Irish White Privilege......Yeah

AllForIt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122179043#Comment_122179043

And privilege isn't about telling children they are privileged, it's
country might have had a better time of life if schools acknowledged and
encouraged students to understand the social and familial obstacles
that young gay people faced versus young straight people. Having grown
up, and now having heard many of the sad stories of gay friends — I
certainly think I would have benefited from better understanding the
obstacles and challenges they faced that I didn't because I wasn't gay.

I'm calling shenanigans on this. I'm a gay male, have had loads of gay male friends, house shared with them, had many gay acquaintances, and noone has ever told me 'sad stories' or neither do I have any for you to weep over.

If there is any truth to what your saying I think you might tend toward the more melodramatic types, which I can tell you is a bit of a thing in gay culture. Seems to be rubbing off on you as well.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122180753#Comment_122180753

Seriously this has to be a wind up🤣🤣

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122181173#Comment_122181173

You're a gay male and have never heard stories of young gay people being bullied, excluded or made fun of because of their sexuality? You've never heard stories of the stress and difficulty gay people faced in coming out to their parents? You've never heard of any gay person who ever encountered any sad circumstances on the basis of their sexuality? Like it doesn't even have to be bullying, even just being a young person having to hide or suppress a fundamental part of who you are because of shame and stigma is sad to me — or maybe I'm just melodramatic.

Feel free to reject the idea of privilege if you want — but acting as if it's incredulous that many gay people have faced certain sad circumstances on account of their sexuality is a pretty weird take.

susan678

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122181239#Comment_122181239

This thread has nothing to do with sexuality but I will bite.

Being gay or straight does not define a person’s whole life.

People’s sex lives are rightfully private for the most part.

Like I keep saying children are innocent and we as adults should maintain that.

Children should be protected and thought kindness and to treat everyone equally.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122181792#Comment_122181792

OK that's fine but I don't see why you're telling me any of this as I'm not arguing otherwise on any of the points you raise there. . .

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122181859#Comment_122181859

Then don't bring sexuality into the thread then. You are the reason this is being discussed here.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182043#Comment_122182043

I'm entitled to bring up anything that I find in my opinion to be relevant or instructive to the points I wish to make on the existence of privilege. The other reason it's important is because looking at other types of privilege helps to make it clearer that there can be many types of privilege that people can simultaneously benefit and not benefit from — so white privilege doesn't mean that white people can't lack privilege in lots of other ways.

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122181859#Comment_122181859

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182084#Comment_122182084

And that poster was entitled to respond to you.

And mate, relax on the privilege cool aid, life is too short.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182213#Comment_122182213

Not sure where I said they weren’t entitled to respond — I was merely pointing out that the points being made were not in response to any argument I was making.

As for the relax / kool aid sage wisdom, go back through the thread — responses to me have been constantly forcing words into my mouth on shame and guilt, people giving me the “who do you think you are” shtick and assertions about sowing division and corrupting the minds of children. Not sure I’m the one who needs to relax.

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182480#Comment_122182480

You are a zealot. Like all zealots, people push back on you, if you don't like it, don't post on a forum.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182524#Comment_122182524

I'm a zealot? How so? What zealous things have I said and do you have any particular substantive response to them, aside from just calling me stuff?

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182084#Comment_122182084

Count the amount of times you have mentioned privilege in one sentence….and you are proposing that all kids should be made aware of their privilege based on divisive factors like race, sexuality, gender, no doubt you believe that straight white males are the most privileged of all kids and should be reminded of this as much as possible.

You haven't considered what impact this will have on a classroom of kids who normally divide themselves up along lines of common interests like football, comics, games, dolls…you know kids stuff!!

Like I said, you are a zealot and you shouldn't be allowed near kids.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122182897#Comment_122182897

Ah, so I'm the zealot even though you're now descending all the way down to the "you shouldn't be allowed near kids" stuff. Great.

Not only that, you seem to just be shoving opinions into my mouth that I neither hold nor have expressed. I don't think white straight males are the most privileged of all kids — some of the most underprivileged kids in Ireland are white males, regardless of orientation. They may benefit from certain privilege from being male, white, straight etc, but they also lack privilege in lots of different ways, not least by virtue of the much tougher socioeconomic conditions they face. Indeed, in my view, socioeconomic privilege is probably the most significant one in the country.

