I feel compelled to make this post because there are lots of straw men arguments that conservatives have been using to argue, incorrectly, that white privilege does not exist. In this post, I will identify these straw men and explain why they do not accurately represent the concept of white privilege (hereinafter WP).
So without further ado, I present a list of things that the concept of WP does not mean:
1. "All white people are rich and successful."
Bullshit. This seems to be widespread among right-wing Internet trolls. In reality, WP refers to averages, and patterns within racial groups. These patterns establish that whites tend to have, on average, higher standards of living than do other races, and that they benefit more from certain factors outside of their control than do other races. Conversely, WP advocates are, or at least can be, aware that members of other races are sometimes economically successful.
2. "All successful white people are only successful because of their privilege."
Again, this is a completely baseless generalization which creates a giant straw man version of WP. There is no question that other factors are involved on an individual level, such that many people of all races in all countries become successful partly or mostly because of their own hard work. However, on a society-wide level, on average, whites tend to have more opportunities to be economically successful than other races, which is what WP actually means.
3. "Other factors have no effect on how economically well-off you are, only WP does! Silly leftist SJWs, why don't they understand economics? If they did, they'd know that two-parent privilege far dwarfs white privilege."
In short: we do. There are other kinds of privileges that exist as well as WP. Simply acknowledging that WP exists does not equate to claiming that no other privileges can possibly exist too.
4. "All white people should feel terrible about themselves/white guilt b/c of their privilege, which makes them successful without having to work by exploiting all other races!"
No, they shouldn't. This does not occur as a result of deliberate decision-making occurring today, but b/c of many societal factors that act to make things easier for whites than for other races. To the extent it is intentional, it is not b/c white people are conspiring to formulate an evil plot against other races, but b/c a few of the powerful ones did decades ago. The vast majority of white people have nothing to feel guilty about in this respect, as it is not their fault.
