Yan, your post is a very good example of the difference between RESPONSE and REACTION.
The subject of privilege caused you to come thoughtful and honest about your own.
I wish others would summon the integrity and honesty to look at their emotional REACTIONS to this subject, and question themselves in a forthright way to see if any of the privileged behavior described here could possibly apply to them, and whether this might account for how embattled and attacked they feel.
I also am reminded by your post of how crucial self-knowledge and self-reflection are to development.
In the words of a beloved sister, "RUTHLESS self-examination" is the only way to come pure in truth.
Ones come here full of others' words, just like a politician, and then they get praise and strokes for their intelligence. Well at least they know good information when they see it, so that is something...
But EXPERIENCE is the big issue here, and not empathy and compassion and feeling the pain of the worst victims. Why, on that basis I, a white woman with an African ancestry not far past, can consider myself a leader in the movement for Black liberation! See how ridiculous this gets if we do not acknowledge that those who experience the worst effects of racism are best suited to lead.
The issue of class is of course the shadow that has been dogging this entire debate.
It was not nice for me to realize, once I shucked my victim mentality, that I am part of an elite. I do not scuffle for food or walk 20 miles for water. I sit in relative comfort and safety at my computer like the vast majority here. It does not surprise me that some of the reactions to this issue have been so violent and emotional, to the point of distorting the simple point that Diop made and Ayinde amplified. We are like the emperor and whoops we have no clothes.
If ones could come real and speak from their own experience of privilege, that would go far to advance the cause for equal rights and justice for everyone. We can only come as ourselves. And that is all we can bring to the struggle.
Ones who find certain topics unacceptable or 'divisive', clearly, they do not understand the true nature of Unity.

Rootsie