Are you privileged?
When you ask most people if they grew up privileged, I think most people of us will say no.
We all imagine the privileged to be the super wealthy–the types of people who have maids, drivers, chefs, planes, fancy cars and mansions.
But the reality is many of us are more privileged than we realize. And some of us have had to work twice as hard to overcome the lack of privileges that others took for granted.
Have you ever thought about it?
Privilege is not something you earned. It was given to you.
What if you didn’t have the privileges you had or have? Where would you be life? Would you be in the same place? And have the same successes? Would you be just as happy?
Imagine if the privileges you value now were taken from you. They were gone. You no longer felt safe in your expression, to get help or medical care. How would you feel?
There is likely someone in your life right now who is in those shoes. Have you ever thought about how it would make you feel? And how they must feel?
Does this experiment open your eyes and change how you might look at other people?
I think it is profound exercise that evokes strong emotions. I hope it stirs yours…
Relatively, yes. Out of the box in American speak, no.
I’m definitely very privileged. Which gives me a lot of respect for other people who aren’t, and makes me more sensitive to their lives.
But I’ve found that in order for that to happen requires that I first recognize my own privileged position. If I don’t do that, either because I chose not to at the time or because I haven’t been able to become consciously aware of my own privilege, then I’m not able to see when another person lacks that position of privilege. It makes for a huge blind spot.
On some level, I wish I were less privileged in some of the ways that I am, because it would force me to work harder and not have such an easy time of getting by with being relatively lazy. I don’t find privilege affords a person some of the same opportunities that lacking a privilege can– but it affords other opportunities that are hard to not take advantage of which may be why so many people are resistant to recognizing their own privilege.
Life sure is complicated!
I’m privileged in some areas, which is to say I am white, and I absolutely believe this has led to me being treated better by authorities when I have been in desperate situations. I am rather educated. I had no support in gaining an education, and given other categories in my life, my gaining the education I have is statistically improbable – but that it was able to happen at all is a function of privilege as well.The country that I happened to be born in confers me many benefits. I am physically able/have no physical disabilities that impact/restrict my movement.
In other areas I am less privileged. I am mentally ill. I have spent the majority of my life living well below the poverty line. They don’t tend to talk about having backgrounds of sever child abuse in privilege conversations and I understand why, as there isn’t really a class or group you can pin it onto; literally anyone from any background could have this happen to them, but I honestly feel like having that background at all falls under a lot of the elements of lack of privilege as it deeply impacts my ability to navigate the world, and it does it in a negative way. It also impacts the way others treat me. I have spent the majority of my life actively being abused, again that can happen to anyone but the way it widely impacts my life seems like it would fall under a lack of privilege issue, though what would you call the flip of that ‘the privilege of not having a history of being a victim of abuse’, thats weird.
I don’t know, I think most people have some aspects where they have relative privilege, and other aspects where they do not?
“my gaining the education I have is statistically improbable – but that it was able to happen at all is a function of privilege as well” – That’s a little unclear, but it sounds like you caught some lucky breaks and made the most out of them. Do you think a woman or someone of a different race would have been denied the same educational opportunities? In the US, everything else being equal, women and non-asian minorities get preferential treatment in acceptance to programs that pay the most after graduations (STEM related programs) and scholarships.
Hi there, part of your question confuses me. In that you asked ‘do you think a woman’ would have been denied the same educational opportunities, and, I am a woman!
Anyway, so. I’m Australian and that actually impacts my answer in that area quite a bit, but my class background and abuse history impact my answer as well. Okay so, no-one in my immediate family went to university. No-one I knew growing up had gone to university. In our family, and, as is common in working class families, university was considered something that only very smart people did. I wasn’t aware that for middle class people it was basically highshool 2.0, something that everyone was expected to do. I happened to be rather academically intelligent, which meant I was encouraged to go into university in a way that other people of my class background absolutely are not encouraged to do. Lack of encouragement or support, or even the belief that university is a real option is a barrier to higher education for working class kids. I was able to avoid some of that by the natural gift of being academically clever. I didn’t work to make that happen, that was luck.
In the background I came up in, women also were less encouraged to go into higher education, but, that might be regional – I know many women from other families who did not experience stigma about attending university at all. My older sister though, expressed an interest in going to university and because she’s not as academic she was shut down and discouraged.
Also, in Australia we have a system called HECS which is the ‘Higher Education Contribution Scheme’ where, anyone can go to university and have that be paid for, if they happen to be an Australian citizen, and then the debt only gets repaid once you are earning over a certain income, and the debt is only indexed to CPI. If you stop earning above the income threshold, you can stop making payments towards the debt. It doesn’t have large amounts of interest.
