I don't think I equated the kinds of experiences you just recounted with being called a white privilege denier or racist. Being called a racist does absolutely nothing to me in particular, although it is mildly annoying. — ToothyMaw

Well it can be more detrimental than that, in some contexts.


No one really believes that disabled people are evil, but every Bond film has a disabled, deformed or scarred villain. Now the effect of this sort of thing, as has been pointed out, is to undermine solidarity -

We inherit the world, and become responsible for it, such that we need to deal with the stuff we are not to blame for, or become blameworthy for it. It's not enough to say - I don't make the Bond movies - children watch them. And children grow up and make Bond movies - unless they are disabled.

The thing is that racism is not particularly verbal nor particularly a belief and certainly not reasoned. It is more like an unconscious habit that children pick up from parents neighbours and the media. It is constantly reinforced and yet invisible. One cannot blame kindergarten children for their racism. But nevertheless, one cannot reasonably deny its existence.

And the Negro's name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game. — Bob Dylan

The nature of pawns is that they live in a very small world of their immediate interests through which they are manipulated by players with larger interests. And most are persuaded that the only escape from being a pawn is to reach the end of the board and be transformed into a major piece. It is unheard of for a pawn to become a player - that is not part of the game at all.

At which point I go back to the simple question of how talk of the difficulties that face white people trying to engage in serious discussion actually functions in the discussion? The poor white remains only a pawn, and incapable of solidarity, and Medgar Evers remains dead, and that is the asymmetry. It would be much easier if black people ...