Privilege Exercise/Icebreaker

Linky no worky

 

The link works for me..

 

I do see privilege as a real thing, but the scoring method leaves room for a lot of cracks. If the mental illness were moderate to severe autism or you grew up with cystic fibrosis or something, then the test could show a positive score, even if your unique situation hardly makes you a "child of privilege."

This simplistic way of thinking about privilege led to a Hispanic roommate becoming violent with me, even though my own life, at the time, was just as upside-down as hers, due to the fact I had fled from a home plagued by drugs and violence, wrestling with a mental illness, and that family had withdrawn the last of their support from me due to her husband's Indian-sounding name, leaving me the options of either returning to my parents' home, where my life was in danger due to a drug problem on the part of my brother that they chose not to understand the severity of, or starve. I chose to starve because, last time my brother had pulled a knife on me and had to be physically restrained, he had actually looked intent on using it. The thing is, I was an avowed atheist, and my parents were fundamentalist Christians. I therefore had a credibility problem. My roommate saw me as somehow "pampered and privileged."

The point is that, if she had realized that my life was as upside-down as hers at the time, would have meant fewer problems all around. I had been sleeping literally on the street to allow her husband to use my truck to commute, but she had assumed I was out partying. I ended up fleeing in desperation to my boyfriend hundreds of miles away after spending three weeks taking care of an AIDS patient with a blazing fever just to be out of the rain. I can care for a sick man. That is one thing I understand and the only thing that has ever made sense to me.

The thing is, the thing to do about privilege is not to beat on someone you see as more privileged than yourself and accuse him of sleeping with your boyfriend while screaming about "AIDS crawling out his butt." That is just one minority beating down another to try to feel bigger. Privilege is a real thing, but there are good ways and very stupid ways of handling it. That was the stupid way.

The good way is that, if a black guy comes to my door pleading for work, I try to give him something to do because someone had explained that black men find it harder to get regular jobs. I would as readily help a white guy, but I don't question the fact that they are all black. I already know the answer. A black neighbor that had just moved into my neighborhood knocked on the door asking for permission to look through our recycle container for coupons: for the next four years, I rarely missed a week getting her most of the coupons from the Sunday and Wednesday papers, and I never criticized her somewhat frail husband for not being employed because I understand that the employability of a physically disabled black man is poor and that he was doing a better service to his family by staying home to care for their daughter. I understand the limitations in these people's opportunities because someone had explained these things to me. My partner had. He had seen the brutality of racism in the pre-Civil Rights era, and he had seen first-hand how violent the Klan had been. In his last months, my partner played me an old record of "Every Race Has A Flag but the Coon" and explained how it had affected black people in this country. He understood, so I am a little closer to understanding. What helps is when someone bothers to explain.

 

Please explain how the scoring works! Are you supposed to start from 10 or something? I couldn't figure that part out, but I did the questions anyways.

