It feels to me like I fell into programming, like it just happened that I graduated college with a skill that was highly in demand. But how did I end up here? Because of my race and gender people were more likely to see me as a potential engineer and take my efforts seriously. Because my parents could afford a computer in the 1980s there was one around for me to learn on. Because they could afford good schooling for me there were classes where I could practice this skill and study the theory behind it. It's hard to know the chain of causality that led to me getting into programming, but it's substantially less likely that I'd be here if I'd not had these advantages along the way.
If you think of privilege as something you have that makes you a bad person, if you know the word and know it applies to you but you try to hide and dismiss your privilege, to find axes along which you have less of it, that's only marginally more helpful than if you were to deny your privilege entirely and insist that all your accomplishments in life have been due to your efforts alone. Having privilege puts you in position where you have an outsized ability to effect change. The best response to privilege is to turn it to fixing the situation that led you to having these major advantages over others.
If I look at my situation, my race, class, and gender privilege have been helpful, but my nationality privilege is by far my biggest unearned advantage. Someone at the poverty line in the US earns more than 90% of people in the world, even after adjusting for money going farther in poorer countries. This is not to minimize the suffering of people in the US, along any dimension, but to illustrate the extent of the problem and the work required. With so much need, how could I possibly justify keeping my luck to myself?
So I earn to give. I can't reject my privilege, I can't give it back, the best I can do is use it to give back.
I also posted this on my blog.
I think people have misunderstood your point, Dale. I've read your comment a few times and it just seems like the standard “Don't let the haters get to you, bro” pat on the back from a friend. If anything, you were being overly positive (“be proud of who you are”, “the world is full of lovely, tolerant people”)!
If I may give my take on your criticisms:
Dale is implying that Jeff is doing something wrong (by writing this article or otherwise) by saying things like “don't let them bring you down to their level.”: How I interpreted this expression and his overall comment is that Dale isn't criticizing something Jeff did, but is encouraging him to transcend the negatively of others and not get sucked into it going forward.
Dale is criticizing people who fight for social justice: I'm extremely surprised to see people take this angle. “Social justice warrior” is a colloquial term about people who are not actually trying to better the world, but use social justice issues as an excuse to patronize and attack others to make themselves feel superior when in reality those people never did anything wrong. Similarly, the term “vegan police,” refers to those that relish making others feel inferior for not being vegan enough and does not in any way denounce people that are legitimately trying to protect animals.
Dale assumes that Jeff wrote the article because SJW's gave him problems: Yes, Dale explicitly states that he is making this assumption. So what? Even if the assumption is incorrect, I still think it's sweet of Dale for trying to be supportive of Jeff.
I think you wrote a very sympathetic and supportive comment, Dale. Misunderstanding are just too easy through writing.
Thankyou.