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Not nearly so tiresome as people assuming white=privileged. Being white doesn't mean you know what every white person experiences.
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> how SBF's (perceived) status as a white male impacted his trajectory. I don't think it's bait, when it's the thrust of the essay. It's provocative and dishonest for him to not once acknowledge SBF's privileged circumstances or well-connected family, something which directly aided in his success and that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to replicate. The post is generally well-written and makes some sali…
What? The article talks specifically about his upper-crust background and his professor parents. You're the one laser-focused on race here. You got triggered by the headline, and you missed the forest for the trees.
It vaguely alludes to his parents being upper-class Stanford law professors. It does not specifically talk about SBF's father being an influential law professor and scholar[0], SBF's mother leading a powerful democratic PAC[1], SBF's brother having worked on Capitol Hill and the "Democratic Party-aligned consulting firm Civis Analytics"[2][3] — let alone Caroline Ellison's alleged family connections. I am not insinuating that there's a grand conspiracy theory — this should all be taken with a grain of salt — my point is that SBF's unique personal circumstances gave him access to capital and connections in government and industry that were pivotal to his success.
It would be like saying that the disgraced "DreamWorld" project was able to scam thousands of people and receive funding from Y Combinator because the founder was an upper-class white male; there's obviously a grain of truth in that statement, but it's a dishonest portrayal of events because it does not mention that his co-founder was friends with someone at Y Combinator and that perceived endorsement was what lead so many people to trust the project.
[0] https://twitter.com/JagoeCapital/status/1590805884556673024/...
[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/6/21046631/mind-the-gap-si...
[3] https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/guarding-against-p...
> You're the one laser-focused on race here. You got triggered by the headline, and you missed the forest for the trees.
I did not get "triggered by the headline", I read the entire article and pointed out that it fails to acknowledge SBF's personal privilege and family connections because the author was dead-set on writing an article about race and needed an archetype — he literally admits to this in the article.
) I have been itching to write this essay for some time, but lacked a foil and context to make it relevant to my readers.
As I've said in another comment it's a worthwhile read, but his explanation of why SBF was able to dupe so many people falls a bit flat.
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Let me try to bridge the gap as someone who used to find it offensive but no longer does. When people complain about "whiteness", they're talking about the social construct of the racial majority in the US and how this prevents certain disadvantages from being conferred on the individual based on that individual's race. The lack of race-based disadvantage is labelled "privilege". It's a shame that such divisive terms…
> The lack of race-based disadvantage is labelled "privilege" For some reason we seem to be changing the meaning of words lately. It's troubling to me. We already have a word for lack-of-disadvantage. It's called advantage. Privilege is a loaded word, it implies "unearned" advantage, this word is chosen for it's negative connotations. Accusing people of unearned advantages is inflammatory does nothing to address the…
So while I partly agree with your point here (although with less cynicism), that doesn't detract from the case that there are large societal consequences to having a social construct of a racial majority, which is divisively and unfortunately labelled "whiteness" in the US. You shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater in your criticism.
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Let me try to bridge the gap as someone who used to find it offensive but no longer does. When people complain about "whiteness", they're talking about the social construct of the racial majority in the US and how this prevents certain disadvantages from being conferred on the individual based on that individual's race. The lack of race-based disadvantage is labelled "privilege". It's a shame that such divisive terms…
> There is undeniably an advantage (privilege) to bring a Turk in Turkey and not a Kurd. Certainly. And there was undeniably an advantage to being white in America fifty years ago (and even twenty, probably). But we now live in a nation where the stated policy of many institutions is to favor non-whites. And in California, non-Hispanic whites aren't even the largest ethnic group. The assumption that white people have…
Nobody would argue with this. What they would say is one of the contributing reasons he was wealthy and well-connected is because he was accepted as a member of the racial majority. Which is certainly partly true. Just because there are no laws that are directly de jure racist, doesn't mean there isn't systemic racism (which is partly cultural, not only legal) that reduces the statistical probability of success of people who aren't in the majority group.
> as we see in this article, being white is cause for opposition.
This is a stretch. My understanding of the article is that it's a cause for explanation. What we go and do with that explanation is up for discussion.
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Not nearly so tiresome as people assuming white=privileged. Being white doesn't mean you know what every white person experiences.
Oh, please, do go on about how disadvantaged you are, subjected to assumptions and bias in every aspect of your public and working life, as you navigate your path through this white-dominated culture. [rolls eyes]
And you're just trolling with that "[rolls eyes]". Take that nonsense to Twitter.
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Oh, please, do go on about how disadvantaged you are, subjected to assumptions and bias in every aspect of your public and working life, as you navigate your path through this white-dominated culture. [rolls eyes]
Where I grew up wasn't white dominated. Once again you foolishly assume you know what every white person experiences, and exhibit the very assumptions and bias you scoff at. And you're just trolling with that "[rolls eyes]". Take that nonsense to Twitter.
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Oh, please, do go on about how disadvantaged you are, subjected to assumptions and bias in every aspect of your public and working life, as you navigate your path through this white-dominated culture. [rolls eyes]
Where I grew up wasn't white dominated. Once again you foolishly assume you know what every white person experiences, and exhibit the very assumptions and bias you scoff at. And you're just trolling with that "[rolls eyes]". Take that nonsense to Twitter.
That discussion is about the notion that because a trans woman doesn’t breast feed their child, the act must be called something other than “breastfeeding.” Or something like that. The notion is that doing so is “erasure” of the population of trans women with hungry babies.
Because you are the rare exception to the rule that white people in America are, in fact, exceptionally advantaged in our culture and society, no one must state that white = privileged. Because it’s “erasure.”
Gotcha. Well, I acknowledge that you feel you were disadvantaged by comparison to your neighbours as a child, and co-workers and employers as an adult. I would have hoped you and your minority friends all had the same opportunities, at least relative to ability.
You can see what HN thinks of the erasure argument here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33674562
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Where I grew up wasn't white dominated. Once again you foolishly assume you know what every white person experiences, and exhibit the very assumptions and bias you scoff at. And you're just trolling with that "[rolls eyes]". Take that nonsense to Twitter.
Oh, so it’s the language argument HN just had in the “The Erasure of Women From Online Pregnancy Literature” thread. That discussion is about the notion that because a trans woman doesn’t breast feed their child, the act must be called something other than “breastfeeding.” Or something like that. The notion is that doing so is “erasure” of the population of trans women with hungry babies. Because you are the rare exc…
The concept of privilege is often linked with attempts to correct for privilege by giving advantages to underprivileged people (which is equivalent to giving a disadvantage to those labelled privileged).
And when someone does that, but incorrectly classifies underprivileged people as privileged, they end up giving disadvantages to underprivileged people.
So when someone assumes all white people are privileged, they're facilitating discrimination against people who are white, but nonetheless underprivileged (for a variety of other reasons).
You say "I would have hoped you and your minority friends all had the same opportunities, at least relative to ability" but you must realize that isn't the case. Surely you've heard that most universities admit black and Hispanic students with significantly lower qualifications than white students (even if the students lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same schools). Surely you've seen employment applications that ask what race you are, but not what class you are, when seeking to increase "diversity".