In this and most contexts, I do tend to use the dictionary definitions of words (no sarcasm intended). One does not need to have one's own personal definition of the word to make this argument. Few people residing in a group (here identified as "white") that is comprised of hundreds of millions, if not billions, would look at any of the following definitions and think to themselves, "Yup! Other people would definitely be within their right to say that about ME! Hot DAMN, I am TOTALLY the top of the heap!".

    noun
    1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most
    2. a special right, immunity, or exemption granted to persons in authority or office to free them from certain obligations or liabilities
    3. a grant to an individual, corporation, etc., of a special right or immunity, under certain conditions.
    4. the principle or condition of enjoying special rights or immunities.
    5. any of the rights common to all citizens under a modern constitutional government
    6. an advantage or source of pleasure granted to a person

To paraphrase Steinbeck, Americans seem much more likely to characterize themselves as "temporarily de-privileged millionaires". We all see what we don't have, and we fret about the possibility of falling lower in the hierarchy. The reactions of a broke-ass white person, to have a life of worry over bills, impotence in the face of shitty bosses, bad treatment of their kids from the public school, characterized to them as "privileged", is just -- I mean, I just would not go telling someone who has had a hard life, but maybe not the hardest, that they are "privileged". Being technically correct doesn't make it a kind thing to do to someone.

I wish I could come up with a better word; "intersectionality" is such a tone-deaf intellectualism that it will never catch on with the people whom it most needs to reach.

To the bat-thesaurus!