But the term is widely used, not just on DU. If we call it something else here (so as not to alienate people), how does that help with the larger understanding of the phenomenon?

I found an interesting masters thesis that is specifically about the term "White Privilege" and the evolution of its use.

It was 80s-90s when white privilege became, like the patriarchy, widely used as a notion of deep social/cultural structure.

And it is fine in a seminar where all participants have a rich, nuanced view of the thing, and what the thing is not.

But it can be a tendentious term for everyday use because most people communicate about persons, not deep social structures. And the terms imply (in common usage) that all white persons are aristiocrats and all male persons are kings.

If I were addressing an audience of lay-persons I would use structural racism rather than white privelige, since the second will merely raise the hackles of many, precluding much subequent communication.

I find it hard to believe that the concept is that difficult for people to grasp. And I think that DUers who use the term are really trying to educate people about what it actually means, rather than the commonly-held misconception you describe. Maybe they're tilting at windmills, but I also think there's no shortage of DUers being purposely obtuse about it.

ETA: oops - I replied before I read your edit. I don't actually think "structural racism" is a dumbed-down term, and I think it would be a good substitute. Now, you just have to get everyone on DU to use it instead.

There are some folks who are just crummy.

But because privilege has certain valid meanings in everyday speech, the term itself leads, almost inevitably, to examination of individual privilege because we think of privilege as an individualizable trait having to do with specific advantages... as something exceptional.

Doesn't almost everyone think of privelege as being at the top of a pyramid? As an exception?

So when I am talking to somebody about, say, conviction rates for possession of marijuana I would tend to attribute it to structural racism rather than white privilege because I think the listener would be likelier to understand.

The point being that folks who use "white privilege" would still know what I was talking about. And if I were speaking to a white person there would not be a substansial chance of them feeling personally implicated in whatever I was saying about the criminal justice system.

As I am sure you know, if you say "most left-handed people holding a coffee cup like X," someone will respond with, "Bullshit! My uncle is left-handed and he..."

That's human nature.

So starting off with something that sounds kind of like an observation about white persons (that is how it sounds), rather than about the totality of society, plays right into the human default position of thinking everything is about us.

Now...can you come up with a replacement term for "male privilege?"

The word privilege is, in the English language and American culture, a very poor term for describing a majority status and, being a rather foolish word to chose to describe what it is supposed to describe, leads to poor communication.

If you're black? Being white ABSOLUTELY confers privilege. You have things entirely the wrong way around if you consider it only from a white perspective. Relative immunity from unreasonable and unwarranted police harrassment? That's a privilege. Not being followed around by a security guard in a shop? That's privilege. And all the other things that define the difference in the average daily experience of being white vs being black in the USA.

I do however love white people pontificating on why there's no such thing as "white privilege"; it's as awesome as "men explain misogyny".