system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is sociological privilege distinguishable from a persecution complex?

Social injustices occur, for sure. One of the main arguments I hear about privilege is that the majority simply cannot experience or understand it, and need to take the notions of their privilege on good faith from the underprivileged minority. This got me thinking though: how can we (either the majority of the minority) tell the difference between an actual, existing privilege, and from an illusion of one, born from a minority with a persecution complex? 

It seems to me that in both cases, a main tenet proposed is that the majority is blind to the privilege. Whether this is a real or perceived privilege is what I'm not sure how to tell. Certainly both can cause social injustice. So, for example. 

Take an actual privilege case. A cop pulls over a car, notices the driver is black, and is stricter with his check than if it had been a white person he pulls over. Because this person is black, he's more open to scrutiny.

An example of illusory privilege may be a black person getting pulled over by a cop, and perceiving it as a persecution because he's black. Subconsciously, this affects his language and body language, albeit subtly, and the cop can pick up on it, and feel threatened and do a stricter check. Because the black driver perceived a threat that wasn't there, a threat manifested itself and actually occurred. In this instance, it's a self fulfilling prophecy.

I was wondering how--if at all--sociologists are able to distinguish between the two. Does it even matter? I suspect they'd warrant different resolutions, but maybe they don't.
gpt
First, two issues:

One is that you seem to be trying to analyze this primarily (or totally) from an individual level of analysis.  Individuals can "have privilege" in the sense that they as individuals accrue advantages due to privilege but privileges are ultimately social in nature - the individual accrues the advantages because of their membership in some social group or category.

Two is that you seem to be confusing privilege with discrimination.  Being pulled over because of your race is discrimination.  Not being concerned about whether you were pulled over because of your race is privilege.

Second, sure, responding to being pulled over with nervousness or hostility because of perception you were singled out because of your race might explain some amount of disparate treatment of racial minorities (to continue the focus of your examples).  However, it's not really a paranoia/persecution complex if they're really out to get you.  We know that the driving force of discrimination isn't minority paranoia because there is a significant amount of evidence that can clearly show us it is not.  For example, studies that look at the percentage of drivers of different races who break the law and then comparing the percentage of drivers of different races who are pulled over (see, for example, Lamberth's Driving While Black study).  Racial groups aren't being pulled over at different rates because of differences in driving styles/behaviors - they're being pulled over because of differences in physical appearance.