Nobody likes to be generalized. White people doesn't want to be generalized anymore that people like to be generalized in China or Iran or South America. It is not an enjoyable experience to be reduced- Particularly if your life hasn't been exactly a smooth ride. Who gives a shit if someone is worse off somewhere else? Do you tell minorities and disenfranchised people in the west that they should stop being frail whiny bitches when there are minorities who are being abused by their very tax dollars? There is an astounding level of circle jerked hypocrisy mirred in oppression olympics in all of this.
There is nowhere on earth that minorities are treated as well as the majority. This has nothing to do with the west or white people either. minorities in Indonesia are treated like shit. Minorities in Japan are treated like shit. Minorities in Iran are treated like shit. The majority will always be be strong together and it will always want to keep as much of the pie for itself as it can. That's all there is to it. We flock into various decrees across religions, ethnicities, origins, belief systems, political systems and social systems to find likeminded people. People who are not like us are always the lowest on our list of priorities.
If you are against racial stereotyping- If you do not like that minorities are treated as a caricature to be laughed at it in sitcoms and pop culture, it really is beyond me that you would go down the same deplorable method of thinking on white people simply because the people with that skin tone have been dominant socially and economically.
Life hasn't been kind to a lot of people. A lot of people are very unhappy and depressed. They have low self esteem and low self worth- I think that some people feel their experiences are made insignificant when someone wants to put tell them how worse someone else has had it. And thats certainly understandable- After all white privilege has always been used more as a tool of provoking, doxing and shaming rather than making people mindful or letting them feel appreciative about their advantages- much more positive connotations that would have made them less defensive, less dismissive and less likely to see it as an attack.
The image of the lady on the previous page equating slavery to generalization is silly. That is just looking for causation and correlation. Slavery stopped for a wide array of reasons- all over the world. You cannot use that as a plausible argument to argue that, slavery wouldn't have stopped by being nice, so we should keep stereotyping everyone. That argument is dumb as shit.
When I think of my personal relationships with friends, family, coworkers, girlfriends, when I wanted to be understood by them, and when I wanted them to understand something, I never got far with using labels or accusations. My experience has always been that people shut off and shut down, and just become angry. And when they are angry, you cannot get through to anybody no matter how sound or rational your argument is. I've always come a lot longer by trying to appeal about how I feel and tried to say how I saw things- Making them not feel like they are being put on the spot. I've always had a lot more success being able to have other people change their opinions or understand me this way.
I don't think it has anything to do with white fragility. I just don't don't think anybody likes to be stereotyped. The argument that there will always be stereotyping so just get used to it, is also dumb. It's about as dumb as saying that everyone should keep being used to racism because it will always be there. That's a terrible approach to the situation- You always try to get better at something and moving forward. And we have moved forward in the last 4000 years. It's not even a 100 years ago that eugenics was still the scientific consensus. We've come very far in a short amount of time, and we will come way further in the next 100 years. If you look at this through a long lens throughout history you can see that a lot of good has happened. The pendulum will always swing the other way, and humanity has always been about two steps forward, one step back, but I find it childish to see this thread being loaded with straight up endorsements for endorsing stereotyping on white people throughout such a narrow tunnel vision.
Talking about white privilege in this manner as it has been in the last few years is not only counter-productive, it straight up has the opposite effect. It has the ability to make passive ignorant people straight up hostile. We own the communication we send out. You don't get to say that they are taking it wrong. You never control how the receiver responds to your message. It's your responsibility to read the people in a manner that will create a response that is desired. Nobody who works with communication defends their campaigns or messages by saying that the masses have the wrong understanding. It's your shitty communication that is the problem and your inability to come down to a playing field where you read them.
White privilege as being intended to make white people more mindful of their inane bias and privilege have failed spectacularly. It's probably one of the chief reasons that helped create the social movement we now bundle together as the Alt-right and the support for guys like Trump. Lots of white people who take their negative connotations about liberal condemnations on themselves into a ether of pure hatred. Sending their anger towards those who bring all the bad feelings.
What is productive towards making people open to helping others or changing their behavior? I know from myself that the books/interviews/articles/documentaries about food, produce, merchandise or consumer behavior that have inspired me to change or act have not been the condescending or lecturing ones, but those that tried to inform in a neutral tone and try and explain things in a way that didn't load something with trying to force a response out of me. As human beings we want to reach our own conclusions. We don't like being told what to do or what to think or how to feel, and when others try to tell us, we sometimes end up going in the opposite direction even if we agree with what is being told to us, simply because we feel a resistance to letting others tell us how to live our lives. This is a counter-prodctive way of communicating.
When you want a child to do something, you end up getting further by also being a role model to the example you're trying to set. If you tell your kid to stop being angry, it doesn't help if you're angry all the time yourself. It really is besides the point that you're an adult and in authority or that you are in your right. At the end of the day, you're still not able to live what you preach and this damages your credibility as a messenger.
Look at what gets through to people. You see a lot of donation campaigns trying to guilt people into donating to various causes struggling right now. We grow immune to the plights, and we give up. We're way more likely to donate to something we feel good about and hopeful about because it brings positive emotions and good feelings.