What Privilege Is (and Is Not)

pic link and h/t to Cynical Nymph for randomly sending me this

This post is a paragraphs long whinge about Black History Month and why don't I get Irish History Month blahblahblah. It's offensively tone deaf and borderline bigoted and I see a post just like it about once a month. (Quick answer: every day is White Guy Day.) So, being deeply concerned about educating the ignorant masses*, I suggested he take a quick look at Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, the invaluable guide to white privilege.

Renaissance Guy apparently ignored my advice. Or he has terrible reading comprehension. (ETA: As it turns out, he did eventually read it, and feels that Will Smith means there is no privilege. There are none so blind as those that do not wish to see and all that.)

In response, he posted this, in which he says that being poor never made him feel privileged, and he had this one black friend who was rich, therefore no privilege, QED.

Please feel free to headdesk repeatedly.

In the interests of education**, I actually hand wrote this post last night. During the Eagles/Redskins game. (Did you see that game? Wow!) Yes, I was that annoyed concerned with education.

(For the purposes of this discussion, I am dividing the world into black people and white people. I am well aware that race is not binary, nor is privilege binary, nor is white the privileged race in every culture. However, it makes the issue significantly easier to write about, so simply assume "white" means "whatever racial group is privileged in the particular culture" and "black" means "whatever racial groups are not privileged in the particular culture.")

Let's assume RG is being honest in his second post. RG presents that he experienced poor nonprivilege, which canceled out all possible white (male, straight, cisgender, able) privilege and his black friend, Angel, experienced rich privilege, which canceled out all black and female nonprivilege . . .

Huh.

RG is being disingenuous. At best. In his case, poor nonprivilege canceled out white privilege, but in Angel's case, rich privilege canceled out black nonprivilege. You can't have it both ways, RG. Either privilege cancels out nonprivilege or nonprivilege cancels out privilege, but not both. Those two things are mutually exclusive. I don't need to explain "mutually exclusive", do I?

As always, however, the truth is more complex.

Privilege is not a guarantee. White privilege exists, but that doesn't mean every white person's life is all candy and puppydogs all the time. Nor does every person experience every type of privilege simultaneously. For example, my privilege and nonprivilege:

privilege: white, cisgender, straight

nonprivilege: poor, disabled, female

I am privileged in that I can marry whom I actually want to marry, I can use the bathroom that suits me without upsetting anyone and that whole white privilege thing sure makes life easier.

I am nonprivileged in that doors are frequently too heavy for me to open, I am always the bitch, and poverty sucks.

All at the same time. Life is complicated, get used to it.

Let's examine RG's (possibly hypothetical) "friend", Angel. We are presented with a rich, black woman. That's two nonprivileges and one privilege. (We'll ignore issues of gender, able, etc.) Let's take a few examples of white privilege from Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and see if being rich changes anything for Angela, or if being poor changes anything for RG.

I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

I can, off the top of my head, think of four different sections of the city that I live in where this is possible. It happens every day at work for me. Also at the Dunkin Donuts, the pharmacy, the grocery store. My town isn't especially white, either. We have a higher proportion of minorities than the average city in the US.

So, more than likely, poor RG can do this, rich Angel cannot.

I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

Poor RG gets shows and movies filled with white people. Rich Angel does not. Rich Angel gets the token black guy and maybe one or two movies a year featuring a majority black cast. Poor RG gets all the rest.

When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my

color made it what it is.

When I was little, I honestly thought minorities didn't arrive here until the 1960s. You know, when the Civil Rights Movement started. Things have gotten a little better, but not much. So, a win for Poor RG, a loss for Rich Angel.

I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their

race.

My (black) nephew used to start the year by flipping through his textbooks to see if there was even one black face in them. Most of the time, there wasn't even one. He's 16. White privilege wins again.

Have we had enough?

People like RG fight long and hard against the concept of privilege. For one thing, privilege is invisible if you have it. That's just the way the world is. You only see it if you don't have it. Imagine privilege as the removal of doors. To me, as a white person, there is no door. There is just an open space in the wall. I don't ever see the door that keeps the black person from entering. The same goes for any other type of privilege. RG keenly sees the rich privilege Angel enjoyed, but is, apparently, unable to see the white privilege he himself enjoys. You only see the doors closed to you, not the doors closed to others.

People like RG are also very opposed to Affirmative Action. It upsets their sense of fair play. "Those black people are getting something I am not getting, and they're getting it just for being black! That's not right!"

White privilege, any kind of privilege, ensures that you get things other people are not getting simply for being born a certain way***. Simply being white removes barriers, doors, if you will, that bar the way for black people. You cannot ignore the fact that being white entitles a person to opportunities and removes barriers and that being black removes opportunities and creates barriers.

