<p>Well, this is being said to a Princeton student by other Princeton students so I’m not sure any of them are actually experiencing onerous barriers, currently. </p>
<p>@ahl “If a discussion about privilege serves any purpose, it is so that the privileged recognize their own and are then compelled to work to dismantle the structures that have bestowed privilege upon them.”</p>
<p>What exactly are you proposing here? </p>
<p>“Check your privilege.”</p>
<p>All I get out of that statement and that statement alone is that one person is berating another person in an attempt to be feel superior to them and to make them feel bad.</p>
<p>Bad manners and low self esteem .</p>
<p>I saw an excerpt from this piece, but I’m not sure the link was posted. It’s thought-provoking. I dislike the phrase for a few reasons, one of which is that in my day privilege meant wealth and so I think there is an unpleasant association. But it’s a shut-down comment really. It’s not a “let’s work this through and look at it from our different experiences and perspectives”. It’s more like “you can’t possibly get it and therefore nothing you have to say is relevant”.</p>
<p><a href=“http://groupthink.jezebel.com/to-the-princeton-privileged-kid-1570383740”>http://groupthink.jezebel.com/to-the-princeton-privileged-kid-1570383740</a></p>
<p>"What exactly are you proposing here? "</p>
<p>HarvestMoon1: I am not proposing anything. It is a quote from an essay in The Nation. The Princeton Kid essay is being discussed quite a few places now. For me, most of the responses are much more interesting than the original Princeton Kid piece. I’ve learned quite a lot reading them. </p>
<p>“about privilege serves any purpose, it is so that the privileged recognize their own and are then compelled to work to dismantle the structures that have bestowed privilege upon them.”</p>
<p>This is the offensive part. I recognize, for example, that I as a white woman have never been pulled over for "driving while black.’ However, how am I going to “dismantle the structure” that I’m not responsible for either initiating or perpetuating? Unless I’m supposed to bear collective responsibility for anything any white person ever does. </p>
<p>“If a discussion about privilege serves any purpose, it is so that the privileged recognize their own and are then compelled to work to dismantle the structures that have bestowed privilege upon them. In order to do so, one would have to recognize the call to “check your privilege” as less of a personal attack, because it is not. It’s a wake-up call to action.”</p>
<p>So dismantle the structure that gives you your supposed “privilege”. The family that valued education. The mother/father family structure that paid attention to what you were doing and passed down their beliefs. The people who believed in and valued you, who gave you the confidence to think that you were capable of doing anything.</p>
<p>Great. A wakeup call to dismantle this structure. Let’s not encourage the buildup of strong, cohesive families in the “non-privileged” group. Let’s dismantle the families of white males and that’ll do the trick.</p>
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<p>Now does everyone see why I prefer the term “non-white tax” over “white privilege”? Ending an unfair and wasted tax is something almost everyone can conceptually get behind; ending a desirable thing is likely to meet with resistance from those who think that they benefit from it, as well as those who would rather extend it to everyone.</p>
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<p>Busdriver, that was an interesting response. Help me to understand. Are you saying you believe “white privilege” is predicated upon the “structure” you defined in your response? Do you see this structure as uniquely white? I’m a bit confused, because I was raised within a virtually identical family structure, even as a child living in the segregated South being denied access to schools attended by white children. At that time, every child in my neighborhood, as well as virtually every one that attended my black Baptist church, was being raised within this same structure. It didn’t insulate us from knowing at a very early age that we were in no way privileged with being valued the same as our white counterparts. </p>
<p>Help me out here. I have yet to read anything written on white privilege that bases its definition upon the rubric you outlined. Why is it that you seem to believe this?</p>
<p>I’ve been reading a few internet responses to Tal Fortgang’s editorial, and one thing I’ve noticed is the frequently expressed assumption that “privilege” somehow means one will never encounter struggles in life, or financial hardships, or emotional distress. Fortgang seems to labor under this assumption as well, which goes a long way towards explaining his wounded outrage. Live long enough inside a human skin, and you’ll surely be met with such challenges sooner rather than later. Privilege, or the lack thereof, comes into play when one’s status within broader society (often associated with race, class, income, sex, sexual orientation, physical or mental health, etc.) has an impact on the nature of one’s challenges and their possible outcomes. People can be very privileged in one category, and woefully underprivileged in another/others. </p>
<p>Fortgang’s race and gender didn’t help him get into Princeton. His race was a disadvantage and his gender was probably neutral. So with respect to this particular power structure (most elite college in America), he wasn’t helped by his privilege. </p>
<p>A rebuttal on the essay from a female Princeton classmate:</p>
<p><a href=“On Princeton's 'Why I’ll Never Apologize for My White Male Privilege' | Time”>http://time.com/89482/dear-privileged-at-princeton-you-are-privileged-and-meritocracy-is-a-myth/</a></p>
