Okay, off into the race rabbithole we go...
As with most everything else we discuss, both on here and elsewhere, it's a matter of nuance and understanding. It's a multi-faceted issue, and solutions will not be easy... There is indeed a push in certain areas to lay blame at the feet of white males for everything that ails society, and it's not entirely inaccurate to do so, after all, who has run the country since its inception? Who has operated from a position of power and influence, with impunity, since the US was thought up? Yeah, we all know.... That being said, the main problem with the application of this logic is that it paints with a very broad brush. Yes, privilege exists, (if you think that it doesn't you should probably stop reading here, we'll just have to agree to differ) and it advantages some of a society at the expense of the other members. Keep in mind that capitalism as we have bastardized it in this country is indeed a zero-sum game, we can't all have everything we want, and this will inevitably lead to inequality. I am okay with inequality as long as it starts with a level playing field, and in this country it does not. Race is just one of several ways in which some people are advantaged over others.
However, did any of the more privileged members of this (or any other society) wake up this morning and choose to be in that privileged portion? Of course not. It is therefore unfair of anyone to point fingers and make a person feel somehow responsible for something over which they have no control. You didn't ask to be white and have the privilege which accompanies that any more than I asked to be black and have the lack of privilege that carries.
There is also the reaction to the disadvantage of others and the mention of privilege that is common on an individual level. That argument goes something along the lines of "...but we were poor and suffered from disadvantage, and I/we/my parents worked hard and we made a better life for ourselves.", and that is not to be dismissed. However it fails to take into account that opportunity for the hard work that resulted in that improvement is not always equally accessible, and that there are deliberate structural historical factors at play that are not immediately visible. For example, the National Housing Act, (which was the legislation that created the FHA during the New Deal) legally instituted the practice of redlining back in the 1930's which systematically denied assistance in the housing market to black people, essentially creating (or at very least reinforcing) segregation. The government did not specifically exclude blacks from the GI bill benefits , but since they were denied housing in most neighborhoods and most blacks (+/- 75%) lived in the south where they were still denied entry into most colleges, the benefits had a far lower rate of effectiveness. It doesn't take a huge leap to see that the advantages resulting of these two programs can carry forward several generations, and I think that's part of the problem of where we are today.
A lot of people cannot understand the difference between institutional racism and their own concept of not being "racist" individually. I'm not asking anyone to feel guilty for being privileged, or to give that privilege up. I simply ask people to recognize that we don't all complete the same journey to arrive at the same destination.
With regard to privilege think of it this way: We're mostly guys on this board, when was the last time any of us had to worry about being assaulted walking to a car late at night at our place of business, or had to consider the possibility that the clothing we wanted to wear could result in our being the victim of a rape? If you don't think we as men are privileged in this society, ask a woman you love when the last time was that she had to concern herself with such things.