I had no financial support from my family. In fact my mother stole my ID before I left home, I had no support of any kind from them, but, I was able to study because I just happen to be a citizen of a country that has a very generous program like this available. That was still hard, people with class backgrounds like mine, and with lack of support factors like I had, statistically do not tend to make it through university.
Wow! That payment program sounds very interesting…and fair. I wish we had something similar here in the U.S., but that would require our politicians to share in the philosophy that ‘everyone has a right to an education, even higher education.’ But then, I can also see how they might discourage other people from getting a college education in Australia. Still, it’s interesting to hear about the different payment plans other countries have for higher education.
If you were accepted into the program you wanted over a man with similar academic intelligence and accomplishments and a similar family background would you consider that a privilege? Or what if you were denied because the last spot was taken by an equally qualified minority woman, would she be privileged? In my mind if this hypothetical minority woman came from a stable home, whose parents had academic backgrounds and fully encouraged her, and could offer financial support even if it was very limited, she would be more privileged than you (going by what you wrote). But the people who made this video want you to believe that just because her teachers didn’t look like her and her parents were immigrants with accents you are more privileged than she is. Or to give another example could anyone really argue that Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s son) does not have a more privileged life than 99% of the white men in the US? I’m sure the people who made this video could, but they have a flawed premise of what privilege is.
Tracker — You are looking at exceptions to the rule here as justification for your bias. I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you.
I saw an under privileged guy get accepted to college because he was minority. The school had to fill a quota. What was horrible is the poor man’s education didn’t even have him at an adequate level to read and write, but they took state money to put him in school to fill their requirements. Obviously, within a few months, he dropped out. Who wouldn’t in his shoes? He didn’t have the capability to pass anything because the education system in the inner cit of Chicago was bleak and no one cared. He was just another statistic and I can guarantee you he didn’t prevent one white person from an education.
Not judging someone based on race isn’t being biased. My point wasn’t even white people are losing education spots to minorities. Although that does happen sometimes it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m sure there are good reasons why Ivy League school want to be more diverse than 90% asian. Using that young man you were talking about, think about what makes him disadvantaged; his support system/family situation, his schooling, his environment. If there was another young man with a similar background, intelligence, and academic achievements he might not have gotten in because he was a white guy from the trailer park, and even if he did he probably would have done much better. To put it another way if being born white is a “privilege” then logically being born black or native american (the 2 minority groups I’ve had the most experience with) must be a disadvantage. I absolutely do not believe that, it defies logic and goes against my real life experience. [I hope it goes without saying I don’t think being born white is a disadvantage].
I have a difficult time of putting myself in your hypothetical situations. My grades were much higher than the minimum requirements for my chosen programs, I would never have been in the position of being picked above or below someone else for the final place in a given program – my qualifications put me well ahead of being in that final spot. Even if I were rejected from a program I would never know why, or who got picked instead anyway.
So, I can only think of that scenario in the abstract.
You’re putting motivations on the people who made that video that I’m not sure exist. You say these people would want me to think I am more privileged than this hypothetical person who is much more privileged than I am in many areas of life, when I don’t think thats necessarily true. I think most people who follow the idea of privilege as a concept also follow the concept that privilege and oppression have intersections. You can be privileged in one aspect of life, but face lack of privilege in other aspects. I think that might be the point of a line with a scale, even? Its not a… a binary system with ‘privilege’ on one side and ‘oppression’ where you’re always and forever one or the other. Its also situational, things that count as privilege in one society might not be privileged in another, etc.
The phrasing of what you’re saying just rings a little weird to me?
I’m not questioning their motivations. They have good intentions. They’re just wrong. They have faulty assumptions about what gives people a better chance to succeed in life (“privileges”). Even if they did get it right it doesn’t do any good to add it all up and make a scorecard. That’s the only point I was trying to make.
It was just the wording of this bit that sounded like putting motivations there that I don’t think exist: ‘But the people who made this video want you to believe’ because its explicitly talking about what you think the people who made this video want me to believe.
Quibbling over individual points is, well, an interesting thought exercise though I don’t agree with you if your wider point is that privilege on the basis of race or gender do not exist, or are not useful as concepts. There are wide bodies of academic work that consistently show that discrimination in these categories exist. Surely you’ve seen some of them? The studies where they send out identical resumes with one different factor being gender or racial background (typically communicated through the name of the applicant) where consistently the ones with typical white or male names get statistically significant amounts more call backs. There was one I saw where they did a study where there is a male and female actor in a professional context given an identical script and asked groups to rate these videos and the professionals they saw on factors of professionalism, and the man, given an identical script was consistently and significantly rated as more professional – but not only his affect, his identical setting/background to the one the lady was filmed on was actually rated as cleaner – something that couldn’t have to do with the affect/presentation of the actor. Harvard has those interesting implicit association tests (look them up if you don’t know of them, they’re fascinating) which consistently show people having implicit racist or sexist prejudices. If you’re interested in what is essentially the study of humans and their behavior (that seems to be the real underlying thing behind deception detection) I’d definitely recommend looking up implicit bias. Its pretty interesting stuff.
