ext_1177 ([identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] justira 2009-05-01 10:18 pm (UTC)

England vs. Wales didn't count as an example, but it was certainly the case that England was culturally dominant and oppressed the Welsh.


That's where the power + priviledge definition starts to break down, because it's used specifically for racism but technically could be applied to any kind of oppression if you're going by the literal definition.

I suspect part of it is that while the English and the Welsh definitely considered one another to be seperate races in the past (back when race as a concept was as much about nationality as anything else and people talked about things like "the English race" or "the Anglo-Saxon race and the celtic races"), they're not considered to be different races by modern standards. They're both just thought of as white, and therefore they'd both have white priviledge compared to groups who aren't white. (It does make it tricky to figure out how people ought to define things like ethnic conflicts in former Soviet bloc countries, though, because Serbs and Croatians, for example, are both white, yet there's also clearly a racial/ethnic element to the conflict)

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting