sqbr | On privilige

On privilige

EDIT: *cough*, meant to post this to

debunkingwhite. But hey, you guys may be able to help too :)(*) If you're unfamilar with the concept of "white privilige" I reccomend White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

A statement I've seen pop up fairly frequently is "I don't want to give up my white privilege, I want to share it with everyone". I've seen enough criticisms of this statement not to say it myself, but I don't have quite enough of a grip on it's wrongness to explain it to other people.

The counterarguments that I can see (which combine together in complex ways):
-Maybe POC don't want to live exactly like white people, but to have their own lifestyles validated (ie it's like turning women into men to remove male privilige)
-It may not be possible (ie it's like giving all peasants a castle to remove class privilige)
-Certain priviliges only work if there's another, less priviliged group (ie "not getting suspected of shoplifting")

But I have a feeling that's not all there is to it, and can't express it very well.

So, in words of one syllable: why is this wrong? It is wrong, right?

(*)n.b. to

sonnlich, I realise this oversimplifies the position you were taking in our particular discussion, but I decided to pare down the question to it's simplest form rather than adding a bunch of qualifiers etc, esp. since I'm interested in general.

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Am getting tossed off the computer by housemate who needs to return home from SL and put dog to sleep...and hope to come back later.

My first level response: saying "I want to share MY white privilege with everyone" is on surface a most privileged response, as if the person owns/controls the privilege, as opposed to being the beneficiary of a complex set of social institutions which, as you note, *require* the existence of "not-privileged class" to make any sense.

Must go now! Will look forward to discussion with interest!

Back on for a few moments (paranoid moment of OMG did I flock that last post)...and I think the statement requires a lot of unpacking as well.

Because the issue of *rights* and equal rights is a very different issue from "privilege," but I wonder if sometimes, for many of us (us meaning whites) they aren't sort of jumbled together in a messy way in our minds, not to mention the even messier question of how much white privilege overlaps with class privilege overlaps with gender privilege overlaps with heteroprivilege (is that a word?), etc.

Must go to bed, tomorrow is 5 am day *martyred sigh*

*ponders rights versus privileges*

Hmm. Good points.

Though I will add that replying to my posts is MUCH more important than sleep :)

What immediately leapt to my mind was the whole development idea that people in developing countries need to be brought on par with the developed countries.

This is problematic for a number of reasons:
* It assumes that the developed world is better in every way than the developing world
* It does not account for cultural differences
* Resource issues

The assumption that white privellege is something to aspire to is problematic because it assumes superiority in white culture.

Oh yes, that's it exactly, and a very good example. There are actually alternatives beyond "starving to death" and "living like a middle class white american" :)

No really? But I mean if you are living a upper-middle class white american are you *really* living? :P

Right now I'm finding reverse culture shock interesting... So much choice in the supermarket!

No really? But I mean if you are living a upper-middle class white american are you *really* living? :P

Heh. You know that statement works both in it's original form, and as what I think you actually meant (are-> aren't) :)

The first thing a privileged person needs to face when they engage with the issue of privilege - something that you have to remember is initially largely invisible from the privileged person's point of view - is that there is very little they might do or say on the subject that will be taken well.

This appears to be the same sort of thing - a fairly bland, innocuous statement which is used as an example of why the privileged person is wrong. To my mind the biggest problem with the statement is just its banality - it doesn't demonstrate any sort of understanding or commitment, just a happy wishfulness. Which a privileged person can afford.

Mm, like all the people who say their solution to poverty is to create a post-scarcity society.

I found this easier to think about when I made an analogy to gender issues, perhaps because white privilege is so pervasive and I'm so very privileged that I tend to have blind spots if I consider it in terms of race.

So, hypothetically, suppose that a man says to me, "I don't want to give up my male privilege, I want to share it with everyone".

Aside from my offense at the notion of his privilege being something he has the discretion to 'share' with me, my reaction to such a statement would be that, certainly the sentiment was well-intended, but that the man I was speaking with lacked an understanding of the nature and experience of oppression. It seems to me to limit the scope of the feminist movement to addressing the question of those who 'have' or 'don't have' privilege, and while I'm aware that some forms of feminism have gone down this path, it doesn't adequately describe my feminism.

My gender politics don't revolve exclusively around notions of 'equality' or people 'having the same' - it's important to me to see women respected and appreciated and celebrated for who they are and what they already have and the ways they choose to live. For example, giving me access to male privilege may mean that I can now work a fifty-hour-a-week job and make Partner at my firm, but it does nothing to prevent people from treating my choice as somehow a less significant or valid career option if I choose to be a stay-at-home mum to four kids.

