Privilege

This is probably a bit of a rant. I doubt it is put together well and might even wander from point to point.

I have been running into discussions/post about Privilege a lot lately. White Privilege, Male Privilege, Class Privilege, etc.

I am very frustrated with it all. The push has been to show how people are or are not privileged and then there is the listing of ways people deal with the guilt of being privileged (“get off the hook”). But there doesn’t seem to be anything about what to do if you find out your are Privileged. There is no positive movement forward. Just a list that makes you feel bad if you have a lot of it or maybe justified of why your life is a mess if you don’t have much of it.

I go through the lists and I admit I do start to feel a little bad about being “Privileged.” But when I really think about it, I have decided I have nothing to feel bad about. Yes I am Privileged. I got a very good start in my life. And I don’t think I should have a problem with that.

My grandparents didn’t get farther than high school if they even finished it but worked very hard and built businesses and lifestyles that included money. Both of my parents have college degrees and went back to get Masters. When I was young, we lived at an upper middle class level I think. My parents also have very unique ways of interfacing with life so standard measures of success don’t really work with them but they both have most of what they want out of life and I would say that is a success.

I feel I have actually reversed the trend my grandparents started. I don’t work nearly has hard as they did or as my parents. I coast a lot. I work at a mid-level for a living without much if really anything to retire on. I am mostly getting by. But I had a mostly good family life, good schooling, I was given my first car, I have a college education and paid for my own Masters, I had the luxury of taking whatever classes I wanted, I have lived in Europe, traveled around, moved across states, had choices on where to work, I have lots of stuff and the ability to get more things I want, I am surrounded by people that are like me and accept me as I am (My type of people TM), I have the opportunity to do inner work on my psyche and can afford it. There are lots of things that qualify at Privilege and I was given them. Because of them, I have tools to make other Privilege things happen. Like getting a 20hr a week job at 50K a year practicing programs I only know a little bit and want to know more.

I don’t know what the problem with having this Privilege. I don’t know why I should give any of it up. Some of the things I am reading say that Privilege people don’t see Privilege because they want to hang onto their privilege.

I haven’t seen anything that says what you should do if you find that you are Privileged that is a positive action. The things I have seen have come from a defensive position and don’t do anything to move people forward, only to hold people back.

I am very aware that others don’t have the benefits I did. I can’t give them mine. I can only use mine to help them get their own, but they do have to work for it themselves. It can’t just be handed to them. I think that is why I am not as “successful” as my grandparents or parents. Most of my privileges were handed to me. And if someone with less privilege gets the opportunity to acquire some of elements of privilege through their interest in them and work towards them, then they are going to be able to run circles around me. And more power to them.

I used to volunteer tutoring kids from the Tenderloin. These are kids that aren’t given many of the opportunities I had. I was looking forward to sharing my enthusiasm for math and science with others and to work with them to deliver the information in a way that they understood instead of the way people want to teach it. Sadly, it was more babysitting and fighting with them to get them to do their basic homework that I was discouraged and stopped volunteering. I am not a teacher or a motivator. I am really good at providing information if people are interested in it. That means I am only useful to those that meet me in the middle.

I can’t correct the fact that some people did not have a good start. I can’t hand out what I have been given for my start. I can offer a hand and support to those that want to be more than where they began. As long as I am not attacked or pulled down, I am usually happy to do what I can.

(To be balanced, I have to say I had some shitty things happen to me growing up as well as all the good. It is all part of my starting point and what I need to work with all the time. Part of the process of living life is to find a way to get around the bad or deal with it and use the good. I find the only use of finding the bad is so you can package it and move it forward. Focusing on it and saying that is why I am in a bad way and then doing nothing about it gets you nothing.)

10 thoughts on “Privilege

  1. I think the various LJ memes on privilege have gotten out of hand and out of context. I believe one of the original quizzes was presented to a freshman college class, which is a very different audience, and the point was much more clear. The idea in that context is to make people aware that privilege exists in the first place, because so often it’s invisible to those who have it.

    Outside a class designed for incoming first-years, such things become pointless and just serve to make people feel guilty.

  2. The point is to make you realize what that privilige entails. Answering the questions is supposed to make you realize that yes, “having a library card and the ability to use it” is something that not everyone gets to do.

    As said – it works much better in the context of a class, than as a meme.

  3. I would think that the point of learning something about oneself is not necessarily to change it, but to become aware of it. To consider how it shapes you, it’s affects how you see the world and how these things might be different for others.

    I think that’s an excellent goal in and of itself.

    1. I tend to agree with this.

      Actually, the privilege meme made me kind of happy and grateful. “Ooh, shiny, look – my family is above average in providing educational opportunities for our children.” Of course, that’s because I specifically noticed that every privilege that involved learning something was provided to me, but those that involved having extra money, or other non-educational resources were often not even if my parents could have provided them.

      I can see her point though, and maybe that’s insensitive of me to take pride in my parents’ ability and choices to provide me with some privileges and not others. Sometimes I feel guilty for not feeling more guilty.

      –Ember–

  4. As far as I’m concerned, the only valid use of privilege is to recognize that you can’t judge another person’s situation from your own perspective.

    The most common example of privilege is “well, if you worked hard and got an education, you’d have done just as well as I have!” It might seem to me (middle class white man) that this is so, but that’s because I have lived a privileged life.

    There are times you should be willing to give up some level of privilege (my vote is more likely to count) in order to create equality (making their votes *just* as likely to count, rather than reducing the certainty that mine will). And there are times you should be willing to sacrifice based upon your privilege (“sure, I’m paying a bit more in taxes to help the poor; big deal, I’ve had a lot of advantages just handed to me”) but there’s nothing saying you should feel guilty over a privilege that was handed to you without your consent.

    Okay, I’d feel guilty if I got a job because an equally qualified minority candidate was passed over for it… I might decide I don’t work with that company. But I wouldn’t decide that it’s something bad about *me*.

  5. Yeah, that’s why when I did the meme, I did it for myself, both parents and both sets of grandparents. I didn’t need a meme to tell me that I have had a lot of privilege factors and thinking about it generationally was interesting. Mind you, it’s also targeted at a very specific audience and a lot of the posts I saw on it discussed how it assumes a lot of things.

    As to the suggestions for positive action after realization of privilege. http://community.livejournal.com/ibarw/ has posts that specifically talk about that sort of thing.

  6. I find that I agree with you on this a large bit. We (you and I) have similar backgrounds of how we were raised and in similar enviroments. (my father did very well in the aerospace industry, but was a son of a Kansas dirt farmer)
    When put in the context of a Freshman college quiz, this does take on a different perspective.
    Where I view this is that things like if I gave to every bleedin’ charity that stood in front of every store I went to, I would be soon having to go to those very charities to live. I have been kicked in the teeth for helping out those less fortunate also. This has made me somewhat calused to wanting to help. Also, as a biker, it seems that we bikers tend to be the first a charity comes to for a handout (Love Ride, Ride For Kids, ect). But the first also to be shunned and bullied for being “damn bikers”. Tends to make a person not want to help out.
    Then again, the greatest donation I felt I ever gave was a house full of furniture and big screen tv to the battered womens shelter in Las Vegas.
    Go fig.

    Blackheart the Norsebiker

  7. I agree that without context, the privilege questions didn’t seem to move many people’s thoughts in a positive direction.

    It frightened me that so many people’s only reaction was that someone wanted to take something away from them.

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