Comment by MaximumYComb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MaximumYComb | Hacker News Reader

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That video reflects purely on skin colour and I feel that can be harmful. My skin is white but I'm descendant from the Australian Stolen Generation (google it if you want to see more). I was raised in a poor country town and I literally joined the military to escape that life. Compare that to the experience of this Youtuber. He was a golfer at 10 years of age... I don't even know how you could ask parents to spend that sort of money on you at that age. His story screams privilege (professional ultimate frisbee for one). I make decent money now since I used the military for a CS education but when I go shopping I choose to go to the low socioeconomic area. I don't fit in culturally at the upper middle class shopping centers. I don't dress the same, talk the same, hold the same values, etc. Not feeling like you don't fit in isn't just linked to race.

That being said, poor black African Americans (and Aboriginal Australians) have horrible life outcomes, far worse than any I could expect. Second generation black immigrants from Nigeria and Ethopia have better life outcomes than the general US population so it's not just about skin colour. I feel that there is a whole host of intergenerational related issues impacting the African American community. In addition, I feel that mainstream culture is quite hostile to African American culture.

You are accurately identifying that he uses his identity to hide his class in order to increase his profits. This is what modern corporate diversity initiatives are in a nutshell.

The is intersectional analysis and has been a core part of activism for decades. Race is a huge and essential component to systems of oppression in the US but it is not the only component.

But people working on this problem already know this at a deep level. This does not take away from the importance of understanding how race fits into the systems of oppression.

My issue is the way the media talks about "white" and "non-white". Being born white isn't some ticket to a silver spoon, and with so much emphasis on purely race there are negative repercussions.

i.e. I just googled it [1]. The fourth link talks about the relationship between usage of White Privilege and how it impacts peoples view of poor white people. There is so much emphasis on skin colour that the guy in the Youtube video literally won the privilege lottery at birth (compared to ~95% of other Americans) and still feels oppressed enough to make a video about it.

If his video had of been purely about solidarity for the Americans born porn and black I would have supported it since that demographic needs solidarity to help get out of the hole they were born into. Instead, he made it about himself and his rich boy problems.

[1] - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-22926-001

> Being born white isn't some ticket to a silver spoon, and with so much emphasis on purely race there are negative repercussions.

This is also not new information. Again, this is the basis of intersectional analysis. Activists have been talking about this and working on this for decades, yet people use this as some sort of argument that modern analysis is broken. "White Privilege" only means "being born white is a ticket to a silver spoon" to people who haven't been involved in this discussion before.

I'd argue that it's the way the term is being used every day in both the media and social media. The academic term might be different but it's not that definition that's driving discussion.

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