That’s exactly the point. “Race” privilege, defined by progressives isn’t just about race, but also involves an infinite number of other variables, notably class, affluence, education, motivation, discipline, work ethic, physical ability, family influence, and the list goes on and on.

The left usually discusses marginalization and oppression almost exclusively through a racial or class lens, never through a broader human lens.

@GeeMac I agree that there are many kinds of privilege. There may even be an infinite number since we seem to be able to make them up as we go along. But the types based on race have a fundamental difference from most of the others.
The difference is that most all the other variables (as you call them) can be changed, altered, adjusted and overcome with some amount of ambition, hard work, determination, and a fat dose of good luck. I do not mean to say it is easy. Some are in fact quite difficult and the odds are stacked against you by "them" (the privileged) and even by "us". By "us" I mean the people whos class you come from. The ones similarly privileged (or not) as you are. After all, many or most of "us" are also competing with you.
The one thing you can not change is your race. You can change your name, accent, language, clothes, address, education, job, religion... whatever. You can not change the color of your skin.

@Void My OP suggests the woke idea that oppression and powerlessness have a disproportionate impact on select identity groups is both false and dangerous. Granted some groups do suffer more, but race is just one — and not necessarily the greatest one — of a vast multitude of factors.

I agree no one can change race, but neither can one change a physical deformity, a mental illness, a physical disability, a severe cognitive defect, being LGBT, getting older...the list goes on and on.

American royalty like Obama, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kobe, Oprah, Ali and countless others certainly “overcame” the barriers of skin colour. And regardless of any barrier — according to the famous Brookings Institute study — finishing high school, having a full time job (even entry level) and avoiding having children before marriage is the best way to escape the grinding poverty, which leads to much of the misery commonly — and mistakenly— blamed on race.

The longer we continue with the relentless woke message that race is the root cause of everything that goes wrong, the greater the problem will grow. We need to stop telling kids that the world hates them and they can never succeed.

I have zero confidence that will happen any time soon, because the culture has been so racialized by destructive woke thinking, which in America has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

@GeeMac I don't have much time to respond right now (Thanksgiving and whatnot) but... to be quite honest I had to look up what "woke" means in the context of politics and race. Speaking for myself the simplest solution to the problem seems to me to be to simply ignore it. These things come and go and the MSM seems to get worked up about them a couple times a decade and in the end it makes little difference. The current unrest will eventually calm down.

@Void Happy Thanksgiving! The best cure for being woke is eating lots of turkey.

Yes, it does, but I won't be watching it on Netflix.

@KeithThroop good thinking.

If it sounds like a straw man argument, I’d agree it’s from the woke left, yes.

According to most progressive thinking — Robin DiAngelo is the current flavour of the month — whites are racist and enjoy privilege whether they consciously know it or not. Progressive terms like white privilege, white supremacy or toxic masculinity do indeed falsely focus human issues on specific demographics.

@GeeMac Do you really think the "woke" consider dirt poor people to have lots of privilege?

Do you have a quote from someone "woke" like this DiAngelo to back that up?

@bastion you are rational and logical in seeing the distinction between the relative privilege of “dirt poor” whites and more fortunate people. The problem with DiAngelo — and many progressives — is that they don’t make that distinction and they generalize instead. DiAngelo talks about “white privilege”, the “white worldview”, the “white voice”, the “white lens”.

If the woke actually admitted that dirt poor whites don’t have privilege, they’d also be forced to admit that what they call “race privilege” is often more related to, for instance, level of affluence, rather than tone of skin colour. In fact to constantly focus on a concept like privilege only in terms of race is ridiculous, because a seemingly infinite number of other interacting variables is at play in any given situation.

DiAngelo is making a fortune running re-education sessions telling people they are unconscious of their own racism. It’s a completely unfalsifiable and ridiculous proposition.

@GeeMac Do you have a quote of her saying something that backs this up?

@bastion what specifically are you doubting?

Nothing that I’m saying is new. “White Fragility” has been out for two years and DiAngelo appears in tons of YouTube videos.

@GeeMac I'm doubting Di Angelo (or any "woke" person) would say that dirt poor people with appalling standards of living have a high level of privilege.

A quote or two saying this or similar would be good.

@bastion thanks for clarifying. I would also doubt DiAngelo believes “dirt poor people...have a high level of privilege”. That’s silly and absurd. Which is exactly why using broad terms like “white privilege” make no sense.

There is no “white privilege” precisely because of the case you cite.

That’s the point of my original post: Hillybilly Elegy questions the woke dogma of “White privilege” by showing that whites can also subsist in profound poverty, appalling conditions and powerlessness. Misery is not exclusive to any identity group.