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criticism of white privilege article

I am sincerely convinced that there is so much information about criticism of white privilege that it justifies a separate article. This daughter article must include suitably-weighted positive and negative opinions, and/or rebuttals, and the original article should contain a neutral summary of the split article. Views? (may I make a request for brevity where possible)Keith Johnston (talk) 18:22, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

This sounds a bit like your proposal of July 2017, that this article should have a critique or reception section - except this time you're suggesting a separate article.[1] Perhaps we need to ping the participants in that. Doug Weller talk 19:14, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, this is a constructive attempt to resolve this seemingly intractable impasse. Perhaps we should ping them. What is also different is that since then a number of editors have also expressed more or less misgivings about the neutrality of this page. These include Michepman (talk) Librairetal (talk) ColumbiaXY (talk) Naddruf (talk) Walther st (talk) Sparkle1 (talk) Scorpions13256 (talk) Correctus2kX (talk) Byulwwe (talk) MagicatthemovieS (talk) Nikolaneberemed (talk) Thucydides411 (talk) Tornado chaser (talk) Hesperian Nguyen (talk) Cummin14 (talk) 64.125.109.37 Liberty axe1 (talk) Ϫ(talk) Telenarn (talk) ShimonChai (talk) Jobberone (talk) SRichardWeiss (talk) Keithramone33 (talk) Jacona (talk) and Obsidi (talk) This suggests these concerns need to be taken seriously and a constructive solution found. What has also happened is that wikipedia has accepted a number of 'criticisms of..." articles. So the situation has changed significantly. Keith Johnston (talk) 10:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, see WP:POVFORK. Guy (help!) 20:21, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, JzG, Doug Weller: Please note that just last month I proposed adding a criticism section to this article, see Talk:White privilege#Response to NPOV/N discussion. There was much objection to that, in part because some editors view separate articles or sections titled criticism as essentially a POV fork (a view I respect but don't agree with). So instead I added a new section White privilege#White privilege pedagogy dealing with an aspect of academic theorizing that's important in its practical implications and has been widely criticized. The section includes ample citations to criticism. I felt that adding this section, but not a criticism section, was a good compromise. After I added that section containing much criticism, no one objected or reverted, and this shows that the claims that some editors want to keep criticism of CRT out of Wikipedia are unjustified. Finally, it's amazing how many times the same issue has been discussed, in different forums and different sections of the talk page, sometimes with several equivalent discussions under different headings going on at the same time. It makes it hard to follow and to know when to participate. Eventually that gets to be unproductive and unhelpful. NightHeron (talk) 11:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The criticism needs to be in the main article, it doesn't exist separately. Understanding White Privilege is also understanding the criticisms of it/its usage or application and is fair to include in the main article. Sorry, but it sounds like this is simply a pragmatic workaround to the heavy-handed control over this popular page. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 13:39, 16 January 2020 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Hesperian Nguyen (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

Hesperian Nguyen, sure, and it needs to be based on reliable independent secondary sources not quote mining primary research by arbitrarily selected authors. That's the key: specific criticisms of the concept of white privilege, specifically, not CRT (which should be in the critical race theory article).

Feel free to propose some. Guy (help!) 14:03, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Guy All edits to wikipedia articles need to follow that. Let's stay on topic.

You support a criticism section in the article... if it complies to wikipedia criteria. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 14:35, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Hesperian Nguyen, I know that all articles should follow that. I checked the section noted above and found that two of the three individuals whose opinion was covered, had no articles, and the opinion was drawn from the primary source. Hence my point. Attributed to notable experts from primary sources may be acceptable in some cases, but the default must be reliable independent secondary sources, and that is absolutely on topic.

I do not support a criticism section though. As a general principle, I think criticism sections suck. I support an article that accurately describes all perspectives without making the error that is seen so often above of confusing criticism of critical race theory with criticism of the phenomenon of white privilege. The two are distinct. White privilege predates "grievance studies" and will exist even if the entire field is shut down. Guy (help!) 14:46, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@NightHeron: Admins are people too, you know. We have no authority over content and our edits shouldn't be viewed as Admin edits but as edits by ordinary editors who happen to be Admins. And because we are Admins editing here, we are not even allowed to use our Admin tools. Of course some Admins such as Guy and myself are also very experienced editors. I note that neither your nor User:Hesperian Nguyen have as many as a 1000 edits while Guy has over 125,000 and and I have over 200,000. That does give us more experience with our policies and guidelines (as should our responsibilities as Admins) and hopefully more knowledge of what sources can be used where. That does NOT make us always right, but it's something. I'm sorry that the two of you aren't showing good faith towards other editors, that makes discussions more awkward. Damn, I just noticed that User:Keith Johnston has apparently broken a key policy aimed at keeping discussions NPOV, WP:CANVAS. That says that "When notifying other editors of discussions, keep the number of notifications small, keep the message text neutral, and don't preselect recipients according to their established opinions." It appears that he only notified those he thought might support him. That's unfortunate and I think the appropriate templates mentioned at that page need to be used for openness/transparency. Doug Weller talk 17:31, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I am well aware that admins have had much more experience with Wikipedia than I have, and that's why I wrote that it's "particularly troubling" that such an experienced editor would hastily revert most of the criticism in the article. If an inexperienced editor had done that, I wouldn't have been particularly surprised. I try to carefully follow Wikipedia policies, including WP:AGF. You are an admin, and you accuse me of violating that policy: the two of you aren't showing good faith towards other editors. Could you please be specific and indicate to me exactly where the violation was? NightHeron (talk) 19:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@NightHeron: I'm sorry, but I can only go by what you wrote, which was "What's particularly troubling is that the removal of criticism was done by an admin. I am now coming around to thinking that Keith Johnston, Thucydides411, and others might have a valid point about criticism of CRT being blocked from this article, in violation of WP:NPOV." You specifically said "Admin" and that is what I was responding to. You also suggested it was done in violation of NPOV. Can't you see how I interpreted that as a comment suggesting an Admin, to be exact a specific Amin, was violating policy? Of course my comments, as I said, reflect my concerns about Admins confusion over the role of Admins when they are acting as editors and not as Admins. If you had said, as perhaps you meant to say but didnt', "an experienced editor", I might not have commented on it, or I might have asked you to justify your violation of policy claim. But this isn't going to get us very far in making content decisions, and lack of good faith only makes discussion a bit more fraught, it's the canvassing that is a real issue. Doug Weller talk 20:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I've never assumed malice by User:JzG or other editors involved here, which is what WP:AGF says we should not do. Saying that massively reverting criticism from an article violates WP:NPOV is not impugning anyone's motives. Similarly, when I argued strongly against editors who wanted to define white privilege as only a concept rather than a phenomenon, I never doubted their good faith.

