Now we come to the nitty gritty.
The idéa that all generalization regarding groups of people are bad.
I don't agree with this.
Since by using generalization we can see trends and also back up our claims regarding racism and show that it a structural thing.
Just because you can see a trend doesn't give you the right to stereotype an entire ethnicity because you can see a "trend".
Finding a trend is not a proof that there are not lots of people who defy the stereotype. You can find a trend in anything you want to. Everything is a hammer once you're the nail. I don't buy the logic here that a trend is a proof of something true within all people. I think it's dangerous to give that sort of leeway to your own morale compass. Your brain is wired to find connections and patterns, and that is why we all should be vigil about being lazy and falling into stereotypes.
The worst part of it is that it seems to take very few bad anecdotal personal experiences for someones biased perception to be formed.
To stereotype someone based on the pigmentation of their skin is to be unable to see that person as a individual, but only as part of a threatening whole.
If a person cannot be a person before being this or that due to the way they look, then that person is reduced. This is exactly the sort of plight that has plauged (and continue to) minorities in the western world.
In Europe we have intense racism aganst a minority group refered to as Gypsies- A indo-european wandering group of people who exist in most european nation states (since the 12th century). These people to this day, are prosecuted and surpressed like cattle, as they are perceived to be thiefs, beggars and criminals.
Even though they are white, they don't share the spoils of how you categorize being white in America. In western and northern europe we have a lot of racism towards people of slavic descent- That would be our equivelant of "mexicans taking our jobs". Bulgarians, Polish, Romanians and Ukrainians in particularly are unwelcome and met with hostility and racism many places- These people are not seen as white people.
Something which also extends to many europeans hostile appropriation of kurds, turks, persians, greeks and jews (on both the left and the right, and among radical european people of middle eastern descent).
In my mind, the categorization is insane and doesn't make sense. We all agree that its a made up construct that is made to keep darker-skinned people from sharing the benefits, but the mantle just doesn't add up on a considerable amount of people. Not even getting into mixed race people, who don't know if they are a white or a POC.
It's pretty obvious how it relates. A white person who is very gifted is far more likely to be able to help humanity then a PoC who is very gifted due to racism. A gifted white person is far more likely to get the job they deserve then a PoC. So more white people achieve positive feats as they are far more likely to be given a chance to.
I don't agree with her wording. But every white person has gained from a form of racism. ( not every white person is racist).
In majority held white nations, whites benefit- But I'd argue that whites benefiting is not so much a cause of "white privilege" but if tribal favorism. Because if you look anywhere on earth, you see the same thing. It sucks being a minority in Japan, China, Myanmar, Turkey- It doesn't matter where you are. The majority has the power, and they use that power to continue keeping power and hold minorities back. This has been true as long as we have had nation states, and it's one of the core principles of anarchism that tries to undo these power structures, so all wealth and power can redistributed freely between all people.
But you're wording this like this is a white problem that predominately exist in a white vacuum. It's indeed true that many things are easier for white people in the western world, but things are easier for the native population anywhere on earth.
At the end of the day, if the african nations had been the ones to have superior military might and power, it would have been white people who would have been enslaved for centuries, and to this day would live in the aftermath.
An aftermath you also benefit from. By paying your taxes and being a consumer, you inadvertently oppress and take part in exploitation of millions of people around the world who live in countries that have been utterly fucked, destroyed and sabotaged by US and EU interests. These are the people who make our electronics and clothes, and who've we still, to this day, exploit for cheap labor and resources.
All these people also live their faiths at the end of our boots because their ancestors got trumped by EU and US powers. Every powerful country today is standing on top of a burial ground of defeated people. It's kill or be killed, and every powerful nation on earth can thank its power and wealth to the oppression of others. There is no exception, virtually anywhere.
The only thing we can conclude from history is that people are all the same all over.