And you know, for someone who seems to portray themselves as a champion of not dividing people etc, your posts seem to do nothing but summarily dismiss my views and declare me someone who shouldn't be allowed near kids. So maybe you should take a look in the mirror when it comes to divisiveness and try to actually engage respectfully when debating others — ya know — the way we try to promote healthy debate in schools (or does that scare you too?).

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122183083#Comment_122183083

There you go again. I believe kids should be left alone, to be kids. I've no tolerance for people who want to impose their ideology on young minds. You can call me divisive, but it is you that is pushing an ideology on children. Parents are more than capable of navigating the nuances of life with their kids.

The definition of a zealot is - "a person who has very strong opinions about something, and tries to make other people have them too"

So ya, you are a zealot.

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122181859#Comment_122181859

What do you teach your kids about this?

nachouser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122180146#Comment_122180146

It's about someone claiming that privilege is going to be taught in schools based on the word appearing once in an appendix to a document. That's all I'm pointing out. I'll continue to do so. It's a thread based on a lie.

suvigirl

Such a strange thread. Were people not told when they were kids that there were a lot of people in the world that were not as fortunate as they were?

that was completely normal for me, and all my contemporaries. I most certainly was not a privileged person in Ireland, I grew up below ' working class ' but I was always taught by parents, grandparents, teachers and anyone else in authority, that I was privileged, compared to some.

And I was. As are all the children growing up in Ireland today, extremely privileged. We were taught that we were lucky, nothing wrong with teaching kids today that they are lucky.

magicbastarder

that's the weird thing, if i'm to believe many people on this thread (who i suspect are mostly white), society would treat them the same as a black person? i suspect for many people, trying to explain how society treats them is like trying to explain water to a fish.

i had a chuckle when someone (i think helen mcentee) was quoted after the riots in dublin, 'ireland is not a racist country'.

presuming it was she; she'd not be the first person i'd think of asking as to whether ireland is racist.

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122183961#Comment_122183961

Would you look at this….

We are a long way from what you are describing, we were all told we were more fortunate than others in far away countries…

What didn't happen was that the class would be divided up in and told of their different privileges within that classroom…along the lines of skin colour, gender or sexuality.

You are forgetting, many Irish workers have been exposed to "Training" of this nature, so a lot of people know exactly what is being suggested here. I love the way the zealots act like it is all so harmless and virtuous. But I bet you wouldn't put it to the parents to vote on.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122184054#Comment_122184054

Of course the class was divided up! Some people were much more privileged then others, and they were told.

That is just normal common sense, we in Ireland, are much more privileged then lots of other nationalities. I can't see what could possibly be wrong by telling kids that!

Silentcorner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122184074#Comment_122184074

So tell us about your classroom where the kids were divided up along the lines of their gender, skin colour and sexuality?

bloopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122184074#Comment_122184074

Are there classes being divided up according to privilege?

susan678

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122183955#Comment_122183955

What difference does it make how many times it appears the point is it is in the document and that is very disturbing.

This thread is not based on a lie.

The document is for public consumption God knows what these loons will do in private with our children.

bloopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122184074#Comment_122184074

Are there school classes being divided up according to percieved privilege?

If so, where is this happening.

sekiro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173539#Comment_122173539

Haha. Sorry I don't share the same beliefs as you.

And it is just a belief system after all. Some people just seem very determined to push their beliefs on others.

If I see two people heading down the street towards me, a man walking along and a woman in a wheelchair, any judgement I make on their so-called "privilege" is based on personal belief and assumption rather than any factual basis.

It's based entirely on belief and, as we already know about strongly held beliefs, some people obviously can't take it when their beliefs are challenged.

Its very similar to the way that people argue the existence of God. Some religious people will argue basically that something cannot come from nothing as if their argument for God is simply "something must have created all this" and not a pretty extensive set of specific beliefs about God and Jesus and sin and the age of the planet and so on.

So here you might find people who obviously do buy into the belief system of white privilege and male privilege and thin privilege etc trying to act like "well you enjoyed your coffee this morning while some people have no coffee at all so you see privilege exists!"

