I hate the term “privilege” and even though I sometimes use it myself, I mostly wish it would just die. As presently used, it harms any analysis rather than helps.

Strangely, someone on Tumblr said it best to self-referentially discredit the privilege police.

Privilege isn’t a neat little math equation where you can add and subtract how many rights someone has based on a bunch of check boxes. You can’t assume either that just because someone technically should have a privilege they are automatically better off because of it. A lot of privilege stuff is just better odds in a lottery you can still lose.

People need to stop measuring the level of rights real people have based on a hypothetical chart that cannot possibly cover every variable. It’s fucking harmful and dehumanizes everyone.

Most of the time it’s just used to shout people down, and most of the time the people you’re screaming at about it don’t have a clue what you’re on about.

Much of the time, it’s also used as a weapon against people who’ve already been harmed in some way.

Sorry, being informed that I have privilege is useless to me to “make it all better” when I’m being stabbed in the face.

For instance being told my complaints are invalid because I had “privilege” when my family was on the bottom of the totem pole in rural North Florida where people acted like we were true scum when we had the gall to walk into a bank – yeah, not going to help!

It’s fine in an academic setting. Other than that, it’s worthless and harmful.