“Telling someone to ‘check their privilege’ can be a means to discredit different opinions merely because people who express them belong to a certain racial category”

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“White privilege” is too broad a term. It lumps a white Walmart employee with a white Walmart executive. What kind of “privilege” does a struggling white working-class single mom with children possess vis-à-vis the economic and political elites? What “privilege” is she supposed to surrender? Is her status closer to that of her white boss or her black co-workers? The answer is obvious.

The term also limits debate. Telling someone to “check their privilege” can be a means to discredit different opinions merely because people who express them belong to a certain racial category. Ideas should be examined on their own merits.

Bennett Muraskin, “Against the Phrase, ‘White Privilege’”, Jewish Currents (23 July 2016) [http://jewishcurrents.org/against-the-phrase-white-privilege-42685]

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