Dr. Watson said:
aggiegamecock said:
White privilege - the new original sin.
It exists. I'm not suggesting punishing anyone for its existence, but it's dumb to ignore it because you don't like it.
Vance talks about this in the book, from both aspects. If you are a socioeconomically disadvantaged white person from a community where the vast majority of people are white (not at all uncommon in New England, the Rust Belt, and the Upper Midwest), your "white privilege" is more theoretical than real, and the assertion that it exists is an object of confusion and frustration to people in those communities.
It doesn't change the fact that if you send a white male "hillbilly" to Yale Law and dress him in a suit, there are favorable assumptions about him on the basis of his appearance that he gets from law enforcement, potential employers, and society as a whole, that are not granted to a black person. Having pulled himself out of poverty, he gets to enjoy the advantages our society grants to people with his skin tone.
What "coastal elites" don't seem to get is that white privilege is not particularly helpful at all when it comes to escaping poverty in the first place.
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