privilege as a meme

millions of straight white men could be a band I guess

like there's a reason it isn't "straight rich white dudes" as a shorthand

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:33 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

maybe if i put it this way: there are structures of oppression in western society built around race/national origin; gender; sexual orientation. by being a straight white dude - even a poor straight white dude - a person is automatically situated as outside of those structures.

i was trying to point out how unhelpful it is to look at life through that lens because it misses so many things. it's trying to fit a complex, scattered life of amorphous values and experiences through a strict, directional binary that's based largely on the values and perceptions of the people using it, making it almost without foundation.

i'm not trying to say ignore social problems, but more like ... look at more social problems, in a more huminitarian way by opening up the debate by throwing off a very narrow and shaky concept.

maybe if i put it this way: there are structures of oppression in western society built around race/national origin; gender; sexual orientation. by being a straight white dude - even a poor straight white dude - a person is automatically situated as outside of those structures.

fair enough. but the thread in which the term crops up is about the concept of privilege.

there are structures of oppression in western society built around race/national origin; gender; sexual orientation

and there are none built around money/class?

Right but what I'm saying is that "What's worse here?" is not the question that privilege is answering - privilege isn't that lens, that binary.

i don't understand, LG, are you thinking about privilege as the accrual of various advantages with a common denominator? as if you tally your score and find your numerical score on the 'privilege' axis? it doesn't work that way!

the poor just aren't involved in these discussions at all as far as i can tell.

"the poor" is doing a bit of work here, though - the poor in Bolivia are, the poor a few decades back are - the fact that the Bethnal Green poor are largely (though not entirely) disinclined to think of things this way is more an effect of 25 years of Tory rags pitching them against "others" than anything else.

I mean, obviously one of the ways that modern capitalism works is keeping the people with the least to lose busy and hungry all the time, but that's not the fault of the conversations that they're not having.

What I guess I was asking was, "who's priveleged and who's not priveleged" to call into question the very idea of using the concept.

hillary clinton was used as an example of someone who falls under the "underpriveleged" for being a women, and based on stereotypes, straight white men are by nature more priveleged than her. but if you look at things more closely, does that really hold up? what are we even trying to get at here?

so it's like, hillary clinton, one of the most powerful people who has ever lived, has to deal with certain nuisances of being a woman. and women out there face far worse than being patronized by the media. but then you have the same priveleged straight white men who live and die miserable lives with no hope of escape because of circumstances that are generally ignored because they have priveleges, which is completely and utterly kooky to me. and I'm just taking this stuff from the debates had here. why ignore so many things about peoples' lives just to fit things into this narrative?

"privelege" here is starting to seem like to me to be a tool for interest groups to alleviate legitimate greviances particular to their interests, rather than a tool to better help and understand other human beings. which isn't wrong or anything, but there's this moral weight put behind the concept when it's really more pragmatic than that.

xpost elmo that's the point i'm making if you read the last few posts. i'm only stressing class because i'm being told "that's not comparable" which seems to suggest a system like you describe.

i'm not suggesting comparison or tallies, just that maybe in a thread about privilege we might want to discuss how class/social status affects it and how class/social status mean the shorthand of "straight white male" doesn't work particularly well as a catch all for the ignorant and powerful.

not to mention disability.

hillary clinton was used as an example of someone who falls under the "underpriveleged" for being a women, and based on stereotypes, straight white men are by nature more priveleged than her.

Dude no this is not what was happening! Hillary Clinton is obviously massively privileged in many ways - Dayo is just pointing out that even with that she still gets shit that she wouldn't if she was a man.

class and disability ARE included in discussions of privilege

not this one

the disingenuousness and pedantry on display itt is just wilful at this point and is also like EVERY OTHER DERAILMENT OF THE SUBJECT EVER, it's so fucking DONE. no wonder social justice tumblr is full of people being assholes about it. no fucking wonder.