Spoiler

1. If your parents worked nights and weekends to support your family, take one point off your score. (-1)
2. If you are able to move through the world without fear of sexual assault, add one point to your score. (+1)
3. If you can show affection for your romantic partner in public without fear of ridicule or violence, add one point to your score. (0)
4. If you have ever been diagnosed as having a physical or mental illness/disability, take one point off your score. (0)
5. If the primary language spoken in your household growing up or currently is not that of the main language in your nation of residence, take one point off your score. (-1)
6. If you came from a supportive family environment add one point to your score. (+1)
7. If you have ever tried to change your speech or mannerisms to gain credibility, take one point off your score. (-1)
8. If you can go anywhere in the country, and easily find the kinds of hair products you need and/or cosmetics that match your skin color, add one point off your score. (0)
9. If you were embarrassed about your clothes or house while growing up, take one point off your score. (0)
10. If you can make mistakes and not have people attribute your behavior to flaws in your racial/gender/GSM/etc group, add one point to your score. (0)
11. If you could always marry the person you love in your lifetime, add one point to your score. (0)
12. If you were born in the United States, add one point to your score. (0)
13. If you or your parents have ever gone through a divorce, take one point off your score. (-1)
14. If you felt like you had adequate access to healthy and filling food growing up, add one point to your score. (+1)
15. If you are reasonably sure you would not be discriminated against in the job field due to your race/gender-gender identity/sexual orientation/etc, add one point to your score. (0)
16. If you would never think twice about calling the police when trouble occurs, add one point to your score. (0)
17. If you can see a doctor whenever you feel the need, add one point to your score. (+1)
18. If you feel comfortable being emotionally expressive/open, add one point to your score. (+1)
19. If you have ever been the only person of your race/gender-gender identity/socio-economic status/ sexual orientation in a classroom or workplace setting, take one point off your score. (-1)
20. If you took out loans for your education take one point off your score. (-1)
21. If you get time off for your religious holidays, add one point to your score (If non-religious, if your views are respected in the workplace by almost all if not all of your colleagues add one point). (0)
22. If you held a job while going to school to support yourself and/or your family financially, take one point off your score. (-1)
23. If you feel comfortable walking home alone at night, add one point to your score. (+1)
24. If you have ever traveled outside the United States, add one point to your score. (+1)
25. If you have ever felt like there was NOT adequate or accurate representation of your racial group, sexual orientation group, gender group, and/or disability group in the media, take one point off your score. (-1)
26. If you feel confident that your parents would be able to financially help/support you if you were going through a financial hardship, add one point to your score. (0)
27. If you have ever been bullied or made fun of based on something that you can’t change about yourself, take one point off your score. (-1)
28. If there were more than 50 books in your house growing up, add one point to your score. (+1)
29. If you studied the culture or the history of your ancestors in elementary school add one point to your score. (+1)
30. If your parents or guardians attended college, add one point to your score. (+1)
31. If you ever went on a family vacation for more than a day, add one point to your score. (+1)
32. If you can buy new clothes or go out to dinner when you want to, add one point to your score. (+1)
33. If you were ever offered a job because of your association with a friend or family member, add one point to your score. (+1)
34. If one of your parents was ever laid off or unemployed not by choice, take one point off your score. (-1)
35. If you were ever uncomfortable about a joke or a statement you overheard related to your race, ethnicity, gender/gender identity, appearance, or sexual orientation but felt unsafe to confront the situation, take one point off your score. (-1)

 

The good news is that I can consider myself to be a bit privileged despite being transgender, disabled and having multiple mental disabilities - well all of these meant I had to take two steps back on the quiz... This might indicate that there is a slight problem with the way the questions are set up and weighed... you can't really equate how devastating a physical disability or being transgender is with having one of your parents unemployed for a short period of time... :dry:

 

I have to admit that this has left me slightly disturbed and made me think about the concept of privilege, so technically it did its job. The real problem is that it just felt off somehow, while privilege is a very real thing, the concept in itself feels to me somehow negative. It perpetuates us and them style of mentality. My life has been drastically different from most people, I've coped with unique challenges, however, my background gave me the tools necessary to cope and flourish. So yes, I have privileges over someone who had to deal with the same challenges but comes from a more problematic background. I'm sure that I would have ended my life in my twenties if I didn't have the needed support to survive. However, what does that actually mean about my accomplishments, can I be proud of them if I would never have been able to get them without the needed support?

The problem lies in statements such as: if you were in my shoes you wouldn't be able to succeed. Obviously I wouldn't be able to succeed because I would be the same person that I am now instead I would be the exact same person that is talking to me. Each person is unique in the sense that they grew up under a specific set of circumstances that when combined together creates something unique to that person. Personally, I've never really cared much about what a person has accomplished, I was happy to complete my degrees but I was much more proud of being able to help others and be there for them when they needed me at other points in my life. Does this attitude come because I've never had to worry about my financial situation? Maybe. But what it also means is that I barely ever spend any money, I live my life with very little possessions, no car, no house for myself and very few clothes, most with holes in them. I do have an old computer that I use very heavily. Should I feel sorry for a person who has a car, has a house and uses a large amount of money every month yet struggles financially because they don't have a high enough paying job and have anxieties as a result. The answer is yes, because they are struggling right now and might need my support...

If anyone ever looked down at another person because they were richer yet still unhappy with their lives, they were wrong to do so. By doing so you are just perpetuating the inequality in society by seeing them as different from yourself, we are all people and if a person is finding it hard to cope with life, no matter their circumstances you should believe them and do your best to see if you can comfort them. I'm tired of the attitude of us versus them that is so ingrained in us from when we are young. Everyone is different, everyone is unique but all people are also connected to each other in some way and are just small pieces in the larger picture called life.

