>Most people don't have a problem acknowledging individual privileges they have been afforded. People object to broad assumptions made on their behalf by using their race or gender as a proxy.

You're painting one side as, "they don't have a problem with acknowledging privilege", and the other side as "they don't even acknowledge merit".

For every millennial who believes that racial privilege is 100% responsible for success, I'll show you a baby boomer who believes that they are 100% responsible for their own success and have had zero privileges. You'll find some of them arguing here right now. I've argued with many of them in the past.

In fact surveys show that there is a large chunk of the population that believes that being a white male makes it harder to succeed.

>People object to broad assumptions made on their behalf by using their race or gender as a proxy.

Privilege isn't about absolute life difficulty scale. Of course there is a given white man who has had a harder time than a given black woman.

Privilege is about relative advantages. The average white man would be less successful if he were a black woman--all else being equal.