Sure. The biggest flaw in all this thinking is that an individual should suffer because an arbitrary grouping they're placed in historically has been abusive or advantaged, even if the individual is neither. And the groupings are usually flawed. For instance I'm an Arab, and have been discriminated against and even beaten for it. My ancestors are not Yale alumni ex-slave owner families, and I've never gotten a job for being "white". Yet I'm classified as "white", which is absurd and shows that racial groups are absurd, and not even a scientifically acknowledged phenomenon, but just a social construct [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)

> Yet I'm classified as "white", which is absurd and shows that racial groups are absurd, and not even a scientifically acknowledged phenomenon, but just a social construct

Who's doing the classifying? Most of the time it's you checking a box in some application form

If it's just a social construct, theoretically what's stopping you from identifying as a different race? An honor system?

Since there is no legal assignment of race, what's keeping people from just lying?

> If it's just a social construct, theoretically what's stopping you from identifying as a different race?

Because that social construct doesn't involve self-selection. The construct is that society puts people into racial buckets.

> The construct is that society puts people into racial buckets.

So let's say you apply for a job somewhere and they ask the race question on the job application. I highly doubt that interviewers are given this information. Who exactly is holding people accountable in this system?

I don't speak for your family history in a personal sense and I get your main point about the ridiculous absurdity of racial groupings, but Islamic states and kingdoms which include the Arabic peninsula, were also notorious slave states for centuries. Again, despite many PC narratives, slavery was hardly the exclusive province of European colonial powers working against oppressed others around the world.

Again though, these modern PC culture groupings that make reference to "white privilege" for all Caucasian looking people fall into the ignorantly ridiculous, or obtuse. I'm Eastern European, from the Balkans, my family and me were war refugees who never had much serious privilege in our lives but I've had people lecture me about white privilege as if I somehow have fault for an arbitrary genetic manifestation on the skin and am thus little different from any caricature of self indulgent wealthy, institutional white business men (not that there's anything specifically wrong with them either by the way).

Ironically, in my direct "privileged white" family, a paternal grandfather was a concentration camp inmate and a maternal great grandfather was an ostarbieter for the Nazis, deported to the Reich during the World War as.... a real-life 20th century slave.

My family are poor christians from a 2000 year old farming village in southern lebanon who almost certainly nothing to do with the Islamic slave trade. But I get your point.

Yes, I'm sorry if I came across as at all pointing a finger at you or your family, not at all the case and it would be foolish given the rest of my comment narrative. Just mentioned the Arabic history of slave trading as a general counterpoint to a dominant narrative of it being a European custom above all else.

Which village?

Small enough that I might reveal my identity by naming it.

> Again, despite many PC narratives, slavery was hardly the exclusive province of European colonial powers working against oppressed others around the world.

Which PC narrative suggests otherwise? I'm not familiar which one pretends and relies on the exclusion of various slave trades, can you elaborate?

Let's be serious. Have you never once spoken to a crowd of people that self identifies as woke or some combination of qualities that amount to the same essential definition? I have, with many of them and yes, among quite a number of people, the dominant narrative is of constantly making reference to "Eurocentric hegemonic" historical cultural destruction/oppression with disdain for any mention of the very well established historical facts of many other cultures doing exactly the same things. None of this is to minimize the long European history of colonial oppression, but it's certainly not trait that's particular to that continent or its different cultures.

Of course you see yourself differently as an "Eastern European" - Those distinctions don't translate to the US because when juxtaposed with darker skinned people (particularly the Descendants of Slaves in the US), the differences between Europeans becomes negligible.

Eg - When the Irish/Italians immigrated here in the 20th century they were initially seen as "other" but after a few decades "graduated" to white. So yes you do benefit, even if you don't realize it.

No. Whatever qualities, privileges or detriments that ignorant others ascribe to my skin color are not my fault or my responsibility to feel guilty over. This applies in all cases for anyone of any color.

What's more, your simplistic, ignorant color-based dismissal of an entire and enormous range of historical, cultural and personal history differences between certain eastern Europeans and certain other Europeans is no less insulting than the kind of low key racism that some people apply by labeling all blacks or brown-skinned people the same. The differences in both cases are emphatically not negligible. That you openly think this way is likely only because it's been instilled as politically acceptable. It sure as hell has no real merit.

That some so-called progressives often think this way today is a sad reminder of how old stupidities can come full circle to infect new generations.

Calm down - I never indicated any of that.

In a functional sense when compared to darker skinned, non European people; in the US specifically, European cultural differences are far less significant as they are in Europe.

This isn't limited to Europeans, clearly.

This isn’t about feeling guilty about your skin color. Sure some “progressives” incorrectly think that. Not a huge deal.

> young/whatever else sues and wins

Note that youth is not a federally protected class in the US – the ADEA protects people who are 40 years and older. Some states have laws protecting young people from age discrimination, but it is not universal.

Yes I am aware. I still hope we change laws so hiring or not hiring for characteristics like that is a lawsuit and not okay.