Starting when I was twelve, I worked for multiple summers doing landscaping to buy a computer; mowing yards, hauling wood bark, dirt, laying sod, ripping up sod.

It was hard, sweaty, backbreaking labor, especially for a 12 year old; I did it because I wanted to program. I used that computer to teach myself to program, and got my first real programming job from someone who I'd never previously met in person, over IRC.

According to today's identity politics, I need to be aware of my privilege as a white male nonetheless, and my position on the coarse-grained intersectional hierarchy of privilege.

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with that once aware, or why they get to decide where everyone fits on that hierarchy on the basis of traits they deem important.

> According to today's identity politics, I need to be aware of my privilege as a white male nonetheless

Yup. That's because as a white male, you are still "privileged".

I'm using quotes here, because, as mentioned earlier, I don't think the word is a good fit for the concept it's supposed to describe. Privilege implies something above and beyond what you are normally entitled to; something that you don't necessarily deserve (I think that's the main reason why it elicits such a strong negative emotional response in people). As a white male, you are not getting such things - you're getting normal treatment, in a sense that no-one is making negative assumptions about your intellect, your ability to learn etc on the basis of your race or gender (they may well be making them based on other traits, and you can be underprivileged on the corresponding other axes). The problem is that others do get negative points solely on account of their gender, color of their skin, or even their name alone (http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html).

So you don't really have a "white privilege", but rather they have a "non-white handicap". It's not your fault - but because of said privilege, you're in a better position to try to correct it somewhat.

> I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with that once aware

Try to do what you can to even things out. I'm not even necessarily talking about politics, but just day to day things. Have you ever seen a female colleague being talked over in a meeting in your presence? Try to steer the discussion to give her voice. Ever been on a hiring interview loop, and heard dismissive racial or cultural stereotyping of a candidate based on their name alone ("I wonder if he codes like an Indian" etc)? Point it out. And so on.

> the word "privilege" is really poorly chosen

The 'white' part is just as problematic. There are many other things that make life hard too. Having a mental illness, for example, or being molested/abused as a child. Yet no one talks about non-mentally-ill privilege or unmolested privilege. Just because skin color is something that can't be hidden when we go out in public doesn't elevate it above all the other difficulties or challenges in life. I've known people from all those groups and would say that depressives, schizophrenics and victims of molest have far more challenges in life than do minorities. Which is not to say that there aren't people who have more than one set of challenges, just that the focus on race and the implication that life is easy for someone who's white is not productive and frustrates people with other legitimate challenges in life.

This is, to me, why many reasonable people have a problem with identity politics. In an effort to bring awareness to the struggles of some, it actually ends up making others feel marginalized and their experiences minimized and is confrontational in nature. Empathy is about envisioning yourself in someone else's situation. The way we do identity politics today, it's the reverse. Instead of the desired, "I imagine myself in your position and I see how hard it must be" it's "I imagined myself in your position and, trust me, it's easier than mine."

I have a parent who is a psychologist. Growing up, I was taught that the right way to handle conflict was to always talk about your personal experience. Saying, "you're being insensitive" is accusatory, controversial and bound to cause an argument. Saying, "I feel unappreciated" is an unequivocally correct statement that can't be argued because no one else can know how you experience something. The only way to sort of refute that is to say, "I don't intend to make you feel that way." The problem with the term "white privilege" is that it's not a personal experience term. It's a term that encapsulates a projection of the white experience from the perspective of minorities. Anyone who doesn't feel they lead a privileged life will instinctively reject it. We need to be using terminology that's in line with the "I feel..." way of expressing oneself...terminology that helps convey the difficulties that some people face rather than the lack of difficulties everyone else faces.

> The 'white' part is just as problematic. There are many other things that make life hard too. Having a mental illness, for example, or being molested/abused as a child. Yet no one talks about non-mentally-ill privilege or unmolested privilege.

Actually yes, we do talk about that stuff as well. The things that you hear most - racial, gender, wealth and religious privilege - are talked about more simply because they affect proportionally more people.