Even without widespread implicit/unconscious discrimination lack of representation has proven impacts into the mental health of groups of populations.
Individual ‘scorecards’ as it were are only helpful as thought exercises and are not useful as like… overarching objective prescriptions of how privileged a given individual is, but yes I do think that as thought exercises go, thinking about relative privileges is useful.
This video is bogus, this concept of privilege as they present it is bogus. They have an agenda. You can tell in the question “if you’ve been divorced or impacted by divorce take a step back”. The honest question would be “if you were raised by a single parent [which by default implies single mother] take 3 steps back”. But they would never imply that anything bad could possibly be associated with being a single mother. But what’s the point to this exercise? When I read Eye’s analysis on someone I don’t think “that was pretty impressive, for a girl”, or if there is a black man I admire I’m not thinking “you know, he’s a credit to his race”. To judge someone differently based on their gender or race rather than their character and actions feels so wrong to me. It feels like I’m treating them like children. If that’s not the point what is? Around the Thanksgiving table am I supposed to say “I’m grateful for my family, for being born in this country, and thank god I’m not gay”. I don’t think that’s very helpful attitude. Call me racist, sexist, privilege or whatever, but I’m going to continue to judge people based on things like their character, actions, and accomplishments.
See, you’re actually missing the point of this exercise. It’s about taking a moment to consider the privileges you have that ‘are not’ or ‘were not’ available to people more disadvantaged than yourself. It’s about gaining some understanding and compassion for them by considering ‘how not having the privileges’ you take for granted might have influenced their upbringing and present-day environment. Whether you realize it or not, being able to judge people based on character, actions and accomplishments is itself a privilege that others may not share or understand because their upbringing taught them something different.
The problem with most of these “privileges” is that it’s based on how other people make you feel. For example one of the questions is “:If you have ever felt passed over for an employment position based on your gender, ethnicity,
age or sexual orientation take one step backward:”. Even if it’s because one or more candidates were more qualified, because you feel discriminated against that’s an anti-privilege. They are more likely to feel like that if they took on of these stupid diversity walks. That would suck to go through life like that.
There is an agenda but probably a good one. It isn’t official research. If anything it seems to be for those in front to reflect on the difference (rather than rationalize away as some attempt to do). Those behind would probably be aware of what they’ve faced.
It’s not official research, but it is being taught at universities. There were 3 university links listed in the YouTube description. If I were to take one of these walks, I’d be out in front and turn around and say “don’t believe a word of this, it’s a scam, there’s nothing wrong with you”.
Yes but what would the ones behind you think or say?
I’m not sure what they would say or think, but the ones who believed me would increase their chances at living a successful life. A lot of these questions are based on how you feel about other people or situations. If they thought they were being scammed they may consider the possibility that there is something they could change about themselves so they don’t feel that way anymore or that it’s not really an obstacle for them. A point I made in another comment is the if being white and male is a privilege then being non-white and non-male is a disadvantage, or a hindrance. I’m guessing the non-white and non-male students who believe that won’t do as good as the ones who think it’s a scam.
What I have learned over the years is to be happy in the small, everyday things. We all have beauty around us, if we look for it. There is always something to be grateful for and something that we would rather have different in our lives. It is better to center in on the good and not the bad.
It is better to live and let live and not to judge other people, over all. If a person wants to live in a way that is totally out of step with society, that’s a different story. I avoid toxic people.
I don’t want to upset anyone, but I think one of the greatest privileges is to grow up with a warm parental figure. This only happened to some of us, and I think many people who had a warm parental figure have absolutely no idea what it’s like not to have had a warm adult. Orphans are the most unprivileged in my mind.
Psalms 82:3 – Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
There’s a ton of good and valuable stuff in Psalms (even if one isn’t religious at all).
When I was a child, my mother insisted that 100% critical = loving & any positive commentary = unloving/hateful, until I learned better as a teenager and set things up a few times to make her look foolish for claiming it again. She now denies ever having said that, just like she (and the rest of the family) long denied my symptoms of hunger, allergies, and chronic illness—to the point that now, after more than a year away from them, I’m still having horrified moments of realizing that specific “quirks” of my health are actually parts of larger, damning symptoms.
