> "Being black or homosexual will work against you if you want to work in industries with strong institutionalised stigmas"
Racial and sexual discrimination goes much, much further than industries with strong, institutionalized stigmas.
The problem with discrimination is that sometimes it's so casual and so subtle. You do not, for example, have to hate black people to contribute to discrimination.
The struggle for being black or homosexual isn't so much being kicked out of a store, or barred from membership in an organization, or being actively hated in an environment - it's the subtle, everyday, casual things that stack up quickly. It's the furtive look, the different way people treat you, that little flicker of fear when they see you, etc etc.
This is the problem with explaining privilege - there are very few big, ugly examples you can point at (say, a cross burning on your lawn), but instead there is an avalanche of little things, each one of which is insignificant by itself. Death by a thousand paper cuts.
Racial and sexual discrimination goes much, much further than industries with strong, institutionalized stigmas.
The problem with discrimination is that sometimes it's so casual and so subtle. You do not, for example, have to hate black people to contribute to discrimination.
The struggle for being black or homosexual isn't so much being kicked out of a store, or barred from membership in an organization, or being actively hated in an environment - it's the subtle, everyday, casual things that stack up quickly. It's the furtive look, the different way people treat you, that little flicker of fear when they see you, etc etc.
This is the problem with explaining privilege - there are very few big, ugly examples you can point at (say, a cross burning on your lawn), but instead there is an avalanche of little things, each one of which is insignificant by itself. Death by a thousand paper cuts.