Does white privilege exist?

White people commit suicide more frequently

Question: Does white privilege exist?
Position1 of 2›: No, white privilege doesn't exist
Argument‹5 of 6›: White people commit suicide more frequently

Suicide is indicative of extreme depression, helplessness, alienation, and loneliness. A privileged demographic would not feel these emotions and commit suicide in numbers as high as white people do.

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that claims about white privilege should be testable against measurable life outcomes, and they offer suicide rates as one such measure. The figures they cite are these. White Americans have a suicide rate of around 17 per 100,000 people. By contrast, 6.9 African Americans die by suicide per 100,000 people, the same rate as Hispanic communities, while Asian Americans have a rate of 6.6. Only Native Americans take their own lives at a higher rate than white Americans, at 22.2 per 100,000. Proponents add that white men, who are allegedly the most privileged demographic in the world, account for seven out of every ten suicides. The inference drawn from those figures runs as follows. Privilege is understood as a systematic advantage, and a systematic advantage should show up in the outcomes most sensitive to how a life is going. Suicide is treated as the most extreme such outcome. If white people held the advantage attributed to them, proponents argue, the group would not show the higher rate on that measure — and so they ask why such a privileged group would decide that their life is not worth living. The argument is therefore a challenge to the concept rather than a claim about any individual. It contends that a group described as advantaged performs worse on a serious indicator of wellbeing, which proponents take to be inconsistent with the account of privilege they are contesting. On this reasoning proponents claim that the pattern in the suicide statistics shows white privilege does not exist.

Context

Suicide is indicative of deep unhappiness, loneliness and alienation. These are not something you would associate with privilege. White people commit suicide at much higher rates than minority groups. Therefore, white privilege is a myth.

Premises

[P1]Proponents note that white Americans have a far higher suicide rate (about 17 per 100,000) than Black, Hispanic or Asian Americans, and that white men account for seven of every ten suicides. [P2] They argue that if white people were truly the most privileged demographic, so many would not conclude their lives were not worth living. [C] On this reasoning, proponents claim the high white suicide rate shows white privilege does not exist.

Counter-arguments

Suicide is not a metric of privilege. It is possible to be privileged and depressed. It is possible to be privileged and lonely. It is also possible to be privileged and feel alienated. There is no connection between privilege and these emotions. Therefore, just because white people kill themselves at a higher rate than non-whites, does not mean that white privilege is a myth.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Privileged people can feel depressed, lonely, alienated and unhappy.