In other words, white people, as a matter of course, get the benefit of a culture-wide affirmative action program their entire lives. Most people do not want to admit that their successes are at least partly due to the benefits of affirmative action. This does not change the facts: Every day is White Guy Day. Put your hands over your ears, close your eyes and sing LALALALA as loud as you can, it's still true.

*Not actually true.

**Or serious annoyance.

***Leaving aside the privilege of wealth for the purposes of this discussion. Not that I'm willing to cede that wealth is generally "deserved" in our form of capitalism, or that such wealth should entitle one to privileges above and beyond the common person. Another discussion for another day.

You're Supposed to be Ashamed of Racism, Byron

racism, bigotry, black, white, politics, byron, stupid, obama, conservative, democrat, republican, liberal,
Byron York seems to long for the good ole days when blacks only counted as 3/5 of a person:

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

Just in case you didn't get the memo, Byron, black people are a part of this country. Their opinions even count! (Although this does explain a lot about the Republican party's popularity, or lack thereof.)

Unfortunately, some of the comments to the article are even worse:

DonL doesn't seem to understand that other people might see things differently than him: Unless blacks have a special ability to see greatness, they make serious deecisions based upon the color of one's skin -a fault that was condemned by Martin Luther King. His dream has turned into a nightmare of near worship of a Godless advocate of infanticide and abortion which on a percentage basis hurts the black community more that any other. Keeping the black community dependent upon government for their solutions is nothing more than a form of voluntary slavery. Those who recognize such actions might very well term it self-destruction.

Jack doesn't seem to understand exactly how much the media loves a scandal (and, ew!): Obama could bone his own children on the steps of Capitol Hill. The media would cheer the 'closeness' of the Obamas, and blacks would start defending incest. Those opposed to his behavior would be labeled racist and closed minded.

Uncle Joe's Patriotic Taxpayer revives the "welfare queens" meme:
The majority of blacks pay no income tax. Why wouldn't they favor Obama's tax and spend policies? For them it is only spending.

Chris Jones comes to the only conclusion possible, for a racist: The only conclusion one can reach is that blacks don't have a grasp of any of the issues. They think whatever Obama says or does is great because he shares the same skin color.

Okay, now I'm just depressed. RACISM. IS. NOT. OKAY. asshats.

On Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald, Dreams and MLK

On MLK Day, which really ought to be every day of the Obama administration, I give you my thoughts on Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald, using her words to support bigotry, the dreams of little girls and feminism.

So, let's start with what feminism means to me. Feminism is choices for women. It's that simple. Because of Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald (born 1857), and other women like her, I have choices. I can choose to get married, or choose to remain single my entire life. I can choose to own property, choose to go to college, choose to have a career, or I can choose to have children and stay at home to raise them. I can choose to have no children, 2 children or as many children as I can before my ovaries give up.

All of these choices are valid. Whether they are a good choice for me personally is irrelevant: they are all my possible choices. While I would not choose to have 20 children, I look at the woman who does and say, "Hey, good for you." I would prefer a PhD and a career, but I see the woman who has chosen children and home and say, "That's a good choice, too."

What I cannot agree with is the idea that only one choice exists for everyone with an XX configuration, and Nugget's got it all figured out. Imagine the sheer, unaldulterated arrogance it must take to say, without hesitation, that any woman who does not choose to get married, have children and stay at home is wrong. That's it. Wrong. Wrong and immature and selfish.

Wow.

There are over 3,000,000,000 women in the world. And Nugget wants to make sure that every single one of them has only one choice: hers.

Nugget also chooses to use the words of Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald, poet, lifelong feminist, and single mother (she adopted a 10 year old on her own in 1910. Agnes was quite something else.) to support her position that (a) gays shouldn't have civil rights and (b) that girls shouldn't be allowed any choices at all. Nugget, who "likes the words" of Agnes' poem, derides Agnes as "feminist dominated" and "testosterone deprived." She calls Agnes' decision to adopt a 10 year old girl on her own "selfish."

This is appalling. I would say that were Agnes alive today, she would smack Nugget, but Agnes was also a Quaker, and Nixon notwithstanding, the Quakers are a gentle people. I do believe that, if I am wrong and there is an afterlife, Agnes is undoubtedly weeping.

Right now, there is a little girl looking at the night sky dreaming of becoming an astronaut. Right now, a little girl waits in the hospital for her mother to get out of surgery and dreams of becoming a doctor. Right now, a little girl is watching a plane go by and dreams of learning how that works.

Right now, Nugget says, "Silly girl. You have a uterus. You can't have dreams. Dreams are for boys."

I'll speak for Agnes and say, "Little girl, stop reading this blog. You're not old enough. But, hold onto your dreams. Dreams are for everyone, girl or boy, straight or gay, black or white. It took a long time, but we are 24 hours away from a black president. We're on our way. Keep dreaming. And come back when you're 18."