Greetings Ayinde
Having read that article now, one thing that leapt out at me was point no. 32. I don't have the article printed in front of me but basically she was saying that she used to think Black people should have been more 'grateful' to white people who supported them during the civil rights movement. She says she still feels that Black people can be ungrateful at times as all people can be ungrateful at times. But that she understands why Black people would need to balance any gratitude to white people who support them, with criticisms of their possible patronizing and paternalistic motives etc.
I would say Black people should never have been 'grateful' in the first place to whites supporting them. 'Gratitude' implies someone going out of their way for you with no ulterior motive, and can be seen to imply that you owe them a debt in some way. For eg. if I needed a day off work, but I'm scheduled to work that day, I could ask one of my co-workers to cover for me and if she did I would be grateful to her. Whether or not he asked for this, I would feel like I should offer the same to the co-worker; any time you need a specific day off ask me and I will try to arrange to cover for you. But my boss has no reason to be "grateful" to me because I arrive at work at 8AM sharp, although I live far from work, rely on the bus system, and have to be up at 5:30 AM if I want to shower and eat breakfast and still get to work on time, and have often had to work until 10 PM the night before, meaning I don't get home before 11:30 and don't get to sleep before 12:30. Although it's a pain in the donkey to do this on the regular, my boss has no reason to be grateful to me for that. I am expected to be at work at 8AM when I'm scheduled to work that shift and it's no concern of my boss's how long it takes me to get there or how it might inconvenience me. I knew all that when I accepted the job offer.
Similarly white people who wanted to support Black people in the struggle for human and civil rights, should never have expected people to be grateful to them. They were simply doing their duty as caring human beings who could empathize on some level with the suffering of others. They also probably felt the need on some level to assuage their own conscience, to do something to distinguish them from the criminal acts associated with "white people". So joining the civil rights movement did something for them as well, easing their consciences and making them feel more worthwhile as human beings, it wasn't entirely "altruistic". At any rate, they knew when they chose to accept the "job" (doing their duty as human beings to oppose racism, or at least to oppose some of the most obvious overt aspects of racism) that it would be a hard slog involving personal sacrifice and quite possibly death. That goes with the "job". The personal sacrifice and risk of death was still less than that experienced by Black people. Chaney and Goodman were two bodies in the Mississippi river, there were hundreds of Black bodies. Black people should never have been expected to be "grateful" for white people who struggled with them. That was simply white people's duty to do that, if they were caring human beings.
So it seems to me that the author of that article, for all of her deep thinking about her privileges, has still not fully come to terms with them if she thinks there should have been any element of gratitude at all in Black people's interaction with white civil rigths workers. (She would probably acknowledge this, she is not saying that she has achieved "enlightenment", just that she is trying to).
Similarly, as much as I might try to analyze and come to terms with the privilege I have as a light-skinned Black as opposed to a darker-skinned Black, I might well come up with a point that sounds as questionable to some dark-skinned Black people as the author's statement about gratitude sounded to me.
Moving on from the article... you said "privilege is unmerited benefits that a group of people get based on false stereotypes about their race and/or color." You also said "privilege also occurs in relation to gender."
I would say it also occurs in relation to a host of things. As a legal alien in the US who spoke good English, I had an element of privilege over "illegal" aliens who spoke little or no English. I remember once spending a night in jail in the US over an altercation with a racist cop. Actually it wasn't jail really, it was the "drunk tank" which I was taken to although I had drunk no alcohol that night. (That was so they could handcuff me in the back of the car and have one of the officers suggestively slapping his flashlight into his palm outside the door, while still saying in response to my question "what am I being arrested for?" that "you are not under arrest" (since they couldn't think of a plausible reason to arrest me I guess). There was a Mexican guy in there who didn't seem particularly drunk either. He had had the crap beaten out of him by the cops on the way there. I'm sure they would have wanted to do the same to me, but the fact that I spoke good English, had acquired a bit of a yankee accent by then and so wasn't lumped in as a probable "illegal immigrant", saved me from a beating. They were pretty sure that the Mexican guy wouldn't complain, call a good lawyer, etc, that in fact he was unable to do so since he didn't speak English and was in a precarious legal situation in the US. They couldn't be so sure about me. (If I had been darker-skinned and/or spoke and dressed more like I was from the "hood", the situation might have been different).
Speaking of ways of speaking, privilege could occur in relation to having a particular accent. This relates to both race and class as certain accents/dialects/manners of speaking are considered characteristic of certain races and/or classes. Here in Britain you can tell what social class and region you are from by your accent. (which I'm sure is why my dad consciously or unconsciously eliminated his working class Cardiff accent when he entered the world of academia).
