Well, I've found privilige a useful concept for my own understanding, so nerr :P
That said, I think I get where you're coming from. I think there is a conflation of "in an advantaged position for societal reasons beyond your control, which gives you certain responsibilities and cognitive blind spots" and "morally bad oppressor". The ambiguity of the term "racist" annoys me: either it means society wide predjudices everyone engages in, or it means particular examples of damnable individual behaviour, but I don't think it can mean both at the same time. And perhaps these concepts could be better explained and dealt with with different terminology.
That said, people *do* get defensive for no reason about this stuff, and I get that feeling that if you're a victim of racism then once you've seen it enough times it's hard to give the next defensive person the benefit of the doubt. See for example this post: http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/429092.html
I'm sure there's some psychological theory about people getting into denial about any fact which reflects badly on them or whatever.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
That said, I think I get where you're coming from. I think there is a conflation of "in an advantaged position for societal reasons beyond your control, which gives you certain responsibilities and cognitive blind spots" and "morally bad oppressor". The ambiguity of the term "racist" annoys me: either it means society wide predjudices everyone engages in, or it means particular examples of damnable individual behaviour, but I don't think it can mean both at the same time. And perhaps these concepts could be better explained and dealt with with different terminology.
That said, people *do* get defensive for no reason about this stuff, and I get that feeling that if you're a victim of racism then once you've seen it enough times it's hard to give the next defensive person the benefit of the doubt. See for example this post: http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/429092.html
I'm sure there's some psychological theory about people getting into denial about any fact which reflects badly on them or whatever.