I think what I'm getting at here (albeit in a somewhat muddled manner) is that the privilege itself is an inherent and structural part of the problem - the fact that 'male' things in the case of my analogy, or 'white' things in the case of your argument, are still upheld as the 'important' things, and therefore, that other experiences outside of the scope of that privilege are undervalued is an key element of oppression.

There's a reason I don't express it as "I want to share my privilege". It's "I think those are things everyone should have." I posted about (http://sonnlich.livejournal.com/947357.html) that very article, by the way, a while back.

See, I don't think that we should be making everyone's experiences identical. I like diversity - on equal terms, like, let's trade Shakespeare for Shosholoza and everybody can enjoy the fruits of one another's cultures.

But if something is a part of the white experience that non-whites don't want, because it's a cultural distinction they would prefer not to have subsume their own?

That's not privilege! It's a cultural difference! The privilege, perhaps, is one being seen as superior to the other, if such applies, which it often does, and that's something that we need to jettison.

The idea that !culture is Good is one of those elements of white privilege that I just think should be things everyone has. Stay-at-home mothers should be valued - as should stay-at-home-fathers - but that's not to imply that making the choice to work the fifty-hour-a-week job and go for Partner needs to be devalued.

The privilege, perhaps, is one being seen as superior to the other, if such applies, which it often does

Well, yes. And afaict (and I can't really tell, thus this post :)) the issue is that getting rid of that privilege will mean a bit of difficulty for us, as we are forced to watch shows with non-white protagonists(*), and study non-white authors, and learn a version of history which doesn't place us at the centre and pinnacle of everything. Etc.

I think.

(*)On the plus side, they might be gay or female or something else crazy like that too :)

Yes and no.

See, I don't think that having shows with non-white protagonists means that, magically, there will be no white protagonists ever. (I also don't have a problem with non-white protagonists, because why the hell would I.) It just means there'll be more balance, which is not, imo, a loss of privilege to me.

As for history - again, yes and no. I'm all in favour of accuracy in history, which means taht quite a lot of history will still look at European history, because, hi, Europe conquered the world for a couple of centuries, and European history IS world history in that period. On the other hand, I think including other histories, less earth-shaking but still interesting, or different perspectives on that history, is a great idea. So again, I'm in favour.

The Battle of Blood River is less important, in the long run, than, say, the Dreyfus Affair. That's no reason not to look at both.

Hmm. Last time I tried to reply to this my brain melted out my ears, but here goes again :)

First off: I am sorry this turned into "lets all talk about how TOTALLY DUMB an oversimplified version of sonnlichs POV is, so she has a choice of putting up with it or having everyone tell her she's WRONG WRONG WRONG", it's something I was trying to avoid but I am fail. Sorry :(

Anyway: Yes, obviously, unless something Very Unlikely happens, there will always be SOME movies etc with white protagonists. And I'm sure most white people have no problem with non-white protagnoists from time to time (see the popularity of the "Rush Hour" movies) But currently such films are the exception, and even with most of them they're still aimed at a mostly white audience, with the white experience as the default. *flails at getting across how this would be different, apart from pointing to foreign movies, and that's not quite the same*

Also: Obviously you can't ignore europe in world history, but at the same time it is way disproprtionately priviliged over other histories (ie, from my very limited POV, the history of maths tends to go quickly over Egypt and China, then lingers on Greece, then acts as if nothing happened until the renaissance (and nothing after then outside europe), despite the many advances made by indian and middle eastern mathematitians. And did you know african tribes have been using fractals for centuries, and indirectly inspired current fractal theory? But I digress) And to a certain extent it's still taught/thought of (in everyday circles anyway, I realise uni level history is different) with europeans as not only important but as the (sometimes villainous) protagonists of the story, with all other countries only mattering in how they affect Europes Journey Into The Future.

Hell, listening to an american POV on european history was enlightening, since they're less likely to see England as the Hero Of The Piece unlike all the anglocentric history I tend to encounter (I wish I spoke a LOTE well enough for a non-english language history book/doco, that would be really interesting)

Um..I had a point in there but I think I lost it. I may stop before my brain dies again :) (Stupid cold)

Hmm, quite. I'm pretty sure the original discussion in which I said that I was still being pretty specific.

