Unearned Advantages Quotes

I think that liberal straight white men really need to stop patting themselves on the back for what they think they think and actually take a look at their actions.

American computer science grads often have very little exposure to the human condition. They've rarely had manual labor or service jobs. They grow up in a bubble of privilege lulled into thinking this country is a true meritocracy.

The great thing about being a standard-issue, straight white person is you have so much time. Gay people, people of color, we have less time! We have to be a living Learning Annex to everybody. We don't have time to master hobbies like skipping rocks along lakes.

I know my daughter was dealt a very, very good birth card, but sometimes I feel like I want to honor the fact that she also drew a lottery that she didn't get to choose, which is that there is this thing called Eventbrite in our lives, and it sometimes takes precedence.

I get messages from 21-year old white dudes who have just gotten out of an expensive college and say 'Hey can I pick your brain?' and I have nothing to say to them because A. They already have all the advantages and B. My advice would be the same as anyone else: Go do open mics.

My son is a better actor than me, only I was luckier.

While everyone's experience of oppression is different and complicated and often overlapping, I really believe that if you have privilege, you need to learn as much as you can about the world beyond yourself.

Privilege and complacency paralyze me with fear sometimes. But the less vulnerable we are because of privilege, the country we're born in, or the security we enjoy, the more vulnerable our souls are to apathy.

Sometimes I leave an encounter or a conversation hoping that I didn't come off as above my raisin' - hoping that I didn't make somebody feel bad for not having as much as we're fortunate to have.

Entitlement and privelege corrupt.

To be white in America is to have the confidence to say, without a second thought: this space, this neighborhood, this city, this county, this country is mine.

The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.

We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse.

Those who are privileged have little regard for history.

I don’t really think that as a society we want to confer blessings on generations after generations who contribute nothing to society simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth.

I don't think that coming from a privileged background makes you this monster who doesn't feel things.

I'm about as privileged as you can get. I'm a white, male, heterosexual front man of a rock band.

It was implanted in me that I came from a different class - an elevated class. I was cushioned by servants. I don't remember doing anything for myself. I only played and went to school.

Say there's a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that's saying is that he's living a fantasy life of rebellion.

As long as you are in that white privilege bubble, you don't need to see the world differently. You don't need to see the world through the eyes of minorities or women.

There are opportunities that I have because I'm a white dude, and it's controversial because that's just the way that the world we live in kind of is.

Beware of privilege. It stinks of rotten fish heads, many of which were lapping the shore beneath the jetties.

The last person I'd date is some rich kid who's had everything handed to her on a plate. Give me a normal girl any day.

Lack of power and opportunity passes off too often for virtue.