It's simply intractable to add up everyone's advantages and disadvantages
Sure.
it's the wrong path to focus on group attributes/trends when you start talking about individuals.
Absolute nonsense. If a particular school had a 30% graduation rate while every other school in the state averaged 80%, would you say, "Wait a minute! It's the wrong path to talk about this school in particular. These are individual kids..."
As you say, every individual human being certainly is more than the some of their labels. But when gross inequalities between groups emerge, it's lunacy to suggest there are no greater group-wide forces at work on scales greater than the individual.
Would you tell Michael Jordan to check his privilege if he told a group of average white male nerds to reflect on theirs?
Is Michael Jordan a group of people? Unless there's a clone army of Michael Jordans out there that I don't know about, this theoretical question is bizarre and irrelevant to anything anybody is talking about.
I'm not even sure what you're getting at here. He is a part of some privileged groups (rich people, people with one-in-a-million athletic ability, men) and not others.
I could clamor for tall rich sportsmen to "send the
elevator down for me". That it's their responsibility
and so on.
Michael Jordan can't make you a rich, tall sportsman. That's not... physically possible. However, the author of the original article suggested that we help others achieve careers in our industry. Now that certainly does seem possible, doesn't it? Hardly even seems controversial, if you ask me.
I'm not sure what you are getting at with your school example. 20% of students from school B aren't graduating; 70% of students from school A aren't graduating. If you institute some program that leads to one new kid graduating, who cares if it's in school A or B?
Gross inequalities between groups _can_ exist, but that tells us _nothing_ about any particular individual within the group, only that individual's chances _when no other information is available_. But other information _is_ available when looking at an individual.
You seem to be suggesting we somehow theoretically add up all one's advantages and disadvantages- But that means... Considering the individual. Great, I agree. Since we are doing that, phrases such as "recognize your male privilege" mean nothing to an individual male, because it is very possible that individual male has severe disadvantages that make singling out the maleness aspect ridiculous- It would be like telling a minority male shot by a cop to reflect on his privilege of not generally facing sexism like a woman does (setting aside that a "male" privilege here is actually a disadvantage, but you get the idea).
In general people have an obligation to help the less fortunate, I agree.
I'm not sure what you are getting at with your school example.
It's quite simple. Clearly there are times to consider the individual and clearly there are times when we should consider larger groups.
If Town A had a cancer rate 5 times higher than the national average surely you wouldn't say, "Well, look, those people are individuals, and an individual's cancer risk is affected by lots of things -- diet, exercise, genetic predisposition... to heck with looking for differences between Town A and Town B."
Clearly you'd want to start investigating things that affect Town A on a town-wide basis.
As you say, every individual human being certainly is more than the some of their labels. But when gross inequalities between groups emerge, it's lunacy to suggest there are no greater group-wide forces at work on scales greater than the individual.
Is Michael Jordan a group of people? Unless there's a clone army of Michael Jordans out there that I don't know about, this theoretical question is bizarre and irrelevant to anything anybody is talking about.I'm not even sure what you're getting at here. He is a part of some privileged groups (rich people, people with one-in-a-million athletic ability, men) and not others.
Michael Jordan can't make you a rich, tall sportsman. That's not... physically possible. However, the author of the original article suggested that we help others achieve careers in our industry. Now that certainly does seem possible, doesn't it? Hardly even seems controversial, if you ask me.