^ showing his 'previous internet discussions of privilege' privilege imo

oddly enough i don't really consider this thread a full and thorough delineation of the entire subject of privilege, why not go read some actual material on it before you dismiss the concept based on a fucking ilx thread

it's not fair or justified to accuse people of being disingenuous or pedantic. if you can't argue a cogent point, don't. this thread is pretty civil.

xpost

oddly enough i don't really consider this thread a full and thorough delineation of the entire subject of privilege, why not go read some actual material on it before you dismiss the concept based on a fucking ilx thread

i'm actually trying to challenge my own views and in the process maybe i challenge those of others.

lol @ "IT'S NOT FAIR"

i'm not being disingenuous or pedantic

There's a pretty neat article by John Scalzi which I wish I'd brought up yesterday - I don't think it will bring peace to the tribes of LG and dayo - and which goes into the money/class thing in its response posts. It looks like it might be a US / rest of world thing whether you consider money and class to be essential attributes on the level of sex/race/sexuality?

don't rly see what your point is LG, one of the points of 'privilege' is that power imbalances are manifest in a lot of ways and intersect in a lot of ways, and honing in on any particular thread of it (e.g. 'that's racist') is going to fail to get to the heart of the power differential at work. This means that it isn't easy and people aren't always going to get it quite right, but that's not the fault of the concept, it's much more reflective of the fact that it's just something that's always going to be very difficult to deal with adequately.

there is peace as far as i'm concerned... xpost

one of the points of 'privilege' is that power imbalances are manifest in a lot of ways and intersect in a lot of ways, and honing in on any particular thread of it (e.g. 'that's racist') is going to fail to get to the heart of the power differential at work. This means that it isn't easy and people aren't always going to get it quite right, but that's not the fault of the concept, it's much more reflective of the fact that it's just something that's always going to be very difficult to deal with adequately.

i'm not sure how this contradicts what i've said. i mean, i don't even think this is some gigantically polarised me v everyone debate.

i'm actually trying to challenge my own views and in the process maybe i challenge those of others.

this is either hugely disingenuousness or ridiculously self-important, take your pick

i'm very good at grammar

you dropped in to the thread and made a point which i was actually making, not sure why you're on the insult train now.

terribly sorry, am i being UNFAIR?

just disingenuous

nah, that was just facetious.

fair enough

Oh my god, you people.

Can I just pop in and throw out the idea that it's not surprising that the privilege concept seems to revolve around the middle-class and up since they're generally the ones with the privilege of having enough education and spare time to come up with the concept? Or has someone said this already?

That was sort of my point from the off.

tbh I think that's one of the most useful aspects of the concept of privilege; the basic idea can be used to examine/interrogate itself

Good morning! Yeah, Dan, I was going to say: that's undoubtedly true but also not a count against the validity of the practice. Those who have the knowledge also have cause to use it.

LG, here's the thing: you're making it pretty clear that you think the discussion itt should follow a certain path, and you want to direct it there. fine.

the discussion is incomplete. of course. it's not a comprehensive account of the concept and as lex sort of hinted at, you could easily find plenty of thoughtful material elsewhere about the intersection of class & other sets of privileges. you could even link to those things here itt if you found them.

but the insistence that you're somehow doing us all a favor by "challenging our views" and not just grinding a rhetorical axe is just a bit too much for me to take seriously.

nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society

People talk about the poor! This includes straight white male poor people! Your statement is flat out wrong. People work very hard every day to help straight white male poor people! Many of the people who are working hard to help straight white male poor people do not belong to all or any of those categories.

If I talk about how economically underprivileged people have roadblocks to material improvement in their lives, I'm talking about straight white males who are economically underprivileged! Clearly, they're included in that class.

Is your complaint that they're being held back because they're male, white or straight? If so, fuck you. Is your complaint that they're being held back because their born into a disadvantaged economic and social class? Then, yes we're in agreement, so what's you're beef? We're addressing the problem, which is their poverty, not their maleness, whiteness, or straightness.