I realize that, according to WP:UNINVOLVED, administrators are not supposed to use their tools to sanction editors if the admin has been involved in the dispute. But my own experience shows that one can't always count on that; I was tbanned by an involved admin and was essentially off of Wikipedia for 6 months in 2018 (see User Talk:NightHeron#June 2018 if you're interested). As a very new editor I was in no position to complain about that. That explains my uneasiness about admonishments or aggressive reverting of my edits by admins. NightHeron (talk) 21:37, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, criticisms of CRT are not "blocked", they just belong in critical race theory. Criticisms of the concept of white privilege that are not focused on critique of CRT, belong here. The issue is that some people want white privilege to be downgraded to a concept that exists solely within "grievance studies", whereas the literature on white privilege goes back to at least the civil rights era.

CRT could be the most outrageous bollocks and it would have precisely no effect on the reality of white privilege, only on the likelihood of it being misidentified.

It's a bit like transgenderism. Critique of the current literature on transgender does not undermine the fact that gender dysmorphia was identified a very long time ago and is clearly a real thing. Guy (help!) 21:54, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Please can I stop being pinged in these discussions. I am no longer interested in these discussions and I now regret beginning this whole voluminous exercise. I also feel I am being deputised into arguments of which I am not interested in participating and having positions ascribed to me which I do not actually hold. Sparkle1 (talk) 21:34, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Because of the canvassing by Keith Johnston I am going to ping the participants in the earlier RfC he started in 2017. I'm pinging everyone who participated and has edited this year. @Grayfell, Artw, Aquillion, Jacona, EvergreenFir, William Avery, and Carptrash:. The RfC itself is here - warning, there are huge walls of text there, it's a long read. User:Keith Johnston, I beg you not to repeat that here and in particular if you want to mention something you mentioned there just link to it. I'm guessing that you have a lot more time to devote to this subject than most of us do, but repeating that here will just make this discussion harder to follow. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 09:17, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

It is worth editors being aware that an RfC was held three years ago on whether or not there should be a criticism section on this page. The consensus was no. The main reasoning for this was that critique can be woven into the article and there was already a 'contrasting concepts' section which contained critique. Much has changed since then. Critique has not been woven into the article, the contrasting concepts section has been deleted and new and uninvolved editors have voiced concerns about the neutrality of this page. In addition wikipedia has accepted the creation of 'criticism of...' pages where there is so much information about criticism of a subject that it justifies a separate article. Keith Johnston (talk) 10:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Please don't ping me further. The nature of wikipedia ensures that certain articles will always be heavily biased. I accept that this article is one of those which will always remain non-neutral. I may not like it, but I can't fix it, so I'd just as soon not hear about it. I have more useful things to do. Like making armpit farts, for instance. Jacona (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Removal of criticism of white privilege pedagogy

First, I apologize to Keith Johnston, Thucydides411, and any other editor who I said was unjustifiably claiming there was a problem with certain editors keeping criticism out of this article. Two hours after I wrote that their claim is not justified, and that other editors had allowed the coverage of criticism in White privilege#White privilege pedagogy to remain in the article, User:JzG went and reverted almost all of that section, reducing it to a tiny stub. The reasons given in the edit summaries of the 4 reverts make little sense. For example, one of the critical articles is by members of a certain group, and the supposed reason for reverting it is that the group is not a significant group. But the article is from the Harvard Educational Review, which is certainly a significant academic journal. Who cares what group the authors do or do not belong to? Another revert summary objects to two sources, claiming that they're not real articles, that they're not by "significant scholars" and that they're "early-career stuff". They in fact are real articles. One is a publication of the Philosophy of Education Society (The Philosophy of Education Society is pleased to sponsor this annual collection of some of the best work in our field. Here, we explain the review and selection procedures for the essays included in the Philosophy of Education Yearbook. Each year the Philosophy of Education Society invites its members to submit work for possible inclusion in this collection, and these papers are carefully reviewed by an Editor and Editorial Committee. The refereeing process is anonymous and rigorous; the committee rejects more than half of the papers submitted. Accepted essays are commented upon and returned to their authors for revision. They should be counted as refereed publications.) The other appeared in the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory. What's the evidence that the authors are "not significant"? Who says? What relevance does the stage of career of the authors have? Are articles by young authors not RS?

Another objection in the revert summaries is that the articles are "primary" sources rather than "overview" sources. But the articles cited are not primary sources, as the term primary is defined in WP:Primary. If we want to broaden the meaning of primary to include any article that's not an overview, then almost all of the references cited in this page are primary, including Peggy McIntosh's article.

The 4th revert summary says "again no article." But the reverted material cited an article published in the journal Race Ethnicity and Education. In short, the grounds for the 4 reverts that removed almost all criticism of white privilege pedagogy are a hodgepodge of specious reasons. What's particularly troubling is that the removal of criticism was done by an admin. I am now coming around to thinking that Keith Johnston, Thucydides411, and others might have a valid point about criticism of CRT being blocked from this article, in violation of WP:NPOV. Criticism of CRT is not fringe (although denial of the existence of white privilege as a phenomenon is fringe). NightHeron (talk) 16:24, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, I'm not opposed to including such criticism but it's necessary to demonstrate due weight. We do not create content from primary sources just to "balance" an article where the preponderance of reliable independent secondary sources support a fact that a vociferous minority dislike.

Reminder: criticism of CRT goes in critical race theory, not here. The two intersect but not in a way that defines this topic. We already discussed that at length. White privilege does not depend on CRT. It's a WP:PARITY issue.

In medicine, we look for review studies by groups of authors preferably under the imprimatur of notable organisations like Cochrane. We avoid $RANDOMACADEMIC publishing a paper that says that studies of $MEDICINE suck. We should take the same approach here. I left in the one quote attributed to an academic who is considered notable, but even that's not ideal.

I am searching the databases to which I have access to try to find reviews of the literature on white privilege that critique the study, rather than articles critiquing CRT / "grievance studies". No luck so far. Can you help? Guy (help!) 16:40, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: Thank you for your prompt response.

The section belongs here, not in the critical race theory article. Although it has some relation to critical race theory, it is not called "critical race pedagogy" but rather "white privilege pedagogy." It's an important topic because, unlike most of critical race theory, it has significant impact outside academia in the practical world. It's basically the notion that if you're a teacher in a university, community college, or working-class high school, your best strategy for teaching about racism is to get the white students to acknowledge (or confess) their white privilege. Needless to say, some mainstream educators publishing in respected journals have criticized this approach. In addition to the Blum article (which had already been cited elsewhere on the page), I found four other RS that contain cogent criticisms. There was nothing wrong with those sources.

You say that the criteria for RS are just like for medical pages. Are you really saying that WP:MEDRS applies to non-medical pages? If so, then that would apply to all articles used, not just the critical ones. For example, two of the sources used (references [6] and [40]) are Peggy McIntosh's best-known articles. The lead to the Peggy McIntosh page says about those sources: Both papers rely on personal examples of unearned advantage that McIntosh says she experienced in her lifetime, especially from 1970 to 1988. Wouldn't you call those primary sources? I'm not objecting to using those sources, or any of the other sources in the article. But there shouldn't be a double standard: MEDRS for critical articles, and relaxed standards for other sources.

