Entry tags:

discussions: discourse, discussions: forums and media, discussions: racism

What privilige discussions are and aren't saying.
(My attempt in arranging a dead horse's limbs.)

If you are white, in a white-dominant white-normative culture, you reap white privilege. There may be other privileges which you do not reap. That's not the point or topic of that sentence. If you are white in a white-dominant, white-normative culture, you reap white privilege.

If you are a white woman, you may still be discriminated against on the basis of your sex, but you will still reap white privilege. If you are a poor white person, you lack economic privilege, but you still have white privilege. White privilege exists for you because you are white.

I recommend reading Peggy McIntosh's essay, "Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack," if you would like examples on what white privilege confers. It's an incomplete list, but it's an enlightening one (emphasis mine):

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.

Note how it keeps coming back to race? That's because it's a discussion of racial privilege. If it were a discussion of sexual or economic privilege, it would keep coming back to that.

Saying "What about me? I experience this other type of disadvantage!" in a discussion about race is like telling someone who turns down a slice of lasagna because she's allergic to tomatoes "What about me? I'm allergic to dairy and that has ricotta in it!" It means that neither one of you will be able to eat the lasagna, but it doesn't mean you have the same problem or that you'll experience them in the same way. (As a corollary, saying "Yeah, but what about your sex or economic status?" is like saying "Yeah, but it also has pasta and sausage and ricotta in it!". The fact that she can eat wheat/gluten and meat and dairy products does not make her any less allergic to tomatoes.)

No, white privilege is not a be-all end-all ticket which guarantees you absolute equality in all life's dealings. What it is, is a freedom from an entire suite of cultural misapprehensions, expectations, and burdens which you would otherwise have to carry. Yes, in this society, being exempted from those burdens is a privilege.

As a person – white or not – you have burdens to carry. No one is disputing this. When people point out white privilege, they're not saying you would be burdened only if you were non-white. They're saying if you were non-white, you would have these additional burdens to carry.

When there's a huge, ongoing discussion about racism and a white person chimes in with "I'm not privileged, I'm a woman!" or "I'm not privileged, I'm poor!", they are wrong. They are privileged in a way which does not reflect their sex or economic status. Believe it or not, they can be privileged in one way and disadvantaged in another.

A wealthy man of color will still not experience white privilege. He will experience economic and male privilege. He will not experience white privilege.

If you want a discussion about womens' disadvantage or economic disadvantage, you're well within your rights to start a new discussion. But please, please, please do not see it as your fundamental right to bring the discussion of racism to a screeching halt so that you can repurpose the discussion to talk about a different set of privileges altogether. In a discussion about otherness, for example, or marginality, all these privileges should be examined as part of a larger societal ailment. Discussions of otherness are good and necessary.

A discussion of racism is not a de facto discussion of all cultural otherness or marginality, just as a discussion on tomato allergies (say, in the form of a blog of tomato-free recipes for popular foods like pizza, salsa, marinara) is not a de facto forum for all food allergies (and the author is under no requirement to accommodate those with, say, dairy allergies in his/her considerations). The fact that it's an inappropriate forum does not imply that it's an inappropriate topic. People with dairy allergies are more than welcome to find or start their own forums. But expecting to walk into a different discussion and be accommodated is unreasonable.