The message focus and the message it sends to people is wrong. The signal is that there are systemic problems that can't be changed because people in power are guilty of having power. "White privilege" falls into a mentality that I call victimization, where instead of people looking at things through the lens of "how can I change myself and be better", they look at it through the lens of "how can others change themselves to help me be better". This is a hopeless signal that doesn't help anyone.

What we should be saying to people is that they should strive to be better because that's the only sure way they can hope to improve their situations. Waiting for other people to help you isn't going to do anything. The only thing you have control over is your own life. If the public discourse around these issues focuses solely on how other people have control and how you have no control, then the situation only becomes worse because then people have an excuse to not try, and they don't.

The problem isn't with the concept of privilege itself. The problem is that the concept and the word have been weaponized into an insult instead of the admonishment to recognize one's advantages that it should be. That, and too much emphasis has been put on racial privilege and not enough on class privilege, or at least social class privilege.

>I'm able-bodied and have 0 problems with being called privileged for being able bodied.

It is not being called privileged that's the problem. It's being shamed or put in some hierarchy of oppression that is the problem.

>I don't see how acknowledging this is demeaning.

I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but, obviously this conversation isn't about you. Many Americans they have seen this as demeaning. And for what it's worth, I know many people who do demean white, able-bodied, cis-gendered people for their "lack of" oppression.

"White privilege" as a phrase vastly oversimplifies the cultural hierarchy.

It is probably rather insulting to a unemployed rust belt white man with no degree, who is getting by on social assistance, to be tagged by some well-off person on the coasts with a professional degree, that they are suffering from "white male privilege".

For a start, such "privilege" is not terribly applicable in this case. Regardless of whether the professional is not white and/or not male, the professional with the degree is in the "higher caste" in American society compared to the unemployed white man with no degree.

Many articles that use such phrases as "white privilege" tend to be accusatory and overly moralizing. If that's not insulting, at the very least you are not going to change any minds. (As an example from the "other side", my brother works at Citigroup. Guess what I start thinking of a person's argument when they start descending into an "evil Wall Street elite" meme?)

I agree that "white privilege" exists but there are better ways to phrase this -- at the very least, acknowledge and understand the other side.

Because words are supposed to have their specific, well-understood meaning. By your logic, a guy with one arm and one leg is privileged too; there are certainly people out there that have it much worse than him.

My (laymen's) understanding of the word 'privilege' was always more along the line of "Mozart was his piano teacher". But it looks like at some point the word was redefined to some incredibly technical meaning whereby a broke--but white, and male--coal miner is also privileged.

If you want to start a war, you need to tell people they are under attack: "Naturally, the common people don't want war ... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

This works the same for culture wars, or "war on christmas" etc. People are fundamentally nice, they don't want to stop gay people from marrying, so you need to frame it as "an attack on traditional marriage" to get people riled up with righteous fury.

Pointing out the obvious fact that white people have advantages needs to be twisted too. By for example pointing out that a poor white man has problems that a rich non-white man doesn't. Totally ignoring the obvious comparison point being two poor men, or two poor women, or two rich men/women with different skin colors. Not getting the point becomes imperative, to maintain the illusion of it being an attack.

When you call people "privileged", what they hear is "you have it too good".

If your life happens to actually truly suck, it's hard to not resent those who want to make it even worse.