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White privilege is an obvious fact about society. It does not make you a bad person if you are white. It just means people will give you more credit and opportunities.
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Exactly right. I'm actually a bit shocked that transplant99 is denying that white privilege is a real thing that actually exists in society. I suspect his opposition to the concept is just a knee-jerk reaction because he doesn't know what white privilege actually is and feels he he has to defend himself from perceived accusations that he's a bad person because he was born with white skin.
White privilege means that, solely on the basis of skin colour and no other characteristics, many people in Western society will treat you differently than they would someone who isn't white. Or to put it another way, people with non-white skin will be subjected to obstacles, challenges, and discrimination (either overt or subtle) in life that are not equally experienced by white people.
That absolutely does not mean that those of us with white skin are bad people or that we should feel guilty about our race. The term "white privilege" is merely describing the very well-documented societal bias that benefits the white majority. Are there really people in the year 2013 who think that such a cultural bias does not exist?
To use an analogy, if life were a video game, being born as a heterosexual white male in an industrialized Western nation is like playing on easy mode. That's not a guarantee that you can't fail or that victory is handed to you right from the start, but rather it means that there are certain challenges others experience that you will never have to face solely because of your race, gender, and sexual orientation.