Privilege

This is flame-bait, a thread with the potential to lead to a flame war. It should be locked as nothing good can come from discussing such an emotionally-charged subject.

 

Nothing's happened yet. Have a little faith in EC's ability to stay calm. It isn't as bad as you seem to think.

 

Privilege includes the fact that I don't have to think about my race or gender as something that will endanger me.

Privilege is that I can read, have access to clean drinking water etc.

Privilege is that I have a good education and will continue to get a good education, with no particularly hard effort on my own part.

Privilege is that my mother's ward has only whites in senior management, despite being more than half Indian and Filipino.

Privilege is that I live in a very rich city, an extreme rarity in the world, but my family's lifestyle is always depicted as the default in media (as white, middle-class people).


That all said, I don't like it when "check your privilege" is screamed by people who don't check theirs. On the other hand, it's often straight, white, middle-class men who complain about the people who talk about privilege. It's a conversation that needs to happen, it's just not conducted very civilly.

---------- Post added 17th Dec 2013 at 08:33 PM ----------

This is definitely flame-bait material. Let's just hope things stay calm.

 

I hope you're not directing that at me... Putting that aside, can you talk about male privilege now? This is a nice start, but I'd like to see you expound on the concept of privilege in other areas: first world privilege, again male privilege, cis-privilege, white privilege/supremacy, thin privilege, and more on Ableism.

 

Personally, I find the whole "privilege" thing unnecessary. Honestly, just trying your best to be a decent person to those around you is what we need to focus on, not every single thing we can or cannot do. Then, everything becomes unnecessarily complex and people are overcomplicating an idea that's really simple. And from what I see, it's taking 1 step forwards and 2 steps back from the main goal, which is world peace.

Bash on me all you want, but I'm convinced that every person is an individual with their own personal, unique strengths and weaknesses. Your friend needs some help? Help them, and don't make fun of them for their troubles. Same with anybody else who truly needs help, regardless of where they stand.

 

I hate the privilege olympics. As far as I'm concerned, it's used by people who're jealous but don't pause to consider things from the other side.

Taking me, for example. I'm thin. Some might wave their arms around and scream "thin privilege".

Because of my low weight, I'm constantly harassed by people to "eat a hamburger", that I need to eat more.

I have difficulty taking medications because the dosage for most people is too much for me, which means in some cases, I'm unable to take the medication I need.

I bruise easily; I often times strip down for a shower and find bruises I have no idea how I got.

I chill and overheat easily, which means I have a narrow temperature range where I'm comfortable.

I have a hard time finding clothes that fit. Most of the time, they're too big.

Is that something that someone in their right mind would call a privilege?

 

Privilege is a complicated issues. We can say that it revolves mostly along the lines of race, sex, socioeconomic status, nationality, ethnicity, religion, national origin, etc. However, privilege is a more complicated issue by the fact that we are all privileged at some level; to wit, we are all privileged just by the fact that we are alive when many others do not have that opportunity. There will always be people who will be richer than us and poorer than us, more or less attractive than us, etc.

I am viewed by some as having the privilege of being male, an American citizen, a person with higher education, a person who complains when he has to turn on wifi on his phone to get HD YouTube videos because his cell phone gives him low quality videos on LTE. But I also have other "soft privileges" such as having been raised by my biological parents who have been married for over 25 years and have marital stability, great friends who understand me, and "relatively" sane family members, and, while not rich by a long shot, I don't know what food insecurity is like.

But I also suffer from the lack of "privilege" in some aspects, as defined by others. I am not white, I am gay, I'm not particularly attractive, I am agnostic (depending on where you live this can be an important issue).

That said, I don't think "privilege" is all that it's cut out to be. Instead of focusing on what we have and don't have as a society, we should focus on understanding our fellow man and seeing how, despite our differences (or similarities), we all strive to provide for our family a better quality of life and a better existence.

We all have privilege in some form; what we should probably strive for is to ensure that all humans are afforded the dignity of having their existence and life acknowledged and to ensure no human (at least at the level of one's jurisdiction) be denied the equality of opportunity for their differences.