Last I heard from any of the family was a few months ago for my birthday, when one of my nicer relatives trolled my blog—which is perfectly normal behavior for him, and that “nicer” isn’t sarcasm.
Even as an adult, before I got away from my family, I could lose my “privileges” like access to my own computer or the Internet (both needed for school and work) for the mere reason that a parent got annoyed, I don’t think the word is appropriate.
So I don’t agree that “a warm parental figure” is a privilege. Privileges are by definition special rights or honors available only to specific persons (see Oxford). Calling “a warm parental figure” a privilege can suggest it something to be earned, something parents have the right to withhold if they so choose—and that’s how things called “privileges” will be treated by families like mine. (My family is far from unique.)
Lacking a warm parental figure is a disadvantage compared to those that have such a figure, and having one is an advantage over those who don’t have such a figure. That is a separate arena entirely from privileges.
I guess it is something we should all have, but a huge number of us do not. It makes a tremendous difference in how you experience life. So like you say, maybe it should be called an advantage. Just like social status, you have no say in what card you were handed.
I can agree with that. 🙂
I learned some useful points to be aware of from my social psychology studies. In situations such as prejudice, and what I notice in this video is similar, people often speak in ways that appear sympathetic but in reality only act to reinforce the status quo – the existing discrepancy.
2.30 ‘I had to work really hard’ –> you should work really hard, if you don’t make it then you didn’t work as hard as I did and it must be your fault and there really is something wrong with you.
2.40 ‘You wear a lot of the baggage of how those things were hard –> I actually had to work hard so if you’re complaining you shouldn’t be, you should be working hard to change like I had to work hard. I didn’t complain about how hard I worked. (*neglecting the fact that maybe others have to work much harder than you did to get what you did)
3.10 ‘no amount of hard work…..or even legislation can make up that gap’ –> we can’t do anything, not even legislation will work. So it doesn’t really matter what legislation we put in place, and whatever we put in place it at least shows we are trying to help you poor people (*but when women were given the vote long ago it did make a difference, legislation does make a difference)
3.35 ‘we’re in such a huge society that it’s always complaining about what you don’t have’ –> so if you complain there’s something wrong with you because you should be grateful for what you have like we are (*no matter if your complaint may be legitimate and fixable)
Effectively here all the burden of responsibility is put onto the individual, as if society,genetics,, neighborhood, family, social skills, education didn’t matter and all you need to do is stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop complaining and work hard and you can be where I am now.
Hopefully you can see how the status quo gets reinforced under the guise of understanding. The ‘modern’ racism and other prejudices have been shown to follow similar lines.
I disagree with the perception of privilege:
One might perceive a family as privileged because they can buy their toddlers new Fischer price toys. However, research shows that kids who have to use imagination and create a toy out of, say, a toilet paper cardboard roll, end up with a higher IQ. Are ‘toys’ really a privilege?
Helping a butterfly/bird/turtle escape from their cocoon/egg, or fetching something for an old person to ‘help’ them, makes the newborns too weak to survive and robs the geriatric of much needed movement, stretching and exercise. So too, when people are “privileged”, they do not develop the “muscle” or fortitude to cope later in life. Burdens seem harder to someone who has never had to deal with them when all their bills were paid. They all sit around watching reality tv, griping about not having their 15 minutes of fame, and what they DESERVE! That robs them of life and their own realistic expectations and their happiness.
The privilege of medication/medical services: Should it be a privilege to have psychologists hired by big powerful drug companies to manipulate doctors into prescribing Ritalin to 1 in 4 kids and start them on a long road of symptom treating instead of cause?
Should I feel privileged to be compelled to afford a big flat screen tv so advertisements can market to and manipulate my subconscious mind, and make me feel as though I need items that I can’t afford, and need to consume “food” that ends up giving me diabetes and killing me?
Privileged not to have to put up with bugs on our agriculture or insects in our homes, only to find out that pesticides and household insect killers poison us with toxins?
When I look at pictures of kids from “under-privileged” countries (Not from poverty stricken–but without “privilege” the way the American’s describe it–in a judgmental manner by the way) I see big bright smiles, clear and healthy eyes, gorgeous teeth, happy and playing together without an HMO, Fischer Price, $500K house, xBox, let alone Ritalin.
The list goes on and on.
Privilege … I think someone needs to redefine the terms.
Accusations of “Privilege” has become another tool of the anti White establishment to attack White people in general, reinforce bogus guilt claims and lays the foundation for economic and political oppression of Whites. A true “privilege” is a “right” granted by law to a specific person or class of persons or race. Affirmative Action, for example, is a privilege extended to most non White races in America. Jews h ave numerous laws that grant them special “rights” or privileges.