Privilege is concept that certain attributes a person has confer relative advantages in the ways they interact with the world and the outcomes thereof. Acknowledging that is not and cannot be bigotry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_privilege
Unless you're saying that white privilege is a consequence of racism, which would be correct, but not really relevant to the discussion here.
Related the concept is so terribly named it seems meant to raise conflict. Privledge implies that it should be optional. It invites the previously mentioned abuse.
noun
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
It's named perfectly fine, it's just people willfully misinterpret it.
As far as being a "racist rhetorical cudgel", I'm sorry if you've felt that way, but the majority of times I've seen it used, it's to point out that a person's privilege does work to invalidate their opinion on a matter.
Most often, this is when someone is claiming that some form of discrimination doesn't exist, or isn't that bad, or that it happens the same to everyone and the people complaining should just get over it.
Privilege affects one's lived experience in ways that it's difficult to notice, because you have only your own lived experience to rely on. As a man, I was privileged not to experience harassment, and like many men I thought my female friends were exaggerating how bad it was. Then I took a series of subway rides with a friend who was harassed every time, and later got personally harassed by a creepy coworker. My privilege blinded me to the reality of the situation.
The same thing applies to race. I see a lot of white people who never personally witness racism making these broad statements about how, for example, you should just do what the police say and you'll be fine, when they've never had a cop drag them out of a car for no reason because they look like someone who might deal drugs. Because of their differences in societal privilege, their lived experience of dealing with cops has been wildly different, and the people with privilege shouldn't be talking over the people pointing out issues.
[1] https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and in-
sulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protec-
tion builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering
the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility.
White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress be-
comes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include
the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such
as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behav-
iors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.Also, while I haven't read DiAngelo's greater oeuvre, that's a pretty poor quote to pull. The symptoms (anger and fear particularly) and strategies he gives of a white person experiencing "white fragility" could just as easily be applied to a black person experiencing racism! Which honestly is in accord with my wider experience with the anti-racist movement. Its most ardent supporters tend to say things that, as a non-American (and non-European before you make that assumption), are almost indistinguishable to me from white supremacy. I find myself agreeing greatly with John McWhorter (https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/the-elect-neoracists-po...) over Ibram X. Kendi.