Sorry if this sounded like a bunch of hogwash; just waiting for my sleeping pills to fully kick in so I'm half groggy

 

Since I honestly don't want to go into this, as it'd probably just end in an argument in some regard, I'll leave a simple sentence.

"I hate the phrase 'Check your Privilege' with a passion no one will ever know."

 

I've used the term, usually when discussing actual phenomena and issues related, but wouldn't consider throwing the term around so lightly, as a way of keeping others down for being different, because it's still prejudice, whether people like to admit it or not. And I definitely think it's worth discussing as long as inequality exists.

Privilege is basically a right, advantage, or immunity granted to a person for being a part of a group that has power over others. It's usually something we don't choose, aren't consciously aware of, or have to worry over hurting our chances at success or happiness.

Here's something I posted on another site around a year ago:
Chart: How privileged are you?

The irony is that I actually scored lower than many of the "check your privilege" social justice warrior types who loved to demonize others (usually white, heterosexual males) and threw a hissy fit whenever their own privilege were called out, or someone disagreed with them...

 

To be frank the term is more often used by people who profess to be "liberal",
And "open" in order to shut down any argument that is contrary to theirs.

Your description of it's original definition is true(Or what I see it as),
But frankly I feel it's a term we should do away with.

 

According to that, despite being a white cisgender male, I'm very disprivileged. I'm pretty sure most people would disagree with that.

Plus, that race category is so minor. I appear white, but I consider myself Native American. I tend to identify as both, as both are a big part of who I am. My dad was almost full Native American, and my mom was full German. I'm not really either.

Then there's the disability section... I'm not really able-bodied, but I'm also not immobile. So yea.

 

All I will say on this topic are that the ones who always say "check your privilege" in a shallow, meaningless way are teenagers writing it from their iPhone in their brand new BMW that their rich, successful White daddy paid for and claiming to be "oppressed" cuz they learned about they learned about the term "genderqueer" and decided to adopt it as their own.

Hope that's not flaming...just saying that those who *actually* know what discrimination and bigotry and oppression feel like don't generally go around 2 dimensionalizing the conversation in such an unproductive, meaningless way (which is what shaming is, absolutely useless).

 

"Check your privilege?"? I've never heard that phrase before. To me that just sounds like an incoherent, ad hominem attack someone would use online when they've lost an argument.

 

Privilege most certainly exists. Aussie did a fine job detailing certain types so I won't further that

I'll just say I have plenty of it and there are a few areas in my life where I actually lack it. Check your privilege was a common statement in my grad school and while it is a legitimate practice, I have noticed that outside of how we used it, it gets a bit old sometimes and used as a buzzword by people who don't really know what they are doing. or saying. Not everyone has this problem mind you but consider the source that it often comes from. I find plenty of people who this term often have the most privilege of all and never check it

But at the same time, I find it ridiculous that people with privilege get upset over somebody saying it to them. I think some people truly don't believe privilege exists yet here I am, out of grad school about to go back INTO grad school, sitting in my warm house with a computer and blah blah blah...you get my point. I am a white, cis male. I have no reason to complain with how things went for me when it's clear by my own history that I don't get looked at in a dubious manner when applying for a loan or even going into a convenience store

TL;DR - yes it very much exists

Foxface

 

Privilege certainly does exist, but we all have some degree of it, and it's based on a lot of factors. For example, I have white privilege. But I lack cis privilege, will lose straight privilege, and will gain male privilege if I am passable (which by the way is the weirdest thing to think about). In some areas my level of privilege is foggy - I'm usually read as a lesbian before I'm read as trans, since I'm pre-everything.

The thing about privilege checking is that it has become something of a joke. I think it gets thrown around wrong, and its definitely lost its meaning. I think that it is important to consider how your privilege can benefit less privileged people, that's part of making a more harmonized world - affording other people more privilege doesn't give you less. For example, I might transition into male privilege but that's no reason to stop fighting actively for the benefit of women. But as it stands today, it's just a phrase people throw around when they're angry, either because someone has something they don't, or in a lot of cases online, because someone has something that someone else might not have and it might offend this third party.

Do I think the phrase "check your privilege" can be saved? No. Frankly it's annoying. But I do think people should be more aware of what privilege actually is, because the way sjw's toss it around no one really knows.

That's my opinion anyway.