You removed my brief summary of the Blum article's criticisms. That summary was just a condensed version of what was in Blum's abstract, that is, it was his own summary of his article. The Blum article is cited 8 other times on the page, mostly in ways that misrepresent the source by treating it as an explanation of different types of white privilege. The words "A Mild Critique" in the title, along with the abstract, show that the article's purpose is to offer criticisms. (Here's the full abstract: White privilege analysis has been influential in philosophy of education. I offer some mild criticisms of this largely salutary direction -- its inadequate exploration of its own normative foundations, and failure to distinguish between `spared injustice', `unjust enrichment' and `non-injustice-related' privileges; its inadequate exploration of the actual structures of racial disparity in different domains (health, education, wealth); its tendency to deny or downplay differences in the historical and current experiences of the major racial groups; its failure to recognize important ethnic differences within racial groups; and its overly narrow implied political project that omits many ways that White people can contribute meaningfully to the cause of racial justice.)

With all due respect I'd like to ask you to self-revert and restore the section as it was. NightHeron (talk) 22:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, it belongs here if and only if it critiques all pedagogy of white privilege, not just "grievance studies". The critiques of CRT are well documented in its own article.

I am not saying that MEDRS applies here, I am using it as an exemplar of an area where RS is applied correctly. Reliable, independent and secondary. So we don't know we are not giving undue weight to an outlier. I can find you academic papers that argue sexism is not a thing. I think we both know those would be at high risk of being fringe.

I trimmed one summary that was a copy-paste of an entire paragraph (and invites the question, why that paragraph and not another?) - it's still WP:PRIMARY.

You seem to think that there is a substantial body of critique of the literature on white privilege. I'm quite prepared to believe it. Let's see a review study, preferably by multiple authors, in a high impact journal, that analyses the research landscape and describes its shortcomings. Not single-author opinions. Articles that address the idea itself, not just the "grievance studies" literature, which is known to be problematic.

Is that such an impossible ask? Guy (help!) 23:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I'm sorry, but I really can't follow your logic. If I try to reply, I'll just be repeating myself. Would it make sense to take the question of whether the content you removed should be restored to third opinion or RfC? Since you're far more experienced with Wikipedia than I am, it's your call. NightHeron (talk)

You can try, but I already described the problem. These are WP:PRIMARY sources. Yes, you correctly attributed them, but you failed to establish that the authors are noted commentators in the field. For example, if I wanted to critique the pedagogy of intelligent design I could happily cite a published paper by Richard Dawkins, because hie is a high profile expert on evolutionary biology specialising in critique of creationism, but I could probably not cite Phil Plait, because it's not his field. You're looking to undermine a field of sociological study that dates back well over half a century. To do this you need more than a recent paper by an early career researcher. Guy (help!) 00:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@JzG:You did not respond to my earlier comment that my sources are not primary sources as defined in WP:Primary. I also pointed out that the description on Peggy McIntosh's Wikipedia page of her two articles makes them sound very close to the definition of primary source in WP:Primary. So why is there a double standard -- a very high bar set for articles of criticism and not for the sources supporting white privilege pedagogy?

Also, since when is it necessary to establish notability of authors of a source? Notability is needed if we wanted to give them a Wikipedia page. If an article is published in Harvard Educational Review or is selected for an annual collection of best work by the Philosophy of Education Society, that should be enough. If early-career scholars get an article in a mainstream scholarly journal, why do they have to wait until they're much older to be deserving of having their work cited in Wikipedia?

I had 5 mainstream scholarly papers explaining criticisms before you removed 4 of them. All are by people in the education field who are qualified to write about pedagogical approaches. Calling white privilege pedagogy a field of sociological study that dates back well over half a century is a bit of a stretch -- it's a relatively recent fashion in some circles whose origin is usually credited to Peggy McIntosh's 1988 paper. NightHeron (talk) 02:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, it depends how you define white privilege pedagogy. If you define it as the sociological study of white privilege, then it absolutely does. If you define it as beginning with knapsack then it begins in 1988, but knapsack did not emerge from a vacuum.

See Grayfell and Timothy's discussion re primary / UNDUE etc. below.

The issue of early career is simple: we are picking a paper, attributing it to the author, but then failing to establish that this author's work is considered an accurate summary of the field. With Dawkins on evolutionary biology we can be sure, because he is one of the world's most cited experts. Logue's Deconstructing Privilege: A Contrapuntal Approach was written in 2005 and she did not join faculty as an adjunct until 2009, this appears to be a piece of undergraduate work, not even postgraduate. Of course that's my analysis (there's precious little biographical data on her anywhere) but that's the point: we don't get to decide. We need to be sure that what's being included is considered within the field to be significant. For the same reason that we insist on these standards for climate change, medicine etc.: there are cranks and outliers, and we're not qualified to tell the difference from a facial analysis of the sources. Guy (help!) 09:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG, the term white privilege PEDAGOGY does not mean "the sociological study of white privilege". From dictionary.com: Pedagogy: (1) the function or work of a teacher; teaching. (2) the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods..

McIntosh's knapsack article is not holy text that's immune to criticism, and is not even scholarly text. Have you read it? It's a personal opinion piece (as pointed out in the lead to her Wikipedia page). It's very sincere and well-intentioned, and has been included in several books of readings for introductory women's studies courses. But some scholars in the field of education -- such as the authors of the four sources that you removed -- have criticized the approach to teaching about racism that grew out of that article. Clearly some editors don't like those authors or their arguments. That's fine. But claiming that an article in Harvard Educational Review is not RS either because an editor doesn't like it or because its six authors are young has no support in Wikipedia policies.

You state that you require that the author's work is considered an accurate summary of the field. By whom? White privilege pedagogy is controversial, as are many ideas about teaching. Different authors have different viewpoints. Since when does an article of criticism have to be a "summary of the field"?

Regarding Logue, the Philosophy of Education Society editors (not Wikipedia editors) made a decision to include her article in their annual collection of best work. I gather if you'd been there, you wouldn't have chosen it. That's not relevant. Neither is whether she was an aging scholar, an early career scholar, a graduate or even undergraduate student (which I very much doubt she was). Gayle Rubin wrote an extremely influential article on trafficking of women before she'd even earned her doctorate. NightHeron (talk) 11:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

BTW, pretty much anyone I know in either the sciences or non-sciences would be dumbfounded to hear that an experienced Wikipedia editor believes that an article in a prestigious journal should not be cited because it's written by an early career researcher. NightHeron (talk) 02:54, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, you ar e right re pedagogy, I apologise (oh the irony: I conflated two issues exactly as the CRT bashers have). That said, the issue remains: find reliable independent secondary sources that convincingly demonstrate that there is significant support for the content you want to include. Not single papers attributed to students. Anyone can publish: at one point 5% of climate research papers were by climate deniers. The issue here is to demonstrate due weight, and that's not achieved by deciding, as an editor, that a specific group or paper represents a significant view. I get that you want to include this. If it's that significant, it should be trivial to find much more weighty sources. Why can't I ifnd them? Guy (help!) 13:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG, thanks for making the correction and agreeing that we're talking only about the pedagogy issue.

But you're using a double standard. The sources criticizing white privilege pedagogy that you removed are every bit as "weighty" as the sources [66],[67],[68] that favor white privilege pedagogy. They are scholarly sources, not papers attributed to students. And it's not true that anyone can publish in the Harvard Educational Review.

