A Fear of Privilege

In the types of media I frequently consume, "privilege" is a pretty common theme. White privilege, male privilege (white male privilege, of course), thin privilege, etc. A lot of talk is about how to get people to recognize their own privilege and take ownership of it. If you've ever talked to a feminist male (whether or not he identifies with feminism being irrelevant), he's likely to hear you when you say something like "This thing that happens all the time in favor of white males at the expense of women is shameful!" and respond with something like "Yeah! What a shitty society we live in! I have negative feelings about that, too!"*. And things will go well. As soon as you slap the word privilege on there, making a similar or even the same generalization, it will give him pause. Because it's now much easier for him to visualize himself, and the word privilege makes him a little queasy.






Using the word "privilege" causes people more discomfort that just making the generalization "Our society does this thing". Now all of a sudden the person in question is privileged because of some trait out of their control. Their whiteness, their maleness, their thinness. Suddenly they are privileged. And a lot of people have a hard time reconciling what they know of themselves with the implications of that word.




It's going to be hard for a man who grew up dirt poor, floating in and out of the foster system to think of himself as privileged. Yet, he is. It's often hard for me to think of myself as privileged in any way, yet because of my whiteness and the opportunities it affords me (whether or not I know that's why I'm getting them), I'm privileged, in a way.




It's really, really hard to marry the two images in my brain of what the word privilege has always meant in my mind (generally white, well-off people who can make any problem disappear through money or influence) and what it actually means ("a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people."). But it's important that I learn to do that. It's important to recognize the qualities that give us an advantage so that we can recognize that those things are still an issue. Sweeping them under the rug because they don't fit with our idea of ourselves can have much more far-reaching consequences. You can't stop fighting for something you know is right just because the terminology used by people in those circles offends you.


Another problem a lot of people have when they hear that word directed at a group of people they belong to is that there's underlying implications in our world that being privileged means you don't have to work as hard for what you have. And while you may not have to work as hard as someone from a minority group, it doesn't mean you're lazy. People hear this word and immediately, all the wonderful opportunities they've had are called into question in their own mind. It's hard to hear yourself described as privileged and not try to see what things may have been "handed to you" in life. And that's rough for a person to take. You hear privileged and all of sudden maybe you didn't really earn that promotion. Maybe the job you worked so hard for just "landed in your lap". The implications we recognize are not the ones most people are trying to apply when they refer to someone as having white privilege, male privilege, thin privilege, etc. But it's hard to try and see the things you've worked hard for as things you got because you're white, or male, or thin, or upper middle class. It diminishes your accomplishments to think of it that way, which is why everyone's so hesitant to accept that word as a way to describe them.


Being privileged doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you lazy, and it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It means society is doing something wrong. Society is devaluing people who don't share your whiteness, your maleness, your thinness. You've worked damn hard for the things you have. Now let's try working to make sure other people can get those things.