White privilege 101: Here’s the basic lesson Paul Ryan, Tal Fortgang and Donald Sterling need

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34. I understand what check your privilege is meant to convey

But the problem is that people are not being asked to consider the POV and experience of others. They are hearing someone putting them in their place, putting them down, making them feel ignorant/uniniformed by being told to "check your privilege".

Once people have heard this a few times and have thought it through, they realize what it means, and what it doesn't mean. But it is causing problems here for some because it sounds like a put down to the uninitiated.

Walking people through a new literacy is more helpful than calling them "ignorant or dismissive", or undercutting them in subtle fashion by labelling them as being "assigned a place at the top of the heap". Where one hears blame and anger on one party's part, there will be defensiveness and resistance on the other party's part.