"Privileged"/"Underprivileged" (was Re: Global Exchange and

[Patrick Bond]

> Raymond Williams has an excellent entry "Underprivileged" in _Keywords_,
> Rev. ed. (NY: Oxford UP, 1983):
> <<<<<   *Underprivileged* appears to be a very recent word, thought it is
> now common in social and political writing.  It is especially interesting
> because of the primary meaning that had developed in _privilege_ (cf.
> PRIVATE), as a special advantage 

In South Africa today, black people are called "formerly 
disadvantaged" in virtually all official and semi-official blahblah.


> ...Williams' comments clarify why the dichotomy of "privileged" and
> "underprivileged" is not only useless but also obscurantist when used
> generously and generally.  I make some _limited_ exceptions when used _very
> specifically_ to point to _specific oppressions_ that can't be simply
> reduced to class relations (e.g., white privilege, heterosexual privilege,
> etc.), 

And again, when arseholes tell black South Africans who are too poor 
to pay their (fast-rising) water/electricity bills that they suffer a 
"culture of entitlement" (really), the activist rebuttal is to point 
out the decadent ones' "culture of privilege"...