I stand by my position.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122188247#Comment_122188247

OK but would you not then be able to supplement the belief on more solid ground by actually communicating with the disabled person and the disabled community more widely to understand what they see as the particular barriers they face on account of their disability? That way you can assess it on a broader understanding right?

Sure — I hop on the train sometimes and it strikes me that there are no lifts at some of the stations. I think at Ashtown for example where there is a level crossing, a person unable to use the stairs to cross the flyover footbridge would have to wait for the level crossing to open before they can actually cross to the other platform and would then potentially miss their train. So it strikes me in that situation that there is an existence of privilege for able bodied people. OK, that's just my "belief" but if thinking about privilege helps to make you conscious of it, then surely that assists with society's appreciation for what things could be done to alleviate the situation to some extent. And you can always just actually engage with disabled people to supplement that.

For whatever reason, even this positive outcome from how acknowledging privilege can be beneficial doesn't seem to be acknowledged here. It's all just shot down immediately as some nefarious, dogmatic, religious, zealous plot, with very little attempt being made to actually find the middle ground. And the example I'm using is a much more tangible, easily demonstrable one. I accept that there are less tangible and less easily demonstrated ones, but supplementing the "belief" can come from actually communicating with others and assessing what they have to say.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122188451#Comment_122188451

This is a false equivalence though. The title of the thread is not "is society perfectly equal?". Clearly it's not, and in the case of disabled people, it's not a matter of other commuters becoming conscious of things like the lack of lifts - because frankly that "consciousness" doesn't actually help disabled people one bit unless practical steps are taken - and those practical steps are easy to identify.

What would make a difference is society deciding to spend the extra money needed to provide access to all. Of course that would mean increasing taxes or else spending less in other areas, and it's an unending process because there will always be extra needs that the latest improvements aren't fulfilling - for instance, what about the mentally handicapped who might need help with signs being read out to them? Or the deaf/blind etc etc? Where does society decide to stop spending?

But the thread title is not about that sort of extra spending, which wouldn't help in the case of "white privilege". There's no identifiable issue to "fix" like putting in new lifts. Because "white privilege" is the claim that people are being deliberately excluded from society, not from a lack of public spending but purely because of their skin colour. A claim of systemic racism in Irish society that has only been able to be made by conflating anecdotes of individual racists (mostly vague and/or hypothetical) with the notion that the whole society is organised in such a way as to keep black people down. Which to be frank is complete nonsense. But also - and this is why it needs to be opposed - deeply harmful to creating a cohesive society in schools and the workplace.

Gentlemanne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122188247#Comment_122188247

I agree with you that some people cannot take it when their beliefs are challenged. Sometimes it's easier to be an ostrich with your head in the sand, and attempt to justify to yourself why something is bullshit because you don't seem to understand it.

Not even sure what your point is about your own snap judgment about the circumstances of a disabled person you happen to come across? Just because you don't have perfect information about someone doesn't mean there isn't extremely obvious advantages (privilege?) to being able-bodied over having a disability.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122188528#Comment_122188528

The consciousness does help though — I mean that's the very base foundation on which stuff like disabled access is built, right? But where the consciousness also comes to the fore is how people interact with and understand disabled people who they may encounter. Look at Jack Grealish at the FA Cup final at the weekend, taking the time to chat to the child who I understand is blind. What's great about that is, for the other kids there, it's a lot just to see the big stars — but him taking the time to actually chat to her meant that she got to experience a moment that took into account her particular sensory barrier.

It's things like that where I feel that understanding privilege can help — being conscious of the lived experience of another person, the barriers or negative experiences they might face that you and others don't, and this can also help you think critically about their perspective in life. Note how in this example it should be obvious that nobody is asserting that sighted people should feel guilty or attacked because they aren't blind.

Also, I'm not arguing that Irish society is systemically racist. In fact, I don't think Ireland is systemically racist. I also don't think that white privilege means, as you put it, the "deliberate exclusion" of non-whites, it's simply a reference to some negative experiences a non-white person might person might encounter that a white person might not.

shootermacg

Idiots applying privilege to colour is racism in it's purest form. Like even an absolute fool would first consider wealth as being the fundamental privilege no?