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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Sorry that happened to your kid's friend - that is shitty. As a thought experiment, what if your kid's friend had been Asian or Hispanic. Would the driver had left? I think not. So is it accurate to label it "white privilege"? The problem is not that the driver would pick up your kid or his/her Asian friend but that the driver would not pickup a black child. That is the shitty thing we need to fix. Calling it "white privilege" is generally unhelpful, inaccurate, and alienates people of goodwill. 
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As a white person, there are literally a thousand daily worries that I don't have to deal with because of my race.  I also don't have to worry that my young son will be perceived by members of the majority culture as, on average 4 years older than he is.  I also don't have to worry that my preschooler is three times as likely to be suspended as his classmates for the exact same discipline issues (https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-discipline-snapshot.pdf).  If my kid was convicted of a crime, I don't have to worry that he would be 18 times as likely as a white kid to be sentenced as an adult (http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-a0035663.pdf).  When I'm shopping for a home, I don't have to worry about being routinely guided to sub-prime loans regardless of my income (http://www.demos.org/blog/new-hud-report-shows-continued-discrimination-against-people-color).  Unlike black people, I'm not 30% more likely to be pulled over by police (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/09/you-really-can-get-pulled-over-for-driving-while-black-federal-statistics-show/).   I also don't have to worry about being killed while crossing the street at a crosswalk because white drivers simply refuse to stop for people of my race (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/10/26/walking-while-black-can-be-deadly-too-study-finds/).  Denying that life is easier for white people (and to a lesser extent for Asians and Latinos) is unhelpful, inaccurate, and alienates people of goodwill.

The need that I sometimes feel to try to explain away statistics like those above or to try to explain away experiences like the Uber experience you commented on is what I mean when I say "white fragility." I can't look into your heart and know what you are thinking, but I can see that discomfort and defensiveness in myself (and, as a man,  similar defensiveness that I feel in the face of some MeToo discussions) and name it, and I think that's useful.  I'm not aware of white fragility being used in any of the communications about HFA at Wilson (or anywhere in this discussion, until you combed the consultant's Web site to find that term), so I'm not sure how it's being used to shut down discussion.
[/quote]

You did not answer my question. In fact, you seem to have gone way out your way not to answer it. And your emotional need to attach an inflammatory name ("white fragility") to the banal notion that people get defensive does not speak well of you.

I asked you before to "please be more careful with your accusations". You clearly ignored that reasonable request. First, I did not "to try to explain away experiences like the Uber experience" which I specifically described as a "shitty" thing to happen to a kid. I simply tried to dig deeper into the issue using a "thought experiment" so that we could properly characterize it. Somehow this went over your head. Second, you accused me of "denying that life is easier for white people" which I never did. In fact, I explicitly stated that "I don't deny racism or its history." Of course life is easier when, for example, you are discriminated against less often as in the case with white people. Duh!

And finally, the principal of Wilson HS herself used the term "white fragility" as part of her discussion of implementing HFA. She used and embraced the term, not me. [/quote]

Calm down --- no one is accusing you of anything.  If you take a breath an re-read my post, you will see that I was talking about MY experience and saying that I can't look into your heart.  You may want to take a second to figure out why this topic is so upsetting to you and why me talking about my feelings sounds like I am accusing you of something.

Sorry if I missed a question in your post.  Was it the question about white privilege?  That's kinda what the first paragraph of my post was about.  You realize that it's easier to be white in our culture and, to a lesser extent Asian, and to a much lesser extent Latino.  You object to calling that white privilege for some reason, but you don't deny the reality.  That's fine, but I wonder why you are so sensitive about the semantics?

[/quote]

DP: PP made a perfectly reasonable reply.  Your telling her to “calm down” and “take a breath” — appropriately enough — is another rude approach to trying to diminish someone you are debating rather than responding to the substance that of what she said.

And what foes this have to do with HFA anyway?[/quote]

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