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<p>Both these students should check into a writing clinic.</p>
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<p>I agree, but they’re freshmen. That goes for issues of whether other students are being rude in discussions with the essay writer, too. These discussions are taking place among 18 and 19 year olds. At that age, a lot of students are less than nuanced: a lot of passion, less of seeing the world in shades of gray rather than black and white. </p>
<p>By virtue of being at Princeton, any student is very privileged indeed.</p>
<p>The paradox of the term privilege, I think, is that it works well when applied to groups - if I’m talking about race in America, it makes sense to acknowledge that whites as a whole have certain privileges that non-whites don’t - but becomes counterproductive when applied to individual people. </p>
<p>Yes, I know (as Fortgang may not) that, in theory, saying that someone is “privileged” in one area does not imply either that that person is not deserving of his accomplishment or that he is even necessarily more privileged as a whole than the person he is speaking to - that’s where intersectionality comes in. But that’s not the message I usually get when I hear the term invoked in settings outside of a sociology conference. Rather, it does come across, to me, as a zero-sum game in which membership in one group gives you wide latitude to claim victimization and the moral high ground in a range of contexts whereas membership in another means that you are automatically suspect and clueless.</p>
<p>Some of my black classmates in college came from underprivileged backgrounds in places where systemic racial disparities are particularly evident. But others came from wealthier families than I did, went from exclusive prep schools to the Ivy League, and are now on their way to high-powered careers in medicine and law. That doesn’t mean they don’t also at times have to deal with the effects of “white privilege.” But it does make it really unseemly to, on an individual level, tell someone else that they are “privileged” relative to you unless you are talking about a very, very specific set of circumstances. And even in those cases, it would still be better to use a less inflammatory word. </p>
<p>“You can’t possibly get it because of your privilege” is very different from - and I think far less productive than -“as a member of group x, I have different experiences.” </p>
<p>I am having a difficult time wrapping my brain around this whole idea of “privilege”. In our country one still has to fight to get ahead, no matter where you start from. Graduates of Ivy League schools who happen to come from families with resources enter the working world on pretty much the same platform as everyone else. They still have to compete for jobs, show up and perform those jobs responsibly, hone their political skills and get long with their co-workers. Your parents or your background cannot “make” you successful unless you enter a family business which has its own litany of problems. European Aristocracy are “privileged” because their lives are basically set the moment they are born. Other than that, I am just not getting the whole concept. Both these students are coming out of Princeton and should be on equal footing for opportunity when they graduate. </p>
<p>As a side note, in my opinion walking into your first job with the attitude of “check your privilege” is going to be problematic.</p>
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I think this is what “check your privilege” usually means, and I think it is probably also key to my suspicion that Fortgang is a phony. You’ll note that he does not give one single example of a situation in which this phrase was said to him. I suspect that’s because it would be too obvious that what he said just before was a good example of what a privileged person can cluelessly say. So, I’ll bet he said something about affirmative action, or welfare mothers, or some other charged issue. I’ll bet he didn’t hear it after talking about how hard he was working, or about his family’s experience in the Holocaust, or anything like that. I should add, by the way, that this guy might have heard “check your privilege” in situations in which he said something that indicated how rich he is, not how white and male he is. If you grew up in a mansion in New Rochelle and attended a swanky private school, the fact that Grandpa started out penniless doesn’t mean that you don’t enjoy the privileges of wealth. So, it may well be that he said something along the lines of “If the poor don’t have bread, why don’t they just eat cake?”</p>
<p>But my issue is that if one did grow up in a wealthy family, what is that person suppose to do? Deny it? Weigh every word? Apologize for that wealth? Hide any indications of that wealth in conversations with others who may have different backgrounds? I guess I am looking for some explanation of what behavior alteration the person uttering the phrase is looking for. </p>
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The rich person is supposed to say, “Gee, it didn’t really occur to me that not everyone in our group would be able to afford to pay for dinner at a fancy restaurant this weekend. Thanks for pointing it out–let’s think of a different plan.” It may be that “check your privilege” is not the most tactful way to point out to somebody that what he’s said is insensitive. But maybe you say it after the zillionth insensitive thing he says.</p>
<p>Or perhaps the person who cannot afford to pay says “gee let’s do something a bit more casual this evening, how about a burger and a beer?”</p>