Your analogy with climate change vs denialism or evolution vs creationism is faulty. White privilege pedagogy is not a scientific or factual claim that has to be either true or false. It's a viewpoint on how to teach something. Critics do not say that white privilege pedagogy is pseudoscience or charlatanism. They say it's a pedagogical approach that is often counterproductive, especially when teaching working-class students who don't feel privileged. An appropriate analogy would be to other debates in the education world, such as whether to teach English using "whole language" techniques or traditional techniques, or whether to teach math using "reformist" or traditional methods. Wikipedia should not take sides in debates of this type by presenting only one side and reverting the other side. NightHeron (talk) 14:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The content I reverted did not seem like a good summary of the cited source, but it also didn't seem like a proportionate one. The Harvard Education Review source authors are clear in their admiration for McIntosh and Knapsack and they go out of their way to emphasize that this is specifically about how to teach white privilege in classrooms, workshops, etc. It is primarily about McIntosh's Knapsack as a teaching tool, not so much about all of white privilege as a sociological concept. In other words, it says nothing about whether or not the concept itself is valid. The summary I removed seemed to be implying that they were saying that because it might make some white people upset, it shouldn't be mentioned... but that would be a nonsensical (and incredibly privileged) thing for antiracist activists to claim.

My very simplistic summary of the source is that it says that relying on Knapsack's approach to white privilege alone is too shallow and too narrow to be very effective, and that the intersectionality of whiteness and class is often undervalued. The source discusses "ritual confessions", but this is their interpretation of specific activities derived from Knapsack. I don't think it was their intent to claim that this is a defining trait of white privilege as a whole (and to be honest, I think the connection being made by the source is pretty flimsy, but that's not entirely relevant). Based on this source, I don't think this needs to be emphasized in this way, in this article. Grayfell (talk) 04:50, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell, recall that last month I wrote a criticism section that you objected to, in part because of general concerns about having a criticism section. After thinking about your objections, I realized that the critical material I thought was important to include did not relate to "white privilege" framing of issues of racism in general, but only to white privilege pedagogy, that is, the particular ways that some people believe discussions about racism with students should be framed. So I put the critical material in a special section on white privilege pedagogy. You're correct that the critical sources do not criticize other aspects of white privilege framing. But that's no reason to remove them from the section on white privilege pedagogy.

I don't agree with your negative opinion about the Harvard Educational Review article, but that's irrelevant. The journal is certainly a prestigious one, and an article in it is RS for the statement that some educational researchers have voiced criticisms of white privilege pedagogy. NightHeron (talk) 11:55, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell, I agree that the article in the Harvard Educational Review is not a critique of the concept of white privilege, but rather a critique of the pedagogical approach to teaching racism that is advocated by some authors, an approach that goes by the name white privilege pedagogy. That's why I put the criticisms in a section with that title, and nowhere suggested that the articles contain critiques of the general concept of white privilege. I also agree that the authors express admiration for Peggy McIntosh and others who've written on the subject. So does Blum, calling their work "salutary". They are authors who think that teaching about racism is important, and they regard the advocates of white privilege pedagogy as colleagues, not as enemies. It's the academic analogy of what we call AGF on Wikipedia. Nevertheless, it's clear from the abstract, title, and main points of these articles that the articles were written not to praise white privilege pedagogy, but rather to criticize it.

I very much object to your characterization of their main point (or my summary of their main point) as saying that because it might make some white people upset, it shouldn't be mentioned. That is a caricature that completely misses the point. What they are saying is that the white privilege pedagogy approach tends to write off white students who push back against it as being hopelessly racist. They believe that many white students, especially those of working-class background, resent being told that they are "privileged," but if approached in a more constructive way will sometimes become involved in anti-racist activity. NightHeron (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Injecting new comments in between responses, as you did here, makes Wikipedia's antique talk page system even more hopelessly confusing than it already is, especially if those comments repeat the same points. Further, please don't ping me twice in a row for the exact same issue.

To briefly address your points, the summary I removed implied that "white privilege pedagogy" as a... movement, I guess, was labeling people as "racists", and that they should stop doing this... The problem is that neither the source, nor this Wikipedia article, establishes that this is happening in a meaningful way. The relevant example of the source ("John") is not "strongly resisting white privilege pedagogy", he was resisting being identified as privileged, because he equated it with being labeled a racist by "bored feminists"... That anecdotal evidence is completely different from what the summary was saying. These hypothetical white people do not reject how it was taught, they reject that it is taught at all. If asking people to recognize their privilege is viewed as calling them a racist, then we should use good sources to explain that issue, first, and we would need something more than this anecdotal essay about another essay. Putting it in a subsection doesn't automatically make it encyclopedically relevant. If Knapsack is being used to "filter" white people by how racist they are, and this is specifically happening in teacher education courses [and] professional development programs, then yes, the authors of this source are saying that activists should knock it off. This seems far too niche a critique for an article on the entire topic. Grayfell (talk) 03:14, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

If I didn't put responses to your comments right under your comments, it would be even more confusing. But I won't bother you by pinging you. I understand that you personally dislike the article in the Harvard Educational Review. Presumably you also dislike the other 4 sources that voice criticism of white privilege pedagogy. Similarly, perhaps I could go on a rant raising objections to Peggy McIntosh's Knapsack, which was merely a personal essay (not a scholarly article) by one relatively unknown individual. But the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors about the content of cited articles are not really of any relevance. NightHeron (talk) 04:06, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Misrepresenting what I am saying as just a personal opinion is an act of bad faith. There was a serous discrepancy between the source, and the attempted summary of the source used in the article. I cannot explain this discrepancy without explaining what the source says. If you do not understand this issue, at this point it is your problem, not mine. Grayfell (talk) 00:44, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not misrepresenting anything, and I don't appreciate your assuming bad faith on my part. You've been caricaturing and misstating the arguments in the Harvard Educational Review, so that it's painfully obvious that you dislike the article. White privilege pedagogy is an approach to teaching students about racism. It focuses attention on the notion of privilege. Critics say that in many situations that approach is counter-productive, and ends up writing off as racist many students, especially working-class students, who could be educated about racism and convinced to oppose it if a different style of teaching were used. I don't know what you mean by too niche a critique unless you just mean that you disagree with it. NightHeron (talk) 01:44, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, The Lancet is prestigious. It published a paper supportive of homeopathy.

