Then, xiphias, you're not claiming that I have white privilege; but holzman is. This is exactly the problem that I have with your semantics.

It would be best if everyone in the world was treated with respect - what in your language would be referred to as everyone having white privilege; but since that isn't the case, it's necessary for those people in the world who aren't treated with respect to be able to say "Hey, this is wrong," whether that's based on skin color, facial features, cultural cues, or the ability to maintain a decent wardrobe (don't laugh; very likely this is a major part of the discrimination I've faced).

I don't mind holzman's use of white privilege to apply only to racist persecution, as long as it isn't conflated with immunity to other forms of persecution, as your definitions / explanations of "whiteness" suggest, and for that matter, as the narrative of "Jews" being assimilated into "whites" sometime in the 1950s suggests.

I don't mind the ideas that you've presented when you provide your definitions / explanations of what "whiteness" and "white privilege" mean to you. They are, in fact, extremely useful ideas, and I would like to have a way to talk about them that doesn't put me in danger of social censorship. It's useful to be able to talk about 'belonging to the group that isn't discriminated against;' about what assimilation into that group means; and about circumstances that make assimilation or inclusiveness in that group provisional.

But I want language *I* can use. I don't want to be told, if I claim not to have white privilege, that of course this is bullshit, because that person, like most people, thinks I'm white. I don't belong to an ethnic group with a recent history of assimilation and a long history of persecution to use as evidence or explanation of my position.

dichroic talks about online discussions where "it's clear that .... 'white' means 'part of the privileged group, possssing power by virtue of birth.'" Conflating this meaning of white with a more specifically racial one bothers me less; and so I haven't spoken out. However, when you talk about "white" being used "as shorthand for 'safe from persecution'," as I think dichrioc correctly points out you are doing in this instance, that rings my alarm bells and pushes my buttons.

I don't want to be told, by someone like holzman (although I seriously doubt that holzman himself would do this), that I have white privilege, in a discussion, such as might happen in your journal, xiphias, where white and white privilege are being used to mean "free from persecution" rather than "free from racial persecution."

Kiralee