 

I feel like you can't really measure something like privilege, and not in a quiz like this, but I guess it's good for getting people to talk about it or something? Some of the questions confused me about how to answer, my parents are legally divorced but they're separated and not together anymore, but I guess I still add a point there? And I can't afford to go to a therapist to get diagnosed with anything even though I definitely have problems I need help with, but according to this quiz I should add a point because I've never been diagnosed? A lot of the questions don't seem like a good measure of privilege either, like Yaeli pointed out.

 

Also, there are other complicated situations. A lady who worked for my partner was a countess, and her husband was a count. They were nobility. They were in a happy marriage together, and they had multiple children. As nobles, they were visited on occasion by royalty...

...

..the Hungarian pretender to the throne, that is...and they had barely escaped with their lives when the royal family fell from power. They were not able to bring with them more than they could carry, and their escape was a perilous cross-country trek through places where they had no status and didn't speak the native languages. They lost everything, except a little they might have managed to squirrel away in obscure bank accounts.

The guy I have been dating went through a similar experience with his family when they fled Cuba during the fall of Batista. His father had been accused of being a "counter-revolutionary." They lost everything, too. His parents are still happily married, but they went from living fairly comfortably and having coniderable land to crawling through Miami ghettos. Fortunately, they ended up reasonably successful, but still, they lost so much.

So such a simple test cannot really take everything into account. Let's take Barack Obama, even: his father was a fairly well-off man, at the time he was born, and his mother was a globe-trotting professor. Although they did go through lean times, his story is not as much a "rags to riches" kind of thing as you might think...more like "comfortable clothes that fit to riches." Still an accomplishment, especially considering the prejudice and discrimination against black people in this country, but you can't look at only one factor.

There are a lot of factors involved in figuring out how "privileged" a person is. A simple test of this nature simply does not have the ability to tell everyone's unique story.

 

Some questions were not entirely applicable to me, especially since I'm not American. But I got -14. Being trans is fun, eh.

 

I agree that a test like this doesn't exactly measure privilege, but the point of the exercise as to visually show that many people start off "ahead" of others. Consider the exercise like this: The first person who reaches the other end of the room in a race wins a prize. Those closer to the front of the room have a clear advantage over those who are toward the back, who will have to work harder and move faster in order to try to win that prize. It's a metaphor more than anything.

The questions certainly aren't perfect, I wouldn't equate having books in the home and having physical or mental illness with the same amount of points, for example. There are many factors of life that aren't considered, as well. But, this isn't a scientific study, it's more of a quick demonstration to help people understand that yes, some people do have it easier than others.

Personally I scored a +2. (I clicked the wrong number in the poll, sorry!) I am gay, I'm a woman, and I have mental and physical illness, but I'm also white, come from an upper middleclass family, and live in the US in a "good area." I didn't want for material goods when I was a kid, and I was provided an education that has also given me a leg up in this world. On the other hand, I struggled socially, had trouble at home, and have had periods in my life where I could barely function through the anxiety and depression. We all have advantages and disadvantages in life, and often not a perfect balance.

I think it's also important to realize that many people have to put in a lot more time, work, and perseverance to get where they want to be. Some people have the attitude that if you simply work hard you will be successful, but it just isn't true for everyone. There are so many other factors involved in success, working hard is just one aspect. My parents, for example, believe that anyone could get where they are if they just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." I can see why they have this attitude, as neither of them were afforded most of the privileges I had growing up, but they have done very well for themselves. They both come from poor and abusive backgrounds, and I'm sure hard work played a role in their getting out of those situations, but I am also sure that luck, being at the right place at the right time, and having certain other privileges afforded them the opportunity to improve their lives. Not everyone is so lucky, in fact, most aren't. Exercises like this may be able to show to people with this sort of attitude that everyone is not starting off on equal footing.

 

There are always people on both sides who view privilege as a concept of personal ease of life rather than a sociological advantage.

Social privilege has nothing to do with personal life.