Unfortunately, the more I try to find overview sources the more convinced I become that Alan Sokal was right. Guy (help!) 14:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG, yes, and even worse -- Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-vax claims. But Lancet is widely cited in medical articles on Wikipedia. It's strange you bring up Alan Sokal. He's best known as a critic of post-modernism who pulled off perhaps the biggest academic hoax ever in order to expose the journal Social text as a purveyor of meaningless jargon. My guess is he'd be inclined to side with the critics of white privilege pedagogy. CRT has been heavily influenced by post-modernism (as mentioned in the lead of Critical race theory), and I think that Sokal, like many scientists, would not be hugely impressed with some of the theoretical reasoning. NightHeron (talk) 14:44, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, I don't know if he would side with them or not. His criticism was of social science journals and their meaningless self-referential bullshit, whereas critique of white privilege pedagogy is largely centred, as far as I can tell, on whether it reinforces white privilege by making the issue white-centric. Nobody in educationalism seems to seriously dispute the existence of white privilege, and in the wider world it appears to be accepted by everyone other than white supremacists and social injustice warriors.. Guy (help!) 17:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG, we've both been arguing strenuously against downgrading white privilege in this article to a theory or concept rather than something that indisputably exists. All the sources I put into White privilege#White privilege pedagogy that critique white privilege pedagogy also support the existence of white privilege and in fact acknowledge the positive contributions of Peggy McIntosh and others who've theorized about it. Let me reiterate my two main points: (1) White privilege pedagogy is arguably the most important subtopic of white privilege because of its practical rather than theoretical consequences, namely, for what goes on in the classrooms in many universities, community colleges, and high schools, at least in the US. (2) White privilege pedagogy is highly controversial for many reasons, such as the ones listed in the abstract to the Blum article. The approach seems to have been heavily influenced by post-modern theorists (who were at the peak of influence in the 1980s and 1990s when white privilege pedagogy started) and also by the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s. Some critics have compared the approach to the notion in Roman Catholicism and some Evangelical denominations that one should confess one's sins and then be granted redemption. I'm not in a position to judge how well white privilege pedagogy works with working-class students, but the authors of the sources I cited are skeptical and present cogent criticisms. NightHeron (talk) 19:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

re: the paragraph on "McIntosh as Synecdoche: How Teacher Education's Focus on White Privilege Undermines Antiracism"[2].

• After reading the article the paragraph does summarize the article in a somewhat fair but very simplistic way. I think the authors' intended their findings to be ideas for discussion, not firm conclusions and the paragraph frames them as conclusions (my opinion).
• Referring to the authors as "scholars" is a long stretch. They are researchers and teachers.
• Is it cherry-picking to support a controversial point? In the absence of other evidence, I have to say yes. It does seem to violate WP:RSUW, WP:UNDUE - Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority is as significant as the majority view
• Are the conclusions opinion? - yes and an opinion drawn from very very little evidence, again with no apparent follow-up research published by any of the authors or others (that I could find, but I did a limited amount of searching, it might exist in abundance).
• Is is placed in a proper context - no the section does not have any studies from the opposing viewpoint, so placing this paragraph here gives a single, cherry-picked study WP:UNDUE. Context is even more important because the conclusion is a controversial opinion.

I think the following is fair to ask: How is the inclusion here not WP:UNDUE - Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority is as significant as the majority view. Are the opinions in the article significantly supported anywhere? Is there any follow-up research published by any of the authors or was this a one-off article? If it is included, what studies from the opposite viewpoint can be included to maintain WP:NPOV. Again I didn't spend endless hours researching this, so the questions above are honest questions. I'm open to changing my mind as long as the content placed in context with opposing views. But I think its a very steep climb to overcome WP:UNDUE, WP:RSUW   // Timothy::talk  05:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

TimothyBlue, I agree, and this is the danger in working from primary sources, as I noted above. That casts Wikipedia editors in the role of arbiters of truth. Guy (help!) 09:26, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think there is a danger of editing destructively rather than constructively. If the problem is the paragraph does not read well then we can make efforts to re-draft it. Reducing it to a rump, or deleting work entirely, without any reference on the talk page is dispiriting to editors.

I think claiming something is WP:UNDUE is a bold claim. How can we demonstrate it is WP:UNDUE rather than just claiming it is? In any event such views can be contextaulised as a minority view if we can demonstrate that it is.

I cannot see the problem with the sources. For example, Cynthia Levine-Rasky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Queen's University in Kingston. Are there any opposing viewpoints? There may not be yet, but Wikipedia is an iterative process. These can be added in due course.

NightHeron (talk) is quite correct to say there is double standard at play. Critique is subject to different standards to positive commentary. For example a prominent quote in the lede is from an article by Sunnivie Brydum the Editorial Director at YES! Media witing in the Advocate. She is not an academic. Yet attempts to introduce critique from the National Review are rejected because they are not academics. Indeed critical academics who are not CrT experts, like economist Thomas Sewell are also rejected for spurious reasons.

If we want to limit this page to the academy only that is fine. But it will mean being consistent. It will also mean ignoring the non-academic debate about white privilege which should be subject to being recorded on wikipedia somewhere if not here. I am concerned that this double-standard is why those editors who bring forward critical RS or are baffled by the lack of neutrality come and leave quickly as evidenced by the archive. Not all of these critics cover themselves with glory, but they point to a persistent problem with this page.Keith Johnston (talk) 15:16, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, I'm sure you do think that. You have done pretty much nothing on Wikipedia for at least a year other than argue the toss at this article. Guy (help!) 16:55, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Bizarre that this article doesn't mention any of this. Correctus2kX (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Popular criticism of white privilege? Is white privilege racist?

How do we deal with popular criticism of white privilege outside of academia? Today there is a vibrant debate going on in the UK about white privilege and whether or not white privilege is a racist concept. This is in the pages of the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.

See: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/17/lawrence-fox-says-accusing-white-male-privilege-racism-gets/ https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/watch-laurence-foxs-question-time-clash-over-meghan/ https://life.spectator.co.uk/articles/word-of-the-week-white-privilege/ Here the concept is being mocked, not in a fringe paper like the Daily Sturmer but in the Spectator a mainstream conservative magazine.

This debate is not being conducted by academics versed in CRT. Do we:

a) Ignore it and the argumentation because its not by academics or b) include and contextualise it?

If this debate falls outside this article then does it belongs somewhere else?

Genuine question. Keith Johnston (talk) 17:07, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, you don't seriously believe that a blog entry, a satirical column and a 'Question Time', well, question are either RS, describe a debate, or are fit for inclusion in an encyclopaedia, right? Mvbaron (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator are RS in the context of representations of a popular argument on white privilege which is not addressed on this page: That it is racist. Wikipedia does not exist in an ivory tower. If this article is purely concerned with how CRT academics debate and discuss white privilege I'm fine with that. Then the popular (ie non-academic) arguments can go somewhere else. What can't happen is that the popular arguments are ignored. The context - popular responses to white privilege - is the key. Keith Johnston (talk) 18:22, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, I’m sorry, but the pieces you linked are from the blog and the life magazine of the spectator — clearly not RS, and the Telegraph one is a very short description about a question in ‘Question Time’... You must have noticed that. Mvbaron (talk) 18:44, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, No. Next? Guy (help!) 19:22, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Thats quite rude. Assume good faith. Argue do not assert.