At my work, most of my co-workers are middle aged working class white Welsh women. They have privilege over me in terms of skin tone. I have privilege over them in relation to gender and age (in some societies older people have privilege over younger, I would say that in western society it seems to be the opposite, at least in many cases- the older you are, the more so, as you are viewed as "non productive" and a "burden".) I also could be said to have privilege over them in the way I speak. I can speak in broad Guyanese creolese or in "ebonics" but I can also speak in a neutral, slightly-American-sounding accent that you can maybe barely hear a bit of Guyanese underneath, I can use all the correct grammar and big impressive sounding words and so on. Sometimes I get the sense that especially the older and less so-called "educated" of my co-workers might feel a bit "ashamed" of their thick Swansea working class accents and non-standard-english grammar when they are around me. One of them asked me why I wasn't doing a "clever" job as opposed to working in a care home. She had obviously internalized to some extent that because she was not "well educated" and came from a "rough" area, it meant she was "stupid" (as opposed to "clever"), and that because taking care of old people involves getting your hands (well, gloves) dirty and does not involve calculating figures or programming computers or whatever, that it is a job of less worth, to be performed by people who are not "clever".
The point I'm making is that my relationship with my co-workers is not only predicated around their relative privilege compared to I around skin color. Gender, age, our accent and ways of speaking and hence perceived class, all play into it as well. Race, color and gender are some of the most obvious, prevalent and pervasive ways in which people get or are denied benefits based on false stereotypes about their superiority or inferiority. But they are not the only ones, and in any given situation there could be an interaction of many factors.
On the example of a poor light skinned Black person and a rich dark skinned Black person. Having read how you define privilege, I agree that the dark-skinned person will never have more privilege than the light-skinned in relation to color. But if the light-skinned poor Black is from a certain area and comes from many generations of poor Black people, chances are s/he has an accent, way of speaking, way of using body language and dressing, that is characteristic of that area and that class of people, which s/he would be judged by, receive or be denied benefits based on, as well as by the shade of his/her skin. So that the "lighter skin" marker that makes him or her perhaps more "acceptable" to white society, would be counteracted by the "n*gga from the hood" markers of accent and mannerisms that make him or her less "acceptable". The dark-skinned rich person, let's say he comes from a family line of Black bourgeouis, private-educated, elitist (which is in itself less likely for a dark-skinned person because of how colorism operated and has operated- but there are dark skinned people who belong to such a group). He or she has ways of speaking, using body language and dressing that are more "acceptable" to white society than the poor light skinned person's. Would you say that always, in every interaction with the white-dominated society, the lighter skinned ghetto-dwelling "ebonics"-speaking do-rag-wearing guy always has more privilege than the darker skinned richer, "educated"sounding, three piece suited guy? (ignore the do-rag vs. 3 piece suit part if you consider that too far from the realm of "privilege" since it's much more someone's choice what to wear than their color of skin, accent and body language). It seems to me that there is an interaction between privileges based on different things. Would it always be the case that privileges based on skin color are so powerful and prevalent that they would "override" as it were, privileges based on other things?
What about a rich black-skinned Black male vs. a poor light-skinned Black female? What if the poor light-skinned Black female was also elderly and wheelchair-bound?
I'm not trying to confuse the issue by dragging these other elements into it. I guess I want to get at exactly how colorism relates to these other factors, in your eyes.
I agree that colorism exists, is a major problem, and that I and other lighter-skinned Black people do have privilege as opposed to darker-skinned Black people within this system. Sometimes when you say things like [paraphrasing from memory, not trying to deliberately distort anything] "light skinned people have not experienced the absolute worst treatment from white police and white society in general that dark-skinned people have"... I'm not sure how much racist pigs distinguish between different shades/kinds of "niggers" "spics" etc. when they are doling out beatings and bullets, for eg. And aren't American Indians generally lighter skinned and straighter haired than us, yet I would say that the Lakota people who live on Pine Ridge reservation, the poorest single place in the US at least according to statistics a few years back, have experienced and are experiencing the worst of the system just as darker-skinned Blacks.
Poor Black people in New Orleans, Mississippi etc. experienced the worst of the system regardless of their shade. But I could see that (a) colorism may have made it more likely for the darker-skinned people to be in and to stay in the ghetto [I think this is a bit more prevalent in the caribbean, it seems to me that in the caribbean there tends to be a closer relationship between skin shade and economic class, in answer to your question on another post as to how colorism might operate differently in the U.S., or not.] and (b) regardless of both facing the worst of the system in terms of economic conditions, police oppression, etc., darker-skinned people may have experienced more things like being constantly told they're stupid, ugly etc., on top of that, and maybe the police etc. do tend to be even more brutal when dealing with darker-skinned people. Maybe my initial reaction of "...nah" to the assertion that light skinned Blacks are treated better by police and white society in the U.S. has to do with the amount of times I've personally been messed with by white society, and the even more and worse times that light skinned people I know from more "hood" backgrounds than me, have been messed with by said police and society. But it could be the case that darker-skinned people generally tend to get even more and worse police beatings etc.
PS I'll be working a lot of hours over the next few days, so if I take a minute to respond to your response to this (assuming you respond to it) don't think that I'm trying to avoid the issue or avoid your response or anything.
Eja, I wasn't sure if you were referring to me with the "still no answer?" title on one of your posts... but the explanation is as above. Also people should know that I don't own this computer and my access to it is irregular.
Well, respect to all in this discussion... Positive Energy Activates Constant Elevation and I'm out.