Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn

[John Cribati]

DING!

To tell someone "you have a privilege" is to tell them "you have/get something special that other don't and that you don't deserve".

Actual "privilege" is the mayor getting out of speeding tickets because he's the mayor, or a celebrity going to "rehab" instead federal prison when they're caught with a kilo of cocaine and three "escorts" in a trashed hotel room.

When you say "you have privilege" to someone who works 50+ hours a week to support their family at a decent standard of living, who has put in a lifetime of hard work just to keep up and maybe get ahead a little, you're insulting them.

Point 1: May is an ex-con who can't get a job at what shes good at and has been forced to live as a civilian AI, but given a subpar body in which to live. The fact that Winslow knows somebody who can just buy him a new body when he decides he wants one and May doesn't is a privilege, by your own words!

Point 2: There's this concept known as intersectionality. Privilege doesn't exist on a single axis. Let's say that there are two people who both "work 50+ hours a week to support their family at a decent standard of living, who [have] put in a lifetime of hard work just to keep up and maybe get ahead a little." However, say one of them is a straight man and the other a gay man. The gay man probably had to jump through several legal hoops in order to have the family with his partner, because of the inherent scrutiny that gay couples have with adopting while the straight man just had to knock up his wife a couple times (this is not to belittle what a pregnant woman has to go through, by the way). That is a privilege that the straight man has over the gay man regardless of economic status.

Or, same situation, but one person is a man in the other is a woman. In most jobs, a man having a family is seen as a plus. It shows that he's responsible because of the implication that he is able to manage his household. However, a female employee having a family is often seen as a liability because companies often assume that she will put the family before the job. That again is a privilege that the man has over the woman despite the same economic situation that they're in.

Those were just some simple examples but it goes way, way deeper than that. especially when you mix things like race, and gender expression, and sexual orientation, and economic status, and age, and just about every other category of demographic you can imagine.