You're a writer. If you find your audience keeps misunderstanding a term, what do you do? Find a clearer way to communicate, or keep using the same term anyway? You're an educator. If you find your students keep misunderstanding a lesson because of your choice of words, what do you do? Keep using the same words, or try a different tactic?
I know what I would do.
Maybe if a better term were used, you wouldn't have to keep explaining "white privilege" over https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/no-calling-white-folks-privileged-isnt-racist-2053931ba69f
and over https://timjwise.medium.com/appalachia-lebron-james-doesnt-disprove-white-privilege-9eb14cbb57ba
and over https://timjwise.medium.com/too-violent-to-arrest-sounds-about-white-da53fc7cea53
and over https://www.amazon.com/White-Like-Me-Reflections-Privileged/dp/1593764251
and...well...everyone gets the point now, I'm sure.
Yes, I understand that this is one of your main topics. And if one reads your posts through the years, they get gradually more refined, gradually slightly more persuasive, and that's a good thing. You point out real disparities that cause significant harm and need work to rectify.
But we're over forty years on now from when the term was coined, and over thirty since McIntosh's book of that title and who knows how many Medium articles and you still feel it necessary to tell people that "literally no one" means what they are "assuming" the term means.
Isn't this pretty clear evidence that the term is misleading, if it does not mean to suggest "having led a charmed life without difficulties"?
Given how many people in anti-racism have their toes (or more) in critical discourse analysis, it boggles to the mind to think that this is simply an unhappy accident or a particularly foolish expression of stubbornness. Either these people are utterly inept, or the field is intellectually bankrupt, or they know very well that this "mistaken" impression is what the language implies, and they actively choose to perpetuate the usage precisely because of the deniable implication. It's a great one-two punch: first, you pick a term that has a strong negative connotation that undermines a group that you think deserves undermining; then when they challenge you, you "explain" that they've got it all wrong, making them look like an uneducated fool while still feeling the sting of the connotation.
In that light, the term is brilliant, really, a rhetorical rapier and buckler. But if it's that, then all your explanations are bogus. The term "white privilege" is exactly designed to make the white listener feel that they are being blamed for "having led a charmed life without difficulties" while preventing them from having any hope of defending themselves from that accusation.
Alternatively, the term is an ill-chosen albatross, dragging down discourse for year after year, somehow persisting despite all the brilliant analysis of "describing, interpreting, and explaining the ways in which discourses construct, maintain, and legitimize social inequalities". In this view, the sooner the phrase is jettisoned so the concepts can be understood swiftly and clearly, the better. You're great at explaining the concepts. They're very important. But you keep having to correct misperceptions around the term. Aren't you tired of it, yet?
So, which is it?
How do we actually understand "white privilege" as a term?
You see, this stuff matters. We live in a democracy. If you can get consensus, you can make much faster progress. And boy, do we need progress. Criminal justice reform? National voting rights guarantees? Adopting bias-reducing best practices for hiring? Investing in education in disadvantaged communities instead of having the largest funding in the wealthiest communities (property tax -> school funding)? And on, and on? There is so much to do.
So, step one: use language that, at first glance, is accusatory and divisive towards the largest group of people, while actually "not meaning it". Oh boy, that's a great idea!
You're an expert. Maybe you have an answer. How do we understand the continued use of the term "white privilege"?