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I agree with you on this, but I'm always confused about how we actually apply this in real life to any given individual. If profiling (which we assume is a problem in and of itself) includes trying to infer whether someone is carrying a knife from their skin colour, then it also presumably includes trying to infer other aspects of their experience of their behaviour or experience (even positive/beneficial ones) from their skin colour. That (albeit less oppressive) form of profiling is how we end up with journalists implying that David Cameron didn't really suffer when his son died because "he's privileged."
These types of arguments frequently fall down (just as they do with stop and search) when you try to move from a societal problem affecting a whole group to talking about an individual. This version of "identity politics" needs critiquing as much as anything else, but it's really difficult to do without people assuming that you are coming at it from an alt-right perspective.
But it feels like you're arguing against a straw man - no-one who really understands the concept of privilege would ever argue that it's freedom from all pain or all oppression or all hardship. It just says that you're free of certain types of hardship based on your sex, or skin colour, or culture, or class. You can still feel grief and loss and suffer from other types of discrimination as much as anyone else.
I'm as happy to discuss the failings of identify politics as anyone, but misunderstanding/misrepresenting the basics as you seem to have done, or blanket denying them, as that alt right dude did earlier on, is not a good faith basis for a discussion.
I don't fully understand what you mean by the argument falling down when we move from groups to individuals. I can only speak for myself, but my awareness that women will often be minimised during meetings means I'll often amplify if they're being interrupted or sidelined. If it turns out that individual does not need that sort of amplification, I zip it. That's not the argument falling down, it's just being polite and responsive to a social situation. Or if you meant something else please shout, it's possible I'm misunderstanding you too.
ReekBlefs-
But it feels like you're arguing against a straw man - no-one who really understands the concept of privilege would ever argue that it's freedom from all pain or all oppression or all hardship. It just says that you're free of certain types of hardship based on your sex, or skin colour, or culture, or class. You can still feel grief and loss as much as anyone else.
I agree with that definition (although I might say "barrier" rather than "hardship"), but it's clear from the existence of articles like the one that I referred to above about David Cameron that there are people out there who don't understand the concept. They publish across the internet and are sometimes given platforms on broadsheet newspapers. The fact that they have a warped understanding of the concept doesn't stop them from pushing for change based on their view.
I don't fully understand what you mean by the argument falling down when we move from groups to individuals.
I guess I mean two things: the first is that you cannot necessarily accurately infer from a person's identity what their experience has been or what their beliefs or actions will be, as useful a lens as "identity" is across a society it can fall down hard when it comes to the individual. Worse, individuals' experience is embraced when it supports one interpretation of a group's experience but dismissed when it contradicts it.
The second is summed up in a quote from that Kimberley Foster article I linked to
"Identity politics become flimsy when they devolve into shallow back-and-forths that conflate lived experience with sound political analysis. A worldview that moves us closer to equality doesn’t stem from living in a certain kind of body. It emerges from pursuing a certain kind of politics."
ffm
I agree with you on this, but I'm always confused about how we actually apply this in real life to any given individual. If profiling (which we take to be a problem in and of itself) includes trying to infer whether someone is carrying a knife from their skin colour, then it also presumably includes trying to infer other aspects of their experience of their behaviour or experience (even positive/beneficial ones) from their skin colour. That (albeit less oppressive) form of profiling is how we end up with journalists implying that David Cameron didn't really suffer when his son died because "he's privileged."
These types of arguments frequently fall down (just as they do with stop and search) when you try to move from a societal problem affecting a whole group to talking about an individual. This version of "identity politics" needs critiquing as much as anything else, but it's really difficult to do without people assuming that you are coming at it from an alt-right perspective.