white Princeton student who has had others tell him to check his privilege multiple times, wonders how he’s privileged considering many of his relatives died in the Holocaust. Incredulously, after he spoke out, Gawker and Newsweek actually launched investigations to see how he was funded and published.
Most of the leftists hurling this phrase around are white well-off hippies and Occupy Wall Street types attending Ivy League universities. The irony of them saying this to a blue-collar white male whose family has never made it to college is priceless. Buzzfeed created a “How privileged are you?” quiz - but a white male from a poor upbringing can easily score less privileged than a gay minority female.
The reality is, a lack of advantages growing up can actually motivate people to do better in life, as Malcolm Gladwell reveals in his book, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Battling Giants.” Some of the most disadvantaged people have become some of the most successful people, as a result of being forced to rise beyond their upbringing. Contrast this with the downward spiral of most glamorous, famous Hollywood child stars.
Another attempt to squelch conservative free speech is the so-called “trigger warnings.” Trigger warnings mostly come down to this: If someone might find something offensive - such as something judgmental about their lifestyle in a well-respected book from classical literature - they need to be forewarned about it, in order to not have to confront the offending words. Now, warning veterans with PTSD about a graphic combat scene in a novel might be legitimate, but the exercise has been stretched to shut out conservative viewpoints and literature, especially in academia.
This silly “privilege” put-down phrase is so rude the possible responses to it are endless. Schlichter said he’s checked his privilege, and it’s doing just fine. Perhaps tell the politically correct person to read Gladwell’s David and Goliath book. Or, tell them to check one of these: their totalitarian mindset, the First Amendment, their inferiority complex, dirty rotten attitude, jealousy, envy, manners, intelligence, racist attitude, mental illness, commie credentials, embarrassing attitude, or wussiness.
The truth is, the left prefers low-achieving people because they can control them as “useful idiots.” The left would rather keep minorities working at fast food restaurants for inflated wages because that ensures they are less educated and more likely to vote for them. The left loves to use emotionally-laden rhetoric to win people over, since the facts aren’t on their side. But this phrase was poorly chosen, and within a short period of time, if conservatives make fun of it enough, it will disappear just like many of the left’s former rallying calls, from “global warming” (now “climate change”) to homophobia (now “hate crime”) to the Equal Rights Amendment (now “War on Women”) to even their self-description which used to be “the left” (now “progressives”).
The left can kiss my *ss.
The more totalitarian they become, the bigger my mouth's gonna get.
Check your professional-victim status.
So preferential hiring practices, college entrance, loans, etc. etc. don’t make a race the favored group?
None of those applies to whites.
As a white who was turned down for a job in the past specifically because of my race I can tell you whites are far more likely to be victims of racism these days.
Right...the Morally Superior Judges, wagging their greasy fingers at everyone else.
Don’t say things we don’t approve of, or we’ll have the Negro from Barbados investigate you.
Hilarious that they’re recycling the White Privilege meme 40 years later.
It’s all they have left to explain continued Black failure in society. It can’t be lack of spending, affirmative action, social promotion, busing, sitting next to whites in school (the osmosis theory, I guess)...they tried all that.
So it must be Whitey. He gots dem pribileges, dat’s how he be winnin’!
Yeah, that’s it! We figured it out!
Now hand over the cash, Casper.
Mine too
I suggest substituting, "accomplished" as a descriptive term for people who have succeeded and who, as a result, have justly received the wages of success. There is nothing inherently "privileged" about someone who has earned a great deal of money. Indeed, there is nothing "privileged" about inheriting a great deal of money, that person is simply the beneficiary of someone else's accomplishment. The ability to bequeath wealth is an incentive to create wealth and therefore enriches everyone in a just society.
If we don't like to substitute "accomplished" we can say "virtuous." but substitute something we should.
The Left will never, ever stop. They are an inferior sort, lacking character, hollow, envious, not bright, they mouth phrases they barely and rarely comprehend. They are a vacuum, non-sentient, unaware, a black hole of unfulfilled and unfulfillable fantasies.
They make me yawn frankly. I have never heard anything provocative (as in gee, I never thought of that) spew out of their ill-read, ill-educated, mouths.
I pity them. Stupidity cannot be overcome. The ones that manage a triple diget IQ, well, they have no excuse do they?
The most banal, sophomoric, pointless discussion of any topic will always occur with a Leftist. There is more actual mental computing power in a dessicated dead fly on the window sill than you will ever find in a Liberal.
I think was that harsh don’t you? I don’t care. I really don’t. The truth really does hurt.
Check your I.Q., your punching weight and your testicles and get back to me.
Let's hope the Left continues to think the white race is a social construct. If they ever come to believe it actually exists they will advocate its extermination (though I'm sure wealthy liberal whites will not be touched).
So called “White privilege” would effectively and retroactively support the mainstream media’s bias. Excuse me that’s an understatement...”white privilege” raises mainstream media’s bias to leftist piety.
The bottom line... Nobody is watching the mainstream media any more. And... The Democrats are going to get pummeled in the coming November elections. Do they want to confront that reality or self righteously taught their personal acknowledgement of “white privilege”.
These people have enormous egos that should not be underestimated and they have had those egos stroked for years -making them downright nasty people.
They are attempting to use the principle of “constructive trust”, but to suit their own ends...as always, the ends justify the means.
Now, let’s look at all the contributions that these “PRIVILEDGED” class have given the world. From Aristotle to the present. Everything we now use have come from the minds of these “PRIVILEDGED” classes of people, that these very ignorant people are lambasting. Yep, all of these things that we now use, on a daily basis, have come from the minds of these “PRIVILEDGED” white males. Had it not been for these “PRIVILEDGED” white males, we’d still be living in caves and eating our food raw.
Who are those three privileged white males in the picture?
Isn’t the one on the left Pajama Boy?
Check your premises.
Or “deserving”.
I agree with you, to even engage them in the argument is to accept their premise which means you’ve lost the argument.
Perhaps the proper answer would be “f**k you”
Pure unadulterated Marxism: there is no truth only class interest.
Just like they are doing to guns, lets get their camera makers, computer manufactures, SD cards hold way to much info(limit them to 10kb), etc to be sued for to fast of video, or to long/powerful lenses, etc. The list can be long! lol
Just like the alleged Benghazi youtube video, they need to sue youtube, the camera makers, the editors, memory card makers, computer man., etc. The list is infinite!
Yes, isn’t it strange that millions of people try legally and illegally to get into a country where non-white/males are treated so horribly? We live in a country where a poor black girl named Oprah Winfrey became a billionaire three times over. I guess all that white male privilege prevented her from getting that fourth billion. (smirk)
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