I understand how reasonable people can get trapped into this weird line of thinking, but can you see how aggravating this complaint is, and how it is nearly indistinguishable from the racist resentment? Indistinguishable from the absurd complaint that the white man is being persecuted and that the minorities and women are a bunch of lucky duckies? Indistinguishable, regardless of how you arrived there, or whatever your original intent!

damn, one of my they'res became a their

I think it is interresting than in some european countries, speaking of privilege is a big social no-no. Those european countries (I'm thinking of France mainly) are known for having extensive welfare but little or no means of social elevation. It is a broad generalisation of course, but I felt that discussing other culture's view of privilege could be enlightening for this (great) conversation.

xp Holy crap! You just filled my mouth with all sorts of bullshit. I already agree with the basic ideas of privelege. I am well aware of my own privilege in these terms, I've reflected on it on my own without even being aware of the concept.

I wasn't even referring to the poor when I said "deemed legitimate by society". Maybe I'm being a little mealy mouthed here because I have my own axe to grind ... and realizing that, I think I'll exit the debate.

european countries (I'm thinking of France mainly) are known for having extensive welfare but little or no means of social elevation.

Isn't social mobility higher in France than in the US (it's certainly higher than the UK)?

it seems like there's a 'privilege of the underprivileged' in even having their voices heard. there are people out there who live and die lives of quiet hell, and nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society. which is why I think "privileged" is such an unhelpful way to frame debates like these because it's such a relative term that uses stereotypes to understand very complex issues and ends up in finger pointing, axe grinding, shaming, and guilt, all the while ignoring a multitude of nuanced issues that can only be understood through peoples' limited, individual perceptions and experiences.

so you have a woman like hillary clinton tut-tutted because she's a woman, yet was one of the most powerful women in the world. then you have millions of straight white men who don't have a chance in hell of climbing out of abject poverty. what's worse here? i think the very idea of "privelege" here is in itself a product of privlege that people are unaware of.

― Spectrum, Thursday, April 11, 2013 7:39 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Who are the people who aren't being talked about and why aren't they being talked about? And what does this have to do with the conversation about privilege?

xposts

I hate to speak without stats backing my claims, so take it with a grain of salt: I'd say that the average frenchman lives in better conditions. However, it seems to me that a (too) little percentage of the middle and lower classes is able to work his way up in the scales, whereas in France your surname is confined to the same economic strata forever. I might be wrong.

That is beside the topic, tbf.

What I think happens in countries with a stronger welfare state is that since the privilege of one is the access to university to others, so that privilege resentment is muted by the whole idea of 'I'm paying for you'/'He's paying for me'.

(talk about walking on eggs)

I still can't get over the idea that a great advantage of being underprivileged is that you get to have your voice heard!

lol

yeah that is some nonsense. gayatri spivak to thread.

oh man, that is so far away from the point I was trying to make it's absurd. maybe I didn't express it right.

yea

Do you mean that privilege is not that straight vertical line and that the discourse about privileges should adapt to the complexities? For example, how do we frame the privilege of a homosexual kid in a very rich, religious and homophobic family?

but the insistence that you're somehow doing us all a favor by "challenging our views" and not just grinding a rhetorical axe is just a bit too much for me to take seriously.

challenge is a verb, anyone in an argument is challenging someone else's views. i never said i'm doing anyone a favour. you can read more into the word "challenge" to try and insult me but that's up to you.

it's not a comprehensive account of the concept and as lex sort of hinted at, you could easily find plenty of thoughtful material elsewhere about the intersection of class & other sets of privileges. you could even link to those things here itt if you found them.

i'm not denying that material exists, but i'm only as ignorant of it as many other people in this thread, seemingly.

and yes i brought the topic up, but a lot of my subsequent posts were simply justifying even bringing up class, including my rebuttal to you whereby you had assumed i was creating a hierarchy of discrimination when that's precisely the opposite to my entire position throughout the thread.