Denying outright that privilege exists is tantamount to denying climate change -- Its easy enough to do from an air-conditioned apartment, meanwhile those along the coast are left to drowning. We can argue about symptoms vs. causes, root causes, who to blame, and what precisely to do about it until we're blue in the face but that doesn't achieve anything and is energy wasted to inaction.
Not quite. While there may be deep rhetorical force in attempting to compare 'privilege' to climate disruption (with denial of such rhetorically on par with denying vaccines) it is a mistake to do so. Climate disruption is backed by measurable data. Human lives are far more wooly and unpredictable and when we speak of demographics we must fit people into models, which are subject to change based on dominant social science ideologies. Privilege in all its trendy force is a framework, an interpretation, rather than a hard, indisputable fact. It is a lens for viewing the world, and only one of many. Its current incarnation divvies the world up on the basis of an oppressor/oppressed dynamic, with a myopic view of the West used to show that men oppress women, whites oppress non-whites, non-trans people oppress trans people etc. Most insidiously, it is used to lump people into groups and ascribe a reality to them that may have nothing to do with their lives.
We all have a set of privileges we were born into -- men have privileges that women don't have, whites have privileges that blacks don't have, women have privileges that men don't have, blacks have privileges that whites don't have. Its not all or nothing, its shades and degrees along as many axes as you can name. But generally, if you're a white male who had access to a quality education and quality healthcare, the playing field is tipped greatly in your favor for no reason other than the circumstances of your birth -- and that you can identify distinct demographics that by-and-large aren't born into similarly smooth-sailing by virtue of their skin, or gender, or economic class -- well, being a white dude is a privilege to be damn sure.
The core problem with this idea is the gross scale assumptions we have to use (white == easier time) render any useful conclusions we might draw moot. Consider, what is your privilege if:
- You are white but have significant depression
- You are male but extremely risk averse
- You are black and extremely charismatic
- You are female and atypically aggressive
- You are a work-aholic
- You have an aptitude for math but significant social phobias
- You were poor growing up but had a stable household which encouraged self development
- You don't speak the language of the dominant culture and were discouraged from doing so
Privilege fails as a device for explaining reality. Historically, for instance, 'white privilege' cannot adequately explain discrimination faced by the Irish. Nor can it explain the economic disparity we observe between foreign-born Black immigrants to the US who outearn native-born Black Americans (by 10k on average according to one Pew study) we see today.
Source:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/04/09/chapter-1-statistical-portrait-of-the-u-s-black-immigrant-population/When faced with raw reality 'privilege' is starting to look like a modern day cosmological constant. Far from being on "the right side of history" I suspect it will one day be considered an ideological embarrassment.
And having privilege doesn't make you a villain, and it doesn't mean you've never faced hardship or overcome a hand you were dealt. Having or lacking privilege is not pre-destiny, it just means the course of different parts of your life are swimming with or against currents you don't control.
So none of us should feel bad for having the privileges we do -- the place we want to get to is a place where greater equality is achieved extending privileges to those who go without today, not by taking them from those who enjoy them today. Lets all become richer, not poorer -- basic dignities are not a commodity in a zero-sum game.
While that work is going on, the least we can all do is stop dismissing one another's trials, and try to understand them instead.
I like the sentiment of building us all up, but I strongly doubt the flawed concept of privilege will get us there. If, for instance, the idea can be used in a job interview to source other characteristics an atypical applicant might have then all the better. Just because someone's resume lacks all the correct key words doesn't mean they're automatically an unfit candidate. They may have other useful advantages or have compensated in other ways.
Privilege in practice, however, is not very operationally useful. What is the effect of 'checking one's privilege?' Does it get Raspberry Pis into the hands of poor kids? Does it cultivate a love of math in girls?
Clearly it does not, and even worse, beyond obnoxious social point scoring and demonization, the very idea normalizes and excuses bigotry. It justifies, for instance, a Blakely school teacher (Karen Kelly) discriminating against boys, forbidding them access to Legos because they're assumed to be advantaged by din of being male. It is fundamentally oppositional, encouraging us to sneer at some groups much the same way nationalists sneer at immigrants. That mentality decidedly moves us away from equality into something far darker.
