Atrios catches a moment of internet hilarity:

Funniest line quoted in the post linked below:

“I would never want to use a search engine aimed at middle-aged, suburban white guys like me; I want the world.”

Atrios’ title, of course, is “The World Was Created Just For You.” And the post he’s referring to is a good one which is talking about a bad one, and contains this about the apparent controversy about web sites and portals targetting the black community:

There is something that it is like to be black in the United States. It is overlaid and undergirded with a lot of other ways it is like to be American, human, male, female, geekish, jocky, rural, urban, suburban, young, old, native-born, immigrant, educated, not, so forth. But it is a thing. If there is something it is like to be something, the culture is going to reflect, support and exploit that, online and off.

I’d add to that something which is already implied in the above but deserves to be overt: There is something that it is like to be white in the United States. The importance of this understanding is, in its way, the reverse of the above quote - There is something that it is like to be white in the United States and it is overlaid and undergird with a lot of other ways to be American - but it is a separate thing. Or it should be. Functionally, rhetorically, popularly, it’s not enough of a thing, and that’s the whole problem. “White” and “American” don’t occupy the same space in my matrix of being but the culture wants me to believe they do - that’s privilege.

If I choose not to, or more specifically if I fail to choose to, I never have to differentiate the two, and in so doing I exercise privilege - I even discriminate - against those given no choice in the matter.