<p>IMHO, attending Princeton in and of itself makes you privileged in our society, regardless of your background. Full stop. I’m not judging him or any other student negatively on that basis. </p>
<p>My problem with his piece is that the author falls into the trap of competitive victimology, a common pastime on college campuses. It’s unpleasant and largely unwarranted. The “who’s more oppressed? I am! No, I am!” sweepstakes yields no winners. </p>
<p>I agree that the phrase “check your privilege” is rooted in victimology, and his response reflects that.</p>
<p>“Check your privilege” means “look, I have the power to shut you up”.</p>
<p>I’m thinking that even the phrase itself- “check your privilege” - has various connotations.</p>
<p>^ Yes, and another thing it says is: simply because you <em>look</em> white and male, your ideas are invalid because my life was harder than yours. </p>
<p>It’s a wonder the gay and transgendered communities are not up in arms over the phrase. </p>
<p>It would have been useful if the writer had told us in what occasions he was asked to “check his privilege.” </p>
<p>I’d never heard the expression before this thread. With some Googling, I’ve seen that “check your privilege” usually leads to online quizzes that give someone a privilege score. One gets points for being male, white, straight, not poor, rich, smart and maybe some things I don’t remember. All of those qualities are undoubtedly an unearned advantage for an 19 year old kid.</p>
<p>Without knowing what prompted his interlocutors’ “Check your privilege” we can’t know whether the statement was valid. If it was in response to some clueless statement where he was forgetting that not everyone shares his advantages, it would have been appropriate:</p>
<p>“Wait, there’s never a problem hailing a taxi in midtown Manhattan!” Check your privilege, white boy.</p>
<p>“Just park your car eight blocks away from the party in the dicey neighborhood and walk back late at night.” Check your privilege, dude.</p>
<p>“Why not go to Cancun over summer break?” Check your privilege, rich kid.</p>
<p>OTOH, maybe the remark was made by some spoiled entitled brat, like the student who thought that people moving her stuff so they could use the library during exams was an example of “white privilege” rather than a reasonable response to someone trying to hog scarce resources. We can’t know, without knowing the context, and he doesn’t supply it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As an aside, calling an adult man of any race “boy” is extremely insulting. I learned that from my H. So check your phraseology. :)</p>
<p>CF’s examples raise the question of whether the phrase is ever aimed at anyone other than white males. The discussion in this thread has assumed as much. But any of CF’s example statements could have been made by students of any race, and the admonishment could apply.</p>
<p>I’ll call a young man “boy” in just the same circumstances I’ll call a young woman “girl.” Those circumstances might include talking about college freshmen.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh my goodness, yes. Apparently it’s aimed at straights by gays and lesbians, and at white women by women of color, at least as far as I can tell from Mr. Google.</p>
<p>If it applies to anyone speaking, then it is meaningless and worthless, and is still bigoted, because it assumes to know enough about the speaker to make a judgement about his life circumstances.</p>
<p>It doesn’t apply to anyone speaking. It applies to anyone saying something that indicates they are unaware that everyone else doesn’t have their lucky situation in life. If a white guy says it’s easy for anyone to hail a taxi in midtown Manhattan, you can tell just by looking at their white face (the same white face the taxi driver would see) that they are unaware that it is easy for white men, but not black men, to hail taxis. You don’t have to know one other thing about their character. The statement and the face tell you everything about that particular incident of cluelessness. </p>
<p>And that’s what the statement “check your privilege” is about. It’s about cluelessness.</p>
<p>Its a <em>presumption</em> of cluelessness. Shutting down the speaker based on his appearance means you <em>assume</em> he has no basis other than his own racial identity and experience for making the statement. Maybe this student did in fact do research about hailing cabs in Manhattan, and found that data don’t bear out the presumed fact that it is harder to hail a cab there if you are not white. And you just discriminated against his idea based only on his racial appearance.</p>
<p>“Check your privilege” is indeed accusing someone of cluelessness to a particular privilege. Like any statement, it might be wrong. But you’re engaging in special pleading to say that one shouldn’t say “check your privilege” because it might be wrong, but not forbid someone from making other wrong statements. People are allowed to say wrong things in casual conversation. Other people are allowed to call them on it.</p>
<p>Does this guy have a habit of making clueless comments? We have no idea. He doesn’t even seem to know what “check your privilege” is supposed to mean, in the sense that his argument that his ancestors worked hard is irrelevant to the privilege he has, so he may be equally clueless in other realms. Or maybe not; maybe the ideology police are hounding him for no reason. We can’t tell from what he says. </p>
<p>If it is easier for white men to hail cabs in Manhattan, then it speaks about the prejudices of the cab drivers, and it has nothing to do with the person who is hailing the cab. BTW, I go to NYC about 4 times a year and I don’t recall being in a cab that has a white driver in the last 5 years. I am not a white man. </p>
<p>What does the race of the taxi driver have to do with anything? Black men have trouble hailing a taxi, no matter what the race of the driver. White men have the privilege of not having trouble. This is not a character flaw in the white taxi-hailers. Having privilege is not a character flaw; it’s just a fact.</p>
<p>It’s not so bad when you stumble over your privilege; it widens your perspective. A couple of years ago a bunch of internet acquaintances were trying to arrange a local get-together. I suggested Cafe X. One woman said that she used a wheelchair, and was Cafe X accessible? I said, it’s a ground floor cafe with parking right in front, so I thought it would be OK. Well, it wasn’t: it was too small, and crowded, and it turned out to be inconvenient for the woman in the chair. We made it work, but we should have made a different choice. I have the privilege of mobility, so I don’t see all the difficulties that people in chairs face. Next time I’ll know better. </p>
<p>That’s funny. Because the last time I was in NYC a black man hailed a taxi for me in Times Square. Where are you getting this information about black men having trouble getting a cab? That has not been my experience at all. There are plenty of black professionals hailing cabs and the cabs stop for them. Good grief.</p>
<p>For years, the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has conducted sting operations to detect taxi drivers illegally refusing fares on the basis of race, gender or destination, and inevitably some drivers are caught. In the last decade, the problem has apparently lessened considerably, perhaps because drivers know about the stings, or perhaps because crime has gone down in the city, or perhaps for some other reason. </p>
<p>But you can ask any black person in NYC about going into a fancy boutique and being followed around by the sales staff to make sure they aren’t pocketing the goodies. There are other forms of discrimination beyond hailing taxis.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d ever use the phrase, “Check your privilege” with anyone who gives me the impression that he/she is oblivious to any social privilege consistently afforded them. I agree that it’s more than a bit condescending, puts the recipient on the defensive, and aims to “shut them down”. Even if the person is willfully ignorant of his/her unearned privilege, it does no good to insult them. The aim should be to understand and be understood, if at all possible. White privilege is not the only sort of social privilege. As Americans of every stripe, we often enjoy a tremendous number of privileges scarcely dreamt of in some other parts of the world, privileges to which we rarely give a second thought. In my mind, it’s good to be aware of our privilege(s). Understanding is good. Empathy is good. And change arises from those two. </p>