Society and Politics

Priveledge

Ok well to start off Whites don't inherently have priveledges, nor do any other groups including Latinos, Muslims, Atheists, Conservatives, or even *gasp* Christians
However, due to certain events and mindsets throughout history, there is a lasting impact on their current material condition when seen as a whole, relative to each other. For example, white are generally better off than blacks since a they are more likely to have higher wages, better housing, and a much higher likelihood of being accepted for a job. The reasons for this are that systems such as slavery and it's successors in Jim Crow and the Ghettoization of Blacks, along with the Industrial Prison Complex, have lead to a lower overall standard of living for blacks and have fed biases against them and reduced their likelihood of success in improving their lives.

While this may be true, it certainly is no justification for claiming that all whites have priveledge or that all minorities are oppressed. There is and under Capitalism will always be people - regardless of race, gender, or religion - that will be impoverished, unemployed, and oppressed. The reason for this is that unemployment is necessary in a Capitalist system, it allows the bourgeois to pit workers against each other and to justify lower wages.

Put simply (as I plan on doing a chapter specifically on this), the more unemployment there is, the easier it is for a Capitalist to deny workers benefits or higher wage since it becomes simple to just replace them with more desperate people willing to accept the poor conditions.
So as long as there are people unemployed and desperate for work, the bourgeois have a much easier time both convincing workers that they are indeed priveledged to work (albeit for low wages and poor benefits) and those who do stand up or unionize can simply be replaced by the desperate and impoverished unemployed.

There is only one thing that determines priveledge and that is class, something currently determined by money, so as anyone will tell you: the more money you have, the easier your life will be.
And looking at statistics it is easy to see where the money is, in the United States you're looking at about 20% of the population controlling 85% of the wealth, with the top 1% controlling about 35%. That's right in the  land of opportunity 80% of the population, shares 15% of the wealth. Simply put, check your priveledges and then everyone else's, a suburban house and urban apartment seem much more similar when contrasted with a multimillion dollar mansion.

//information taken from Inequality.org