“you’re white”
“you’re male”
“you’re privileged”
“you’re part of the problem”
“you won’t admit to being part of the problem”
just who has been making “many accusations”?
Aren’t you white?
Aren’t you male?
If yes to either (or both!) then yes you’re privileged. As am I. As are a significant percentage of people here.
I wouldn’t even really have a problem if you left it at, “You receive certain benefits for being white or a man,” whatever those benefits are, but to just say that “you’re privileged” completely disregards his entire life experience, which you’re supposedly all about listening to. You don’t know if the person you’re talking to is an orphan, is bankrupt, has AIDS, is mentally ill, got laid off, is a drug addict, has a terminally ill spouse or child etc. etc. I’d say that those things, to name a few, would definitely mean that someone is not privileged, even if they are white or male. If you just assume that someone’s privileged based on their race, gender, and nothing else, then you’re likely to piss people off.
Just because you’re privileged doesn’t mean you’ve got a good life. It simply means that you have certain advantages by being a white straight male etc whatever.
A black man and a white man can both have AIDS but the black man is more likely to get attention from police for doing nothing. There’s the privilege. The white man can still die in the gutter the next day. Hell, the white man can still be hassled by the police for doing nothing. But it’s more likely to happen to the black man because he’s not white.
So yeah, when I think of “privilege” I’m just thinking of someone getting benefits because of how they were born. You guys shouldn’t take it so personally, because most of us are privileged in some way.