Unify Action - August 25, 2026


The 'WHITE Privilege' Argument Falls Apart When You Say This


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

183.76

Word count

1,838

Sentence count

66

Harmful content

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I've not experienced systemic racism, capitalism kind of follows through and perpetuates this exploitation.
00:00:05.700 I can't point to any benefit that I have as a white person that you don't.
00:00:10.140 You know, we see late-stage capitalism, we see, you know, all of the pain and exploitation,
00:00:14.980 especially, you know, me coming from a perspective where I can see and at least experience systemic racism,
00:00:21.320 or racism in its own type of way, right?
00:00:23.280 where capitalism kind of follows through
00:00:28.320 and, like, perpetuates this exploitation, right?
00:00:32.640 Socialism is a way to reform this type of exploitation
00:00:36.480 where it's like, I think, I'm talking more communist points,
00:00:40.260 more Marxist points, but it can apply to socialism
00:00:42.180 where we're reforming these policies,
00:00:44.900 we're controlling these corporations
00:00:47.120 with heavy neoliberal policies
00:00:49.340 so that we make sure that they don't get out of control,
00:00:52.880 like they usually do um there's a lot there i i do want to ask before i address like the whole
00:00:58.620 socialism thing like those aren't like the points that i would typically use um but you said you
00:01:03.100 experience systemic racism can i ask like just your experience with that well okay i can't speak
00:01:10.100 in the sense of where i come from i i used to live in kuwait it is a country in the middle east
00:01:15.960 and um oftentimes there's kind of a caste system in in these types of countries in the middle east
00:01:22.780 where a lot of people, like expats or foreigners, are kind of usually at the bottom,
00:01:27.220 especially people who are Indian, Filipino, Egyptian, like me.
00:01:32.400 And I see that capitalism tends to perpetuate this caste system, right?
00:01:39.460 It allows for, for example, let me explain this.
00:01:43.920 There are a lot of laws that allow for employers in Kuwait, for example,
00:01:48.080 to remove the passport of whoever they are employing,
00:01:51.820 to pay them very little but give them like amenities or housing right under a system where
00:01:58.180 capitalism allows for this to happen right where this is a normalized thing we obviously know that
00:02:03.200 we've seen similar systems like this before where they offer housing or food and stuff like that
00:02:07.680 especially in history right especially in the u.s have you experienced that sort of racism in
00:02:12.200 canada yes i have yes how um well i used to live here for six years i just came back here around a
00:02:21.800 that a lot of times it comes from people of authority okay so like uh at least my experience
00:02:31.780 was like with my school so a lot of teachers a lot of principals and stuff would essentially
00:02:36.480 always pick on me or always like kind of report me even a lot of times i was i was a really good
00:02:41.880 kid i didn't really do anything but i was like one of the few brown kids among the many like
00:02:47.560 white kids in the class is this like currently or like is this a few years this was a few years
00:02:52.080 ago it's quite a while ago so it's like this is from my memory of being here okay but i can say
00:02:56.420 that i think the the logic of it kind of can or the mechanism behind it where it's like people
00:03:02.800 of authority can still um like have power and still like hold power right through and especially
00:03:12.100 here where it's like through money right how money gives you a lot of power so i think just
00:03:18.300 from history in general and the accumulation of especially you know usually white families
00:03:24.420 gaining more or because of the history in the past and having more now it's kind of like a great
00:03:30.580 example would be imagine we're playing monopoly right and you're able to buy a bunch of different
00:03:36.480 like plots and stuff and i'm not able to buy anything yeah until at some point i think asian
00:03:41.860 i think asian families really do break that rule asian families yeah they earn like 20 percent
00:03:47.600 more than like the average white family or something like that yeah so like i don't see
00:03:52.540 that sort of racism in business for sure i certainly don't see that on the streets and
00:03:57.840 just like the friends that i have and different things like that yeah i don't see that sort of
00:04:01.740 racism especially with asian families and like they earn way more like even asian women
00:04:08.840 or more than me, I wouldn't say that they're necessarily oppressing me.
00:04:13.180 I think they're just really, really good students, hard workers, right?
00:04:16.800 Yeah, that's not a bad take to have, but it's like, maybe that's just coincidence, I guess.
00:04:22.080 Or maybe people that come from...
00:04:23.840 Well, an entire race is literally, like, it's not necessarily coincidental.
00:04:27.840 Well, I don't know.
00:04:30.300 Because then that kind of comes down to, like, you know, people that come from Asian countries.
00:04:35.180 Do they have a better education there? Are they set up better over there?
00:04:37.960 Well, they come here for our education.
00:04:41.320 Is our education much better then?
00:04:43.480 I wouldn't say it's necessarily much better, but they're much better students.
00:04:47.200 Okay.
00:04:47.520 On average.
00:04:48.220 Right, so then that maybe comes down culturally.
00:04:51.180 Yeah.
00:04:51.580 Yeah, so that's a different conversation.
00:04:53.960 But I say more of my general take on capitalism as a whole and why socialism.
00:04:58.520 Sorry, I kind of rambled early on.
00:04:59.800 That's amazing.
00:05:00.200 I'm a little bit all over the place today.