It does not matter whether you come from an abusive home. It does not matter if matter if you have dealt with depression or internal struggles. Those are absolutely things that can hold us back in life, but we were not held back by society as a result of those things. More often than not the problem with discussions of privilege is that people take the fact that they benefit from social inequality as a personal attack. They become defensive and claim that no one knows their live! No one truly understands their struggles! Privilege, however, does not speak on internal struggles. It speaks on whether or not our individual characteristics and identities hinder us on a social scale.

I was raised in an upper-middle classes family, but I did not have an easy childhood in the slightest. The struggles that I faced, however, do not discredited the fact that on a socioeconomic level I benefited from inequality. Most do not have to experience the things that I experienced personally as a child, but economically I still had an advantaged. Not simply because I had the funds to live comfortably, but because many others did not and because they did not I was able to seize opportunities that they couldn't afford or were too overburdened by making a living to pursue. That is privilege.

Privilege does not mean that you don't struggle. It is not about weighing quality of life. It means that you do not struggle specifically because of your race, sexuality, class, gender, expression, nationality, religion, etc, while others do. There can never be a social moment to end depression, personal struggle, or general unhappiness. There can be social movements to combat social and economic inequality based specifically on physical characteristics, personal identity, or minority status.

 

Watching the video made me really emotional, especially when seeing how far some people, particular people of color and those that aren't straight, had to stand back. I just wish everyone had equal chances and opportunities in life.

 

Sigh, sometimes you have to admit that you were wrong and in this case, I feel that my post was problematic because it showed a certain amount of ignorance about how privilege connects with fighting racism and social inequality. It was hard for me to separate my own personal circumstances from the issues that are at the heart of the matter and it made me defensive. I understand now a bit better how important the concept is with regards to fighting racism and discrimination and I apologize if my post came off as a bit insensitive. :icon_redf

 

Communist! Jk lol lots of love of course it should be like that ♥

 

Everyone has the chance to make their way forward in life if they take the right steps to do so. Some people have it worse than others but some of lesser fortune have managed to climb the ladder. All I can say is we need to be less retrospective and bitchy about our current scenarios and actually do things to improve each of our positions the best we can.

 

It is true that we as individuals should not dwell on the ways that we might be disadvantaged; however, acknowledging valid and significant disadvantages when we view the society and world that we live in is not being retrospective. It is being proactive. Without spreading awareness and facilitating open discussions about inequality and social hierarchies, there is no chance of progress.

We will always face individual obstacles in life, but the concept of entire social demographic facing unique and discriminatory setbacks should never be something that we passively accept.

 

10 :eusa_shif

ffs

 

+7 to 10 (the variety accounts for different interpretations)

 

5+. I didn't realize there would so many questions but once I was half way finished I decided I was already in too deep to stop now. However, some of the questions did not have a straightforward answer for me. For example, I am somewhere between agnostic and atheist, but I was Christian at one point. When I was Christian, we did have Easter and Christmas off, etc. So I was "priveleged" at one point but not anymore? Also, as a child, I'm quite sure we had access to healthy food, but my parents fed me a lot of fast food because they were lazy/tired after work and my diet wasn't very great when I was younger, even though we had access. I am eating a lot better now.

I hate the concept of privilege, since people seem to use it to try to make others feel guilty about the (good) hand of cards they may have been dealt in life and to minimize the personal suffering they may have went through. In fact, you often hear it thrown around on the Internet. If you have Internet and the luxury of having the free time to tell others how privileged they are on the Internet, you're pretty privileged yourself already. Similarly, people use it as an excuse if they were dealt a bad hand. Life is full of suffering. We like to play some sort of game where we try to objectively say who is suffering worse than others. In which case, we don't take subjective feelings into account. For example, how can you say someone suffering from severe depression but has a lot of money leads a better life than someone who may not have a lot of money but is enjoying life. We try to objectively evaluate the relative subjective worth of money and happiness. It's different for different people. Privilege is just a bullshit politically correct game that is a way to make others feel bad about their good fortune and make excuses. However, I do not think this article in particular is too bad since it tries to take a more holistic view of privilege than many people who take a singular view.

In regard to the OP answers specifically, how come you feel afraid of sexual assault? I thought that that question was basically an "are you male or female" question.