The Telegraph is a news piece reporting on the incident https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/17/lawrence-fox-says-accusing-white-male-privilege-racism-gets/

Here is the Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/laurence-fox-meghan-markle-question-time-racism-bbc-video-a9287971.html

Here is the Evening Standard https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/laurence-fox-question-time-meghan-racism-a4336741.html

Here is the Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lewis-star-laurence-fox-embroiled-in-question-time-race-row-flpzv0z95

Note I am not arguing that Laurence Fox is an expert in white privilege any more than Tal Fortang was. What I am saying is, is there any room for including in this article the non-academic debates about white privilege reported in RS such as this? Or should we restrict ourselves to academia only and ignore the real world debates? Keith Johnston (talk) 19:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG Totally agree with the first half of your response.   // Timothy::talk  19:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston See WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, WP:RSUW, WP:FRINGE, WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:NPOV and no WP:CON.   // Timothy::talk  19:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@  // Timothy::talk  Thats not an argument. If you wish to engage with the issue at hand please do but listing links to wikipedia policies without reference to the argument is quite condescending and childish. Assume good faith and sincerity.Keith Johnston (talk) 19:49, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, there is no issue at hand, all that would be warranted from the telegraph, independent et.al. is to include “ Laurence Fox accuses woman of racism for calling him a ‘white privileged male“. How is that of any encyclopedic value? Mvbaron (talk) 20:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The article and incident reflects a wider public debate, especially in the UK, on the merits of using the concept of white privilege. As you might imagine it is now generating feature articles in RS such as The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/whining-about-white-privilege-ruins-constructive-debate-on-racial-tensions-tqpxln2ph Keith Johnston (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Well at least this opinion piece seems to be of higher value than the previous ones. But, as you surely know, it is an opinion essay and thus not a reliable source - at least not for a claim to the effect that ‘there is a public debate in the UK’, or even what that debate consisted in. We wouldn’t be able to assert either claim without secondary sources. Of course, the topic (a focus on white privilege obscures other problems) seems interesting, but I’m not sure if it only seems that way - either way, there are better sources for that criticism than opinion pieces. Mvbaron (talk) 00:05, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Don’t get me wrong, I'm all for adding content about non-academic debates and/or criticism IF reliable sources deacribe such debate. So far, none of your proposed sources either did that or are sources at all. I'm also not convinced that there is a big, sufficiently notable public debate in the first place. Mvbaron (talk) 07:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I take you point on the size of the public debate. It will be interesting to see if the Sunday papers cover it.Keith Johnston (talk) 08:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The author of the Times article is active in the UK Conservative party and introduced the Chancellor at their conference last year. I don't think we should give her opinion piece any credence, even if she is studying social policy for a Master's Degree. That wasn't a feature article, she's a columnist for the Times. Impressive for someone in their mid-twenties, but irrelevant to us, Doug Weller talk 08:57, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, and (unsurprisingly) the Sunday papers didn't cover it - apart from the fact that there is a Guardian article on how the lecturer from the Question Time dispute is now being harassed online by right-wing trolls, great. I guess this section can be archived/hatted since it is unlikely that there will be any RS coverage over such a minor incident unrelated to the topic of the article in the first place. Mvbaron (talk) 11:14, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

The nature of our dispute

I have been thinking about this stalemate for the last two days, and I think I know why we are still in dispute. This page is being used for two separate, but overlapping purposes.

1) There is the theory of “White Privilege”, which I will capitalise for distinction, invented in the 1970s by certain academics - Peggy McIntosh, the CRT school and so on.

2) Secondly, there is the historical phenomena of white people oppressing black people through colonialism, slavery, jim crow and so on. This can be described as “white privilege” (lower case) but is also covered by “racism”, “white supremacism” and so on. This INCLUDES White Privilege as described by Peggy etc but is also broader and encompasses older forms of more direct racism that would not ordinarily be described as privilege per se.

These are two separate subjects that overlap. The theory of Peggy does not simply mean anti-black, pro-white racism. It is more specific, a particular framework used to analyse racism. While (virtually) everyone agrees that white people have historically oppressed black people (generalising for the sake of argument), there is no consensus on whether the “White Privilege” framework is accurate, given all of its additional stipulations as specified in the academic literature.

This page currently reads as a hodge-podge of both of these - it is a history and description of the “White Privilege” concept defined in the 70s, with all its additional (and more controversial) provisions of unconscious bias and so on, and also of a history of how white “forces” have oppressed black people throughout history.

The fact of black people being historically oppressed by white people is a universally accepted fact that does not need to be referred to as a theory. In a colloquial sense, we could describe this as lower case “white privilege”. The academic theory of “White Privilege”, however, is something more than this. It is a more specific theory, not simply an open term used to describe widely accepted phenomenon.

We need to determine whether this page is about the specific theory of White Privilege, or the phenomena of “white privilege”/white supremacy/white exceptionalism throughout history. We do need a page that deals specifically with Peggy’s concept, its adherents and its critics, and so to exclude the history of racism from such an article is not to deny the historical reality but to maintain the encyclopaedic nature of wikipedia - this article is about a Theory, not racism more broadly. This can change, but we need to specify. The theory itself needs its own page, independent of the history of the phenomena of which the school seeks of claims to describe/uncover/analyse. Right now we don’t have this, we have a confused page of dual-meaning - White Privilege as in Peggy McIntosh’s concept (which has greater implications than simply the name suggests, hence why she is credited as discovering/creating something new) and “white privilege” as a loose term describing ALL pro-white racism. In denying that Peggy’s theory is universally accepted (which it certainly is not), people are being buffed as though they are denying historical white-on-black racism full stop. It is becoming less about accuracy and more about political culture war, which Wikipedia should be and is above. Proponents are being accused of evangelism, detractors as racists in denial, neither of which are accurate at all. It really doesn’t need to be this controversial. Librairetal (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

This article is about white privilege, spelled without a capital P. In earlier years the same phenomenon was often called white skin privilege. A subtopic is the view of CRT that the term should be used to frame most discussions of racism -- even to the extent of using the word privilege in ways that do not accord with the dictionary definition of the word, and this is of course very controversial. For example, the article covers controversy about the notion that the white privilege framing should be the way to teach students about racism. The article does not say that CRT or McIntosh's article is universally accepted (BTW, unless you're a friend of hers, an author should be referred to by last name, not first name). The article seems balanced and NPOV-compliant -- but if someone wants to insert some additional critical perspectives supported by RS, that can be done per WP:BRD. NightHeron (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

It really doesn’t need to be this controversial.

It really doesn't. However, this need to try and frame "White Privilege" as somehow a separate phenomenon from "white privilege" really is controversial. And its this insistence that keeps this argument going. It's as if trying to argue that "Gravity" and "gravity" are different things.

We already have a page on Critical Race Theory which discusses that school of thought. But that school of thought is not synonymous with the recognized phenomenon of white privilege. The repeated conflation that it only exists within that school of thought keeps dragging things out here. So we're at this stumbling block because WP:RS have established that this is an actual phenomenon, not solely a "concept" within CRT, but some people don't like social science papers being RS, because... well, they don't think social science is "real" science. Hence, the impasse. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Then is the answer not two pages? On on the social phenomenon, one of the CRT theory of the same?

And do we not need evidence that “white privilege” is a universally or even widely accepted term? And also a reason why “white privilege” even needs its own page if there is already pages on white supremacism etc?

