Livre d'Or

I agree, the "privilege" concept does end up being used in a Top Trumps sort of way, that's part of why I have a problem with it, even though thoughtful, educated people do in fact use it in a much more nuanced way. I don't feel Hodges reads Penny very well, I don't think she is remotely automatically caving in to people who disagree with her just because they happen to be black and she's white! But because they specifically have more direct, relevant experience of the issue at hand than she does, so it makes sense that their view of how to deal with racism carries more weight than hers.

I truly don't think it's a case of your experience makes you automatically win the argument. I think it's more like, the default situation is that the privileged people in the discussion have a better chance of being listened to, simply because people are more inclined to listen to people with high status. But the default should really be that the less privileged people in the discussion should at least be taken equally seriously, if not in fact allowing the discussion to be weighted slightly towards their perspective because of direct first-hand experience. That's not the same as saying that eg white people don't have the right to opinions about experiences that they haven't had.

The problem is that it's all too easy to interpret anything along the lines of CYP in that way, as I think both Hodges and Mensch do. I don't know if there's a better way to achieve the end, which is for people with direct first-hand experience of discrimination to be allowed to shape the debate, even though the discriminatory attitudes also effect how the debate takes place to start with. I would like to think there is a better way, but I don't know what it is.

And yes, I agree that the privilege frame really helps with the kind of positive reflection you mention. Again, I don't know how to come up with a frame that would achieve that aim better, though.