Conversant

[cryptolect]

This post is a continuation of a conversation between myself andsebastian over in the comments ofcereta’s post about men and rape. I was saying that it seemed sort of inevitable that sebastian and I would end up disagreeing on certain things.  Like a Marxist discussing with a Freemarketer, we just frame things differently. And I was going to try to say a bit more about the perspective I am coming from, and what the implications of that are.

I probably first really became aware of the conceptual framework around privilege about two or three years ago. I think I’d had hints the argument was out there, but this time when I heard it, I was receptive, I got it.  And since then I have found it a very useful way to conceptualise issues around the power structures in society. In the context of this framework, I do not have male privilege, but I do have e.g. white privilege and straight privilege.

Things to know about privilege:

1)      If I have it, I have it, whether I want it, or acknowledge it, or not. It is something that comes with e.g. being white, or being male. So, for example, imagine June (a white racist) Freddy (a white antiracist ally) and Tony (a man of colour) all trying to get a taxi in New York. June and Freddy are more likely to get picked up. Freddy may hate that this is the situation, but he will still benefit from it.  June may be unaware that it is the case but will still benefit from it.

 

2)      The benefits of privilege are often quite practical. It may be that my privileged soul is shrivelling on the vine, but it is not right for me to expect people of colour to put up with their shitty end of the daily stick, on the basis that it will make them better and more spiritual people. 

 

3)      If I am privileged, that fact may often be very invisible to me and glaringly, embarrassingly visible to anyone who’s on the reverse of that particular coin. 

 

4)      Privilege operates at a group level (as in the group Men or Whites). Therefore there will be lots of individuals whose personal experience does not match the picture for the group. That doesn’t invalidate the model as a whole.

 

5)      If I (a woman) have white privilege and he (a person of colour) has male privilege, they don’t cancel each other out. They are different. Each of us will be privileged over the other more or less in different scenarios or even in different ways at the same time.

 

6)      Having privilege does not make me a bad person. It does mean the balance is weighted in my favour and I may need to put some work in to redress it, if I’m someone who’s in favour of fairness and equality. When I think of this work as ‘extra work’ I need to remember that the reason the balance is in my favour is because the unprivileged group has to do a bunch of work on this all, the time, every day, which I may well be largely unaware of.

 

7)      When I am told that I have privilege, my first reaction is likely to think of all the hardships I face in my daily life, or have faced in my personal history, and to feel hurt or angry that someone is labelling me as privileged. I therefore don’t stop to listen and think before jumping on all the really obvious flaws in their argument. Sadly I am not as original as I might like to think which is why people have written guides to avoiding the same false arguments which everyone else made before me.

And I have found that this perspective is really helpful. Before I found it, I would probably have said that everyone should try their best to be a decent human etc. and that would have been my plan for ending racism. But this framework kicks my arse and shows me why that isn’t enough. It reminds me how when I talk about treating people equally, I’m actually overlooking the burden which people of colour are already carrying, and so my ‘equally’ is actually intrinsically unequal.  It also reminds me that when I wait for someone to ask me to make a choice between homophobia and the better thing, I may be waiting many days because I am privileged to address the issue when it takes my interest and pretty much disregard it at other times, rather than having to confront it all the time, every day.

Before I found this framework I would always, always have avoided a confrontation, and if someone got angry with me, I would have pretty much thought they were an arse. By having a conversation with people who are all speaking with this perspective in mind, suddenly I can see why those people were so angry. I always knew in theory that anger can be healthy, but I could never see how that could ever work in practice – it seemed as though it was always destructive. Suddenly now I can see the way in which the expression of anger can be healthy and positive, and in particular, I am starting to understand when my own anger is legitimate to a particular argument, and when I’m defending my own hurt feelings.

The only downside so far? That if some people are speaking from within this framework and others aren’t? Pretty much a recipe for disagreement, although there will also be some people who are (like I was) ready and will get it right there and then.

Comments

[sebastian.livejournal.com]

hi!

this was really enjoyable to read, really. i'm (as i think i explained in the post) a non-white first generation american straight male. except, to be honest with you, growing up in the eighties in the american south, i didn't know that i was "missing" a privilege. i went to school with caucasian kids and, aside from the occasional instances of name calling, i didn't know that i was different.

the life of my immigrant parents and my own experiences have led me to transcend the idea of privilege and identity. i don't want you to think that an added privilege i had was being rich, which helped me to overcome said racial bias. we were as poor as the lower middle class allows. i was always raised with the idea that i was equal. females and males were equal, whites and blacks were equal, straight and gay people were equal.

personal story, which doesn't have much bearing on your argument, but shapes a little of what i'm saying: one day my mother took me to k-mart (discount shopping business here) and asked me if i wanted a piggy bank. there were a whole set of disney piggy banks, and i chose the pink minnie piggy bank. my mother asked me if i was *sure* if i wanted that one, and i nodded my head yes. i took home a minnie piggy bank, and it was my pride and joy for many years.

my point being: i was never, ever raised to conform or believe that i was a certain identity. i was allowed to progress rather naturally, as long as i showed the proper respect for my elders and peers. i was raised to be non-violent, polite, and to present myself as intelligent and capable at all times.

so it is very hard for me, personally, to sit and consider my privilege, or the areas in which i lack it. speaking comparatively, i know that i am much more fortunate than the average black male, or a black female, or a queer black female. i don't know why.

anyway, i plan to utilize your framework for a period of time in my daily interactions so that i can see if it enhances them in any way.

[cryptolect.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was pretty enjoyable to write - I haven't had a stab at really explaining this before.

However I am the padawan-est of padawans at putting this into practice, and there is a lot more to know about it all than I have put down here. May I suggest that you read and listen a bit more before trying it out? I found it incredibly helpful to hop around ljs and comms and listen to the conversations people were having about this to really get my head round it, before I ever spoke a word about it.

You have kindly shared some of your experiences with me. I don't feel it is my place to make any arguments based on that, because it is you who knows what you've experienced.

Ah, but I will try to say *something* constructive! I think that we are exposed to a lot of influences other than our parents, however cool they may be. I think that if nothing else, we may realise that the way we were raised is different and indeed possibly downright unacceptable to mainstream society, and we may learn some lessons about what happens when we step out of line. I think that when we experience prejudice, we often internalise it as normal and no big deal, without realising that that is a whole extra lump of coal we have to choke down that the privileged group* in that situation doesn't have to. I think that while people are more or less wounded by prejudice, sometimes presenting that we are not affected by it can be either to prevent others getting any satisfaction out of our distress, a way of encouraging ourselves to carry on, or or a way of appeasing our attackers, and others, by saying 'look! I'm not making a big deal out of this! I'm a good [one of the marginalised group]'

So...I'm not saying any of those things applies to you, but I'm just sort of floating them as being relevant to the points you made.

*just to reiterate, that's the group, not a particular individual.