All of the sources we have, or at least 80-90%, relate to Critical Race Theory.

It at least sounds like we agree that White Privilege (CRT theory) and white privilege (synonym for white-on-black racism) should not be conflated. That seems to be a contention on both sides. Librairetal (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

No, white privilege is not a synonym for white-on-black racism. Please read my earlier comments and those of other editors about what the obvious examples of white privilege are. NightHeron (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I need to go through these sources when I get some time, but it looks to me as though almost all of the references describe the CRT theory, and not this broader “white privilege” or “white skin privilege” as being widely accepted/observed. I am not convinced that the theory of white privilege, independent of the CRT theory, is widely accepted enough to be stated matter-of-factly. My hypothesis, which I have yet to confirm, is that the vast majority of uses of the term “white privilege” are CRT based, while the broader phenomena is more commonly called white supremacism, racism etc. I’m willing to do the legwork to demonstrate it, but I’m not convinced that the wider use of the expression “white privilege” is really independent of CRT. I think that it is ALMOST exclusively used in this sense, and not just to describe white-on-black racism more broadly.Librairetal (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Librairetal, my first exposure to the idea of white privilege was reading Black Like Me at school, over 40 years ago. He refers to himself having experienced something "as a privileged white". The fallacy here seems to be that specialist academic study of white privilege is taught as part of, or alongside, critical race theory, so in current literature you can't separate them, but the idea and fact of white privilege both predate them in much the same way that matter always behaved as it does now even before we started studying is through the lens of atomic then quantum physics.

We have exactly the two articles we need: this article on the phenomenon of white privilege, and critical race theory on the sociological discipline within which it is studied. Guy (help!) 17:13, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Librairetal: I basically agree with your summary of the nature of the dispute. There are two things being discussed here: the Critical Race Theory concept called "white privilege", and the cluster of phenomena that various people of a certain political persuasion colloquially call "white privilege", but which have other names (racism, discrimination, colonialism, etc.). This latter use of the phrase "white privilege" has become more and more common as CRT has entered the political mainstream (at least among liberal Americans), and "laypeople" have started using the term in everyday life. If you follow Eric Arnesen's critique of Whiteness Studies, this may be partly to blame on people in the field, for using unclear or shifting definitions in the first place. In any case, this article isn't about flippant uses of the term "white privilege" in everyday conversation. It's about the academic concept. That's what almost all the sources we cite are about.

The problem is that the article sounds as if it were written by someone who strongly believes in the claims of Critical Race Theory. Various previous versions of the article have briefly mentioned some of the critics of the concept (coming from a number of different directions, from conservatives to Marxists), but as written, the article now implicitly says that these critics are mistaken. I don't see why we can't have a neutral description of this academic concept. I guess some editors personally feel strongly that the concept is correct, and that's fine in itself. The problem is when editors try to force Wikipedia to take a side on a heavily disputed sociological theory. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree and I think there is a third factor which I would call "white privilege in practice" - which would include the impact of claims of white privilege of people's lives including "check your privilege" and the popular response to the claims made largely through books by non-CRT scholars and supportive and critical media op-eds. The conceptualisation of white privilege and its impact on society is not simply an academic topic. We should be able to distinguish between these 3 issues. If we cannot in one article then we can fork. In practical terms the existing article is bloated already so perhaps this is the least worst option Keith Johnston (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, because the consensus of editors here is not to make this an article on the theory -- but rather to for it to treat the phenomenon and discourse about it -- your repeated complaints that unnamed editors are taking sides or promoting a theory is nonsense. And name-checking various fringe racism deniers or a few surviving Marxists doesn't do anything to improve the article. If you have concerns, propose improved text. If not, well ... SPECIFICO talk 22:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411 Your point above is correct - it is a "a heavily disputed sociological theory" - White Privilege as a theory is heavily disputed. That's why it shouldn't be here. What is not heavily disputed is the phenomenon of white privilege, it's widely acknowledged. That's why it does belong here.

"I don't see why we can't have a neutral description of this academic concept" - because it's not an academic concept, its a phenomenon. A phenomenon individuals can see and experience every day. But White Privilege as a theory or concept is heavily disputed.

White Privilege as a concept or theory should be completely removed from this article.

The musical chairs this discussion is having from one section to another is giving me a headache.   // Timothy::talk 

It isn't really complicated at all. The article is about the phenomenon of white privilege and also about the way the term has been used in recent years to frame discussions of racism. The latter is controversial, and criticism is included in the article. For example, the section on white privilege pedagogy describes and cites criticism of the approach to teaching students about racism that centers around trying to get white students to acknowledge (or confess) their "white privilege".

The reason why the issue might seem headache-inducing is that opponents of the notion that white privilege exists as a phenomenon have been repeating the same arguments again and again in several places on the talk-page. I think there's a consensus to keep the article as it is except for minor edits (possibly including additional citations to criticism of certain theoretical tendencies). Perhaps an admin can close the RfC and we can all agree to stop talking about it. NightHeron (talk) 10:50, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

This criticism is never going to go away because it reflects the real world discussion about white privilege: that is some people treat it as a phenomenon, some treat it as a concept which describes a phenomenon and some people dispute the phenomenon and the utility of the concept. Until these arguments, which are supported by rS and thus are perfectly capable of being integrated, are integrated this dispute will remain intractable. But it is not a solution through inertia or filibustering to maintain the status quo Keith Johnston (talk) 14:31, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

You are making the mistake of assigning equal value to arguments that white privilege is a concept.

We don't value an argument just because it exists in the "real world."

The fact that white privilege existed before scholars were discussing it will never go away. Binksternet (talk) 15:06, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, no, the problem is that because it is discussed in the literature of CRT, so social injustice warriors think they can get it dismissed as a product of "grievance studies", ignoring the fact that white privilege has been a subject of academic discussion since long before political correctness or the culture war were ever discussed. Guy (help!) 15:26, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Fine. This "criticism of the criticism' should also be included. What cannot happen is the critical arguments are ignored.Keith Johnston (talk) 15:30, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Keith Johnston, you are - deliberately I think - missing the point. There are two separate subjects. White privilege, a historical and cultural fact that this article documents, and CRT, a school of pedagogy which is discussed at critical race theory, which is where any criticism of CRT and criticism of that criticism belongs. Guy (help!) 17:07, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Assume good faith. I do not agree with the point, I am not missing it. Ideally criticism of white privilege and criticism of that criticism should be on the white privilege page. However, if we cannot resolve the current impasse there is a case for a fork. I don't think that would be ideal but it may be a more constructive use of our time.Keith Johnston (talk) 17:31, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

No WP:POVFORK, which would be a violation of WP:NPOV. As always, my initial assumption of good faith is quickly modified by observed behavior. Your behavior is similar to a POV warrior who doesn't like how racism is accurately portrayed as racism. Binksternet (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet: Those sorts of accusations are unwarranted and unhelpful. I haven't seen Keith Johnston (nor anyone else here) deny the existence of racism. If you think that criticism of white privilege theory is equivalent to denying the existence of racism, then that would explain your position here, but then you'd also be sorely mistaken.

