• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    Example: I’m queer and white. I have white privilege, but some people have straight privilege over me.

    But then privilege is a consequence of the society, not the individual. You can be in a community that doesn’t discriminate, at which point neither applies. You can be in a community that overvalues queerness or undervalues whiteness.

    The way the last comment frames it as ‘the privileged’ precisely plays into the problem it’s addressing.

    People who bought homes in the 90s, when real estate was more in line with wages, benefited from the historical moment. You can call that privileged.

    And people inherit property from family. That’s definitely a privilege.

    But it all overlooks a broader system of cheap lending for mega-rich financial institutions, which allow groups like Blackrock and Berkshire Hathaway to become some of the largest landlords in the country.

    Talking about “white privilege” or “millennial privilege” or “native born privilege” in the face of a historic real estate consolidation at the hands of a tiny aristocratic elite seems trite and misplaced.