Privilege

[Sabre]

First, something hillarious and kind of related. Language Warning

http://www.journalfen.net/community/otf_wank/81039.html

I came across this and other things when I heard of Hetrophobia. Hillarious it may be but this also brings up the thing under discussion. The idea of privilege. I won't bother with the easy debunked argument that blacks can't be racist or any of that.

The idea of privilege is not so easily dispelled however, the idea that whites, males, 18-30, straights, or any combination thereof, have a social advantage. Thoughts?

[Mr. Krystal]

Social advantage? If you mean society will treat them a certain way versus how they treat other groups, yes, and it varies by the society and groups you're talking about. If you mean ACTUAL scientifically verifiable advantages, there is good evidence that some groups, races, genetic sets, etc have various advantages and disadvantages in some things (resistance to certain diseases, heat tolerance). However, there are always exceptions to this, and often the advantage/disadvantage is so slight, it would be far overpowered by things that are choice-based, such as public behavior, quality of education, and who they choose to associate with.

I recall one study where they had a group of people come in, divided into whites and blacks. They split them up into four groups, two of blacks, two of whites. They told the first white group and black groups that they would be participating in a study that gauges intelligence, while they told the second white and black groups that they would be participating in a study that gauges skill at sports.

All four groups were basically asked to putt a golf ball into a hole from various distances. The white people who thought it was an intelligence test did well, while the black people who thought it was an intelligence test did poorly. However, for those groups that thought it was a sports skills test, the results reversed. So it seems, social stereotypes affect even the individuals the stereotype is about.