We can go back to the example that NightHeron gave a while back: it is entirely possible that cabs often don't stop for black people in parts of New York City (as NightHeron claimed). I think it would be uncontroversial to call that "racism". It would, however, be controversial to call that "white privilege", for a reason that Lewis Gordon points out: the ability to walk into a public business and be served or to hail a cab is widely considered a right, not a privilege. The people who make use of this right are not "privileged", according to the common meaning of the term. The people who are being discriminated against are certainly being unjustly deprived of a right, but that does not mean that the large majority of people who are not discriminated against are "privileged". That's if you go by the pre-existing definition of the word "privileged". The novelty of Critical Race Theory is to call non-discrimination against the majority a "privilege", in effect redefining the word. That redefinition is itself controversial.

A second reason why the concept of white privilege is controversial is because it uses certain anecdotes or data points to argue that white skin confers privileges, while ignoring (according to critics) countervailing evidence that points to white skin not being the actual cause. For example, many non-white ethnic minorities in the United States do much better, on average, on a whole host of measures (income, health and education, to name a few) than people considered white. See the entire discussion about "model minorities". -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:15, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: You missed the point of the story about the New York taxis. At that time (the pre-Uber days) taxis were often hard to get in NY. The TV clip showed a seedy-looking white guy (who normally wouldn't be favored by taxi-drivers, because they wouldn't expect much of a tip from him) who readily got a cab, while no cab stopped for a formally attired black guy with a baby in one arm and a bouquet of flowers in the other. The point of the clip was that white people, because of skin color, had an advantage in getting a taxi that they wouldn't have had if it weren't that the drivers avoided black people. The white people had the privilege of easily getting a taxi although they wouldn't have if the drivers did not discriminate against blacks. NightHeron (talk) 00:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, you keep banging on about CRT. The fact and identification of white privilege predates CRT. The "controversy" is also around CRT. We have an article on that. This article is about the fact of white privilege. I would say that your next step would be an RfC but we already had one, so in fcat your next step is to drop the stick. Guy (help!) 20:25, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@NightHeron: I understood your example about taxis perfectly well. I don't think you understood my response, however. Please reread it, because it explains one prominent criticism of the white privilege concept (privileges vs. rights). This criticism used to be discussed in the article, but has since been cleansed, like most other criticism. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I understand the criticism about rights vs privileges. For example, not being victimized by police brutality is not a privilege. However, in the TV clip a poorly dressed, unkempt white guy got the taxi. Normally he wouldn't have, because taxi drivers could be choosy. However, their preference for white people was so strong that racism caused them to neglect a black guy who probably would have tipped them nicely and instead take the white guy who probably wouldn't. It wasn't an issue of rights, because no one has a right to get a taxi in NY. NightHeron (talk) 10:13, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

A lot of people would dispute that, particularly as civil rights law in the United States addresses the right to be served by businesses. There is an expectation that businesses will not discriminate based on race, and from that standpoint, a taxi driver discriminating against black potential clients is violating their rights. The claim made by CRT would be that by not violating the rights of white clients in the same way, whites are "privileged". But this use of the word "privilege", to denote the non-violation of someone's rights, is controversial. It's what Gordon Lewis, for example, has criticized. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:19, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean by "expectation"? Blacks are regularly bypassed by taxis in NYC; and even if the taxi stops, they may refuse to go to some neighborhoods. This is not allowed (de jure). But, it occurs daily. In reality, the "expectation" is that whites are de facto privileged.O3000 (talk) 15:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

You're missing the point of Gordon Lewis' criticism of the term "privilege" here. He's saying that if something is a right (such as not being discriminated against by businesses on the basis of skin color), then it's not a "privilege". The argument is that it's incorrect to call not being racially discriminated against a "privilege" - it's a right. This is a fundamental criticism of the concept of white privilege, which is no longer discussed in the article, but used to be.

CRT argues that non-discrimination is a "privilege", and I have to say that a lot of editors here have internalized that CRT argument to such an extent that they implicitly accept it and don't realize what the objections to it are. The existence of discrimination is not what critics are disputing. It's the idea that non-discrimination is a "privilege". There are additional objections to the theory, of course, including the importance of race vs. social class, and whether it is really whites in particular that are advantaged (see the "model minority" argument). -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Are you trying to name-check Lewis Gordon here? Have you read him? wtf? At any rate your main thrust, repeatedly, is WP:IDHT There's clear consensus this article is about the phenomenon and only at the second order about related language and theory. SPECIFICO talk 17:20, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

You are using a narrow definition of “privilege”. Discrimination is a privilege to those on the positive side of the phenomenon, whether it be legal or illegal. And studies have shown, time and again, that white privilege exists irrespective of social class. And the fact that others may have privileges is irrelevant to the existence of white privilege. O3000 (talk) 17:34, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Person A (white) has a right. Person B (non-white) has the same right. Person A has that right respected and therefore enjoys the benefits of that right. Person B does not have that right respected and does not enjoy the benefits of that right.

Both have the right. But Person A is privileged because their rights are respected.   // Timothy :: talk  11:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@TimothyBlue: Well, that's the argument that CRT makes. It's quite different from the pre-existing meaning of the word "privilege", which is a perk that a small group of people benefit from. Calling broadly recognized rights "privileges" because certain groups of people are denied those rights is a change in the meaning of the word "privilege", and that's one of the reasons why it's controversial. You don't have to agree with this criticism of the concept of "white privilege", but you do have to recognize that it exists and is not WP:FRINGE.

What you and other editors here are treating as a straightforward matter of fact is actually a concept with an intellectual history. This Wikipedia article does a strange sort of gymnastics, citing all sorts of essays written by Critical Race Theorists to explain the idea of "white privilege", but then on the other hand eliding the fact that this is a CRT concept, and instead treating it as a fact. This might be okay if CRT were akin to biology or physics (i.e., a science). But it's not science. It's a highly political field of sociology, which is extremely controversial. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411 these are childish word games, not even internally consistent, and every point you've presented over the past 3 weeks had already been answered and rebutted in the preceding 3 weeks. Don't worry. No need to repeat yourself, e.g. the appeals to grade school science class concepts. Everyone reads your posts. It's just that they have no merit. SPECIFICO talk 13:32, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411 What editors here are treating as a "straightforward matter of fact" is a straightforward matter of fact. All the twisted arguments and convoluted logic games intended to confuse and obscure are not going to change a straightforward matter of fact. White privilege is a phenomenon, it exists in the real world. This has been discussed repeatedly, ad nauseam, the same arguments dressed up in different words. As has been mentioned several times here, the Male Privilege article has already been confused and twisted in the way you are proposing to do here and that article has become a mess (and hopefully Male Privilege will be fixed soon).   // Timothy :: talk  18:08, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

There really should be at least a heading entitled 'criticism' or 'responses to the concept'. The current article is very, very biased in favour of one (largely American) perspective. Correctus2kX (talk) 16:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Correctus2kX (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

There is a clear WP:CON on this issue. This article is not about a "concept" or a "theory", but about a factual phenomenon that exists in the real world.   // Timothy :: talk  11:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)