00:05:01.700 But my general take is capitalism allows for a lot of exploitation,
00:05:04.820 And we've seen that a lot in history, whether or not be here or in the U.S., you can see that being perpetuated.
00:05:11.100 And I think socialism is definitely one of the ways to go about having a grip on larger corporations that cause a lot of damage.
00:05:19.580 And we can both agree that comparatively we're not anywhere near Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos in money.
00:05:28.420 right we both know that us we haven't built nearly as many companies as him or worked as hard like
00:05:35.140 he has like an 80 hour or like 100 hour work week the guy is nuts right and i wouldn't i wouldn't
00:05:40.800 want to do that we both know obviously that you know i'm sure you've heard the statistic i think
00:05:45.600 it takes like 31 years or something like that if you were to like get a dollar not dollar i think
00:05:50.760 i remember the actual statistic but or the actual like fact but it takes a lot of time to get a
00:05:56.640 billion dollars one billion dollars this guy reached a trillion dollars right yes so we both
00:06:02.940 are aware that like it's not humanly possible right without at least some sort of exploitation
00:06:08.420 solves so many problems see like my pitch for capitalism and maybe i should like go back a
00:06:15.100 little bit okay maybe we should start with like why i think socialism is wrong so i i do not hold
00:06:21.500 the argument that oh social is wrong just because it hurts the upper class it does hurt like the
00:06:28.100 wealthy but it also hurts the lower class because we're employed by the upper class
00:06:32.740 like i shouldn't use the word classes we're employed by the rich people
00:06:35.900 no it's classes right that's what it is at the end of the day well yeah but people can move in
00:06:40.700 and out all the time yeah but then obviously that there are bars like again depends on your risk
00:06:46.720 depends on where you come from depends on even if you're a canadian citizen there's a lot of
00:06:50.140 people of color who are very, very wealthy.
00:06:52.880 Yeah, and I'm sure that that's also a thing.
00:06:54.720 They weren't blocked from being wealthy.
00:06:57.080 I can't speak for Canada.
00:06:58.800 I can't definitely speak for the U.S.
00:07:00.620 Because I'm much more familiar with U.S. politics. 0.85
00:07:08.940 But I can definitely say that being not white definitely makes life harder. 0.78
00:07:15.340 Okay. 0.73
00:07:16.160 And what I mean by that is... 0.98
00:07:18.620 I mean, for me, though, if I went to, like, an African country, I feel like being white would be, like, a downside for me. 0.96
00:07:24.540 How so? 0.96
00:07:25.300 Because they would immediately look at me like a foreigner.
00:07:28.820 Yeah.
00:07:29.260 Or, like, or even in, like, you're talking about in Kuwait, they could, like, revoke the passports of foreigners. 0.51
00:07:34.680 Yeah, in Kuwait, it's, like, Kuwaitis, white people, and then everyone else. 0.53
00:07:39.020 Right, so, like, being white universally is not necessarily a privilege. 0.55
00:07:42.840 But being white, well, that's not really a case either, actually.
00:07:46.800 I think because of the normalization of a lot, especially, like, you see this a lot in, like, American media, where just white people are always kind of uplifted, right, in media.
00:07:58.840 A lot of the world consumes American media, is what I'm trying to say.
00:08:01.060 It's certainly not current that white people are constantly uplifted.
00:08:05.340 Like, I see a lot of Hollywood everywhere, media is, like, constantly trying, like, social justice, DEI. 0.78
00:08:11.980 There's still, like, we still benefit a lot from being white. 0.93
00:08:14.880 I think that's something we can both agree on. 0.68
00:08:16.920 I can't point to any benefit that I have as a white person that you don't,
00:08:20.360 especially under the law.
00:08:21.840 Let me give you an example of that.
00:08:22.920 Okay.
00:08:24.160 Let's say you were to go to Kuwait, right?
00:08:26.180 Okay.
00:08:28.040 If I were to go to Kuwait and speak to any Kuwaiti, right,
00:08:31.340 their immediate reaction would be to not even interact with me. 0.99
00:08:34.280 Okay.
00:08:34.960 Which is maybe because I'm Egyptian and the whole thing between,
00:08:38.020 it's a whole thing.
00:08:39.360 Or maybe because of my skin color,
00:08:41.220 or maybe because of the way I present myself.
00:08:44.480 Whereas for you, for example, if you were to go and speak up to any sort of, not speak up rather, just speak to it where maybe you're trying to get a job or something like that, they would listen to you much more intently.
00:08:55.020 They would automatically assume you are much more qualified than I simply because you come from outside, you come from a Western country.
00:09:01.880 But I was referring to like specifically here in Canada.
00:09:04.940 In Canada.
00:09:05.580 Right? Like I can't think of any benefit that I have as a white person that you do not also have in Canada under Canadian law in this country.
00:09:12.660 like i see so much cultural diversity that's actually a really great thing about the city but
00:09:18.320 i don't know all my experience comes from innisfil okay like suburbs yeah so you can see
00:09:25.140 maybe that's different i've not actually lived in toronto yet okay well i mean i'm just looking
00:09:31.280 at the street it's very very diverse it's like everyone's here no one is discriminated against
00:09:37.480 for the race religion it like yeah i i don't see the discrimination certainly and like if i go to
00:09:45.160 any business i mean if you've been to tim hortons lately i know it's not necessarily white
00:09:51.220 okay so what so like yeah like it's not they're not privileging white people by hiring them all
00:09:57.060 the time okay but i mean
00:09:59.820 Yeah.