There is certainly a positive side “negative positive semantics”—the fact that focus on “privilege” reveals the faults of the privileged and “disadvantage” the faults of the disadvantaged.
That positive side is the fact that people can sometimes be motivated to help the common good when they realize their own sins. If you realize that you “have a problem” or “are part of the problem” you may be motivated to help solve the problem. At its best, talk of privilege helps people be better to each other.
But the dark side of all this—the negative side—is that people don’t often like being told what is wrong with them. It makes them understandably angry. One catches fewer flies with vinegar than with honey, no?
And so if you really want to make the world a better place, it helps to choose your rhetoric based on your audience.
If this person going to be made angry by the implication that they or their group is doing something wrong? Forget for the moment—whatever your political orientation—what you think the truth is. Is this a part of the truth that they are ready to hear right now?
If the answer is “no” then perhaps you should leave words like “disadvantage” and “privilege” at the door. Perhaps instead of calling up their (perhaps very real) interior demons in a (probably unsuccessful) attempt to exorcise them by naming them, you should be appealing to the (equally real) better angels of their nature.
Instead of telling them what they and theirs are doing wrong, tell them where others need help, and how to give it.
I know this runs against much of the advice for dealing with issues like racism, sexism, etc. But it seems like common sense to me.
As much as it may hurt, and seem unjust—sometimes the first thing to do is not to acknowledge the problem. Sometimes you have to start fixing the problem before you can acknowledge it.
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