Posted by figleaf
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Thu, 2010-09-02 12:56
Quick follow up on my previous post about privilege. From comments in to the same Slacktivist post I cited previously, a commenter called “Mark Z” had this nifty illustration of the hidden benefits of classic “white, male Baptist” privilege.
It’s like running in a race in which half your competitors have had their shoes stolen. You benefit from it even if you didn’t steal their shoes. You don’t normally see that they have no shoes because they’re behind you and in a foot race you keep your eyes forward. If they fall far enough behind, you might forget they’re even in this race.
That analogy seems even more apt than the standard “wind at your back” or the snarky “born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple” ones.
I don’t think “shoes were
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Thu, 2010-09-02 23:24.I don’t think “shoes were stolen” is it, exactly. It’s probably more like, the privileged people spent several years working hard to prove that they’re worthy of ten million dollar “super shoes”, which their parents or community or whatever buy for them once they’ve done so. When people who don’t have them complain, the privileged ones are all “dude, I totally earned mine, go earn your own if you really want some yourselves.” Of course, they usually don’t see that if those others tried to simply “prove” themselves worthy, this would get them absolute jack squat, because they don’t have a family or community which can buy the shoes for them. So they either have to run without the shoes or spend the rest of their lives trying to raise the 10 million so that their grandchildren can have a chance to run with them.
(While phrased largely in terms of wealth, I do think other forms of privilege work much this way as well.)
Okay, but now you're just
Submitted by Mark Z. (not verified) on Fri, 2010-09-03 01:39.Okay, but now you're just restating privilege in terms of privilege. That's what I'm trying to avoid, having seen too many of these explanations get tied in knots of "That thing you're doing right now, where you don't understand what privilege is? That's privilege!"
Well, I’ve seen your general
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Fri, 2010-09-03 02:50.Well, I’ve seen your general type of metaphor/argument used a hundred times already, and the response is usually something along the lines of “that’s stupid. Nobody’s stealing shoes.” Transferring the cause/blame/source to some nebulous “other” so that they are not personally accused or responsible still does not help very much if they don’t see the “other” either – one might as well be saying “that thing where invisible leprechauns punch people in the face and you indirectly benefit? That’s privilege!”
Anyway, I wasn’t claiming to come up with something more effective, just more accurate.