huh? What's offensive? The word spoonfeed? The suggestion that DR's indignation was fake? Or that the whole discussion of weighing supposed privilege due to physical traits is unhealthy?

" This often carries over to the workplace, where if the management of a company consists entirely of men, those men will tend to assume that skilled women are not actually skilled, or that they are less skilled than their male counterparts. As a result, those women are given less challenging assignments at work, and are often overlooked for promotions. When a man at such a company is told to check his privilege, this is what that's referring to."

Thank you for the explanation for this check-your-privilege thing. I agree with your statement of the problem, but I'm very cautious about the cure. We sabotage ourselves if we focus on one shortcoming in our life: i.e. some physical disfigurement, having an abusive parent, being born poor, race, sex, a bogus ding on our professional license, having a baby at a young age, having a baby at an older age, etc" Those things really can have an unfair impact on your life. But focusing on them leads nowhere. If people are trying not to be racist, demanding people recognize their subconscious feelings of privilege isn't helpful for anyone. It actually might make the problem worse, even if all parties are trying act in good conscience. We waste so much time thinking about these things.

I know a female engineer who dark skinned and homosexual. When I first met her I was kind of overwhelmed in my own stereotypes. Very soon, however, I wasn't even thinking about these identity politics. There was a little bit of unfairness, though, in my thought process at the very beginning. There could have been similar unfairness toward someone born rich, who I might imagine got this far on their wealth rather than merit. Eventually you work with someone and past that nonsense. I am VERY cautious about intentionally focusing on what I disparagingly call "identity politics."

see? this is why you lose points.

it is not inherently racist. the problem is: we should be a free country. borders should not matter. but they do and there is welfare. as far as I am concerned it's racist that I don't receive welfare benes

Why would he connect being white, the holocaust and making a life in America? The comment and picture about having gated communities was powerful.

yea, well, your sexism aside, millions of dark skinned asians and indians have also come to this country with bias and succeeded. so that dark claim is bogus. value for value. wear a victim note on your sleeve and let's watch you falsely prosper

Yes. The phrase "stop being a dumba$$" is as meaningful as "check your privilege". We're giving it too much thought.

I struggle to understand what this means. Can you spoonfeed it to me?

BTW, my reading is Toure was saying DR's grandparents benefitted from "white privileged" once they arrived in the US. DR responded with a display of fake indignation that anyone would suggest a holocaust survivor ever benefited from any privilege.

This is as unhealthful as me speculating if I could have won a project if I were taller.

What?? Can we just stop with all this privilege crapola and stick to content of character? Nothing else matters.

It seems to me he's saying white privilege helped the concentration camp survivor become successful in the US. He is not saying that privilege helped families survive the holocaust.

I suspect there is truth to what he's saying. If the same people had arrived with dark skin, it might have made it even harder to succeed. It's really pointless, IMHO, though to focus on this. It's counterproductive to focus on some difficulty you can't do anything about.

An example I think of is my sexism. If I call a vendor and ask to speak to an engineer and I get a woman, I immediately suspect they put me through to someone not knowledgeable about electronics. This is VERY wrong. But once I realize the person is knowledgeable, I never think of it again. It's unfair that people have to overcome that with me. I try not to do it. it would be very counterproductive for people to focus how cheated they feel by my stupid sexist reaction. Focus on things you can fix. Most people don't mean to be sexist or racist and those who do it on purpose would be mean to you for some other reason.