User:Wehpudicabok/Privilege (rewrite)

Privilege, in a sociological context, refers to the benefits and advantages held by a group in power, or in a majority, but are not formally codified as legal rights. By contrast, minorities typically lack some or all of these same advantages. Because the benefits of privilege are not formally recognized, groups with privilege are often unaware of the very benefits they receive; this concept is known as "privilege blindness."

The term derives from the basic definition of "privilege", but social justice activists expand it into a specific term of art. Support for the concept and attempts to redress imbalances in privilege come mostly from the political left.

Opposition to the concept of privilege takes many forms. Some claim that privilege does not exist; others agree that some groups are privileged but take issue with the way that the issue is discussed among social justice activists. Part of this is due to a large number of misconceptions about privilege, which will be addressed below; part of this is also purely as a reaction to the more aggressive activists (a polite term for "assholes") promoting it, who, while understanding the concept perfectly well in theory, somehow think that yelling at white men constitutes radical social change.