Re: movies: Yeah, I realise that the assumption that the audience is white will come to an end, more or less, in a Truly Equal Society. But I ALSO think that - assuming Equality - that doesn't mean the default assumption is going to be that the audience is NOT white - in theory we're just going to lose the default assumption, and seriously, as far as I am concerned that will only make the entertainments more awesome. I like the idea of a world where there isn't a default race. I like the idea of a greater nuance and variety in the experience of identity, and I don't think that should really count as a loss.

Or if it is, it's one which will be more than amply compensated.

I think my view on history is different from yours, since I have read histories which either don't angle as Go Europeans (e.g. Zulu-sympathetic histories of Africa), or are Eurocentric but not Anglocentric. After all, when you're reading French history, the English aren't generally the good guys.

I can readily expand that to a happy conviction that looking at history more widely is going to be a good thing. Especially including the argument that, as far as knowledge of history affects the future, a balanced view will be better.

Which means not demonising the Europeans, either. It's all very well to acknowledge that they Did Wrong Things, but nobody ever sets out to do things that they BELIEVE are wrong. So you look at WHY they thought they were right. BOTH sides are important, and I think it would be good to acknowledge that it's rare that you have Good Guys and Bad Guys - you just have people, sometimes doing good with bad intentions, sometimes doing bad with good intentions, and so forth.

I just tend to think that when you have equality, everybody wins, overall. Equal doesn't have to mean identical, after all.

I just tend to think that when you have equality, everybody wins, overall. Equal doesn't have to mean identical, after all.

Absolutely. I mean, I think white people have already lost a lot of privilige over the past century or so, but I also think we're all better off.

Something I totally meant to make a bit point in my reply and compltely failed to say at all: obviously I can't speak for you. But I often find myself somewhat alienated by non-white protagonists. Not enough to stop me enjoying a story, but enough to be noticable. The fact that I don't feel this way very often is a privilige. One I am quite happy to give up, especially since I'm sure I'd get over it pretty quickly wth enough exposure to a wider variety of protagonists (same way I've learned from a young age to identify with men and non-australians, etc), but it's still there.

Ah, I see.

I don't feel alienated by non-white protagonists. In thinking about this as I wrote a whole lot of text I just deleted because I realised I was on the wrong track, this is probably because I've never really seen a television or movie protagonist with whom I do identify, ethnically speaking. My ethnic background is moderately odd, and I would argue that white South Africans tend to be portrayed rather negatively as a rule, and first generation immigrants are generally treated as a study in alienation all by themselves - which I can't really argue with.

When mild cultural alienation is the norm for you, alienation in films is lost in the noise. I don't really see protagonists in films as people I would identify with no matter what their skin colour, so I'd perhaps be putting it better if I were to say that I don't feel more alienated by non-white protagonists than I do by white ones. (Often less, since a non-white protagonist is more likely to have a mindset that encompasses non-Eurocentric notions, which, when your cultural background is partly African, matters.)

Skin colour isn't everything, not by a long chalk...

Oh, yes, I mean cultural/ethnic background more than skin colour, although of course the two are pretty closely linked.

Anyway, that's really interesting. Hmm.

I feel the need to note that I do sometimes identify very strongly with non-white protagonists more than white ones, ie Gunn from Angel(*), it's more of a tendency than a rule.

(*)Which I guess ties into me finding few characters to identify with class wise. But that's a whole nother thing :)

One answer is its wrong because it conflates white privilege with the benefits of that privilege.

Now, wanting everyone to have a reasonable quality of shelter, the choice of a quality education, reasonable health services, the chance of a comfortable middle class existence if they want it, and so on, is, I think, a reasonable one. The idea of equality of opportunity is a goal.

But the privilege itself stems from particular social systems and their power over others. The people in Alice Springs I see brutally deprived by our society don't want white privilege - they don't want to just assimilate our culture, our hierarchies, our values, but they surely do want our access to shelter, security, quality food, health services, education, etc.

I think i"d echo what other people have said - the notion of 'sharing white privilege' ultimately denies that tolerance and pluralism need to be part of the solution.

One answer is its wrong because it conflates white privilege with the benefits of that privilege.

That's a really good way of putting it.

"So, in words of one syllable: why is this wrong? It is wrong, right?"

Well, it's a starting point for discourse / debate that lends itself to making no effort for positive change, since (as you say) there is no way that all the elements of white privilege can be retained if they are also granted to POC (and therefore not acting to remove those elements that must be removed must fail to redress inequality).

Perhaps it's analogous to a climate change "strategy" that doesn't involve reduced personal consumption.

Perhaps it's analogous to a climate change "strategy" that doesn't involve reduced personal consumption.

Mmm, the "All gain no pain" approach to positive global change. I mean, it would be nice in principle...

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