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”).
Ronald Reagan’s poor working class family, working his way through small college(Eureka College) worked several menial jobs until success vs. Barrack H Obama’s 1% Banker’s family(lived with granny who was a banker)got “entitlement” scholarships to Ivy League and only job was “community organizer”
Check “your privilege”
We have no privileges.
We have rights.
They can kiss my abolitionist d1#k before I kick them in their hairless lazy a$$e$.
I guess yellow privilege is why Asian Americans didn’t need to be treated like cripples,charity cases, and riders of the short bus line for the last 4 generations (since 1964).
But, what the heck do I know?
That's not the way it works.
Racial differences are "social constructs" when it comes to the stereotypically bad traits of non-whites. When it comes to the White Devil and his alleged heritage of war and oppression (because no other race has ever waged war or oppressed/enslaved another human being), they are irredeemable genetic traits.
Similarly, when IQ tests reveal poor performance in the inner city or in the barrio, they are declared worthless, culturally biased, and arbitrary. When the same IQ test reveals low performance among poor whites, IQ becomes relevant again as a clear indicator of genetic inferiority.
A good response to some leftist who tells you to “check your privilege”, is to say, “My privilege is working fine, just like my gun and my penis. They’re kind of a set. Are any of yours working?”
Mass murder and genocide is their heritage, their elders being Mao, Stalin, and Pohl Pott.
Mark
Add “my mind” to that list.
Yet somehow it's not selfish to want money that others have earned. And it's not selfish to want affirmative action because it benefits your race. Nor is it selfish to want amnesty because most of the illegals are the same race as you.
Since whites/males/conservatives/straights/Christians/gun owners/TEA partiers/homeschoolers, etc., etc. are going to be called names, anyway, no matter what we do, we might as well be just as selfish and racist as they accuse us of being. When they tell us to check our privilege, we ought to say, "We can't help it we're superior to you! Check your jealousy." Mean? Sure...but they drove us to it. Why continue groveling when it gets us nothing but hate and discrimination in return?
Exxxxxxelent point
BTTT
That's it exactly. The Left likes to think that only the Right's beliefs are merely fronts for self-interest. And yet all of the Left's "social justice" beliefs benefit someone, and you can bet your sweet bippy that the majority of the people who advocate "justice" are people who think they will personally benefit from it.
Only white privilege I’ve seen en masse recently is a group of people that screamed about the 1%, railed about Wall Street, and elected a bunch of people that did not have to defend giving the 1% a pile of taxpayer money.
Since it was mostly other people’s money, I wish they did not have that “privilege”.
Dk
People with unearned wealth are usually the ones who feel guilty and defensive about it in equal proportions. So they take it out by attacking the wealth (often the earned wealth) of others as a diversion. The same is true of people who have advanced through affirmative action and other racial set-asides.
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