“Sue22” I really get that there is repetitive droning about “diversity.”
BUT not everyone gets the message even once, or they may get it in the wrong way at the wrong moment. I suspect this is why institutions feel obligated to drone.
I agree that most good work on intellectual development, identity formation, and engagement with difference takes place among peers. Some people, however, do not engage with those they consider other; their peer group is too similar to offer moments of reflection, critical awareness, reflection. Some students choose places like fraternities so that they don’t have to face difference.
What @mamalion said, plus even people who get issues of privilege don’t necessarily really get issues of privilege. F’rex, my D17 knows quite well that she’s had all sorts of privilege in her growing up, and I really do think she actually does get it and understand it, but it’s all still a (mostly) theoretical knowledge. One of my hopes for her as she starts college this week is that her knowledge of what it means to have had a privileged upbringing will move from the theoretical realm into something much more real and complete.
Will she be attending a college with a large percentage of students from below median income family backgrounds (Pell grant percentage is a reasonable approximation of this)?
Sure they do…some people are more comfortable with people they perceive are “just like them.” So now we have to have colleges where that is not tolerable? People aren’t free to do so? Where students have to think the same, act the same, say the same? That’s taking it to extremes, but wow, wow…it’ scary sometimes the things I read on these forums. Glad my last kid is almost done with college.
I have a junior at an LAC. During freshmen orientation they definitely covered issues of recognizing and acknowledging privilege, both economic privilege and white privilege. D said that there was a panel of student presenters, one of whom was white, and that every time the white student spoke she reminded everyone that she was low income. To me these exercises are certainly important and useful, and I’m sure some are done better than others. But the real question is what happens afterward. Is there positive community building? Or is there an ongoing negative “call out” culture that emphasizes naming and shaming other students for perceived transgressions? In my opinion, the “privilege” workshops in orientation are an excellent first step but they need to be followed by some kind of positive community building, otherwise there’s a big risk of people gravitating to their respective affinity groups and not getting to know others as individuals.
My son, who is really white (blond, blue eyes, yikes!) and privileged (upper middle class, ding!) is hesitant to even open his mouth at Oberlin, even though he is far from racist and cannot stand Donald Trump.
But I do think white privilege is a real thing. It means that when you’re stopped by a cop for driving without your lights on at night, as my daughter was a few nights ago, and then you reach behind you for your purse to get out your license, the cops are going to give you the benefit of the doubt. If she were brown, this would not be the case.(And if she were brown, her mother would have done a much better job educating her about how to act when a cop pulls you over.)
The word “privilege” is confounding, because it implies that white people have certain luxuries that non-white people don’t, when what it really means is that white people are treated the way everyone should be treated. I don’t know what the answer is (workshops like the OP describes are worthless, IMO, and may do more harm than good), but I do know that in the law, in society, in education, in medicine, and in housing, brown people aren’t treated as well as white people, and this is wrong.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that racism is America’s original sin, and this needs to be remedied.
It would be better to refer to “penalties” or “anti-privileges” that others face, since things that are commonly seen as “white privilege” (e.g. not being viewed as a criminal suspect when one is not by police or people who call the police) are really things that everyone should have. “Privilege” can connote an unnecessary luxury or something that should be taken away, which is probably not what anyone wants for many of these things.
What is likely to get a more favorable reaction from a white person from a lower middle or lower SES background, who probably spent more of his/her life in a penalty box than anything privileged or advantaged?
a. “You may not know it, but you have various types of ‘white privilege’ versus a black person, who commonly faces more suspicion as a potential criminal by police and people who call the police, …”
b. “You may not know it, but do you realize that a black person suffers ‘penalties’ or ‘anti-privileges’, such as commonly facing more suspicion as a potential criminal by police and people who call the police, …”
If I were the OP, I would run from this discussion. She comes back on to update then gets some condescending comment that she seems to have learned her lesson which is sensed in her new tone and wording. The superiority of some of these posts just tells me why these exercises can cause people to retreat to the corners that they come from, and put more distance between people. OP has no freedom to express at this point, and the generalizations being made are unbelievable.The class sounds like it was horrible and created a bigger divide, but she is being told why she should find it good by people that were not part of it. Huge irony here.
Maybe some history lessons from a generation or two earlier rather than a “walk”. I’ve soaked up a lot of stories from my “privileged” family history and send them my kid’s way.
I am “privileged” and certainly my kids are. Because of some brave people and hard work on the part of their ancestors. And some true kindness of their neighbors. My dad reminds me all the time how lucky I am to be born in the US and have a good family–I agree.
The depression wasn’t easy. Having the electricity turned off didn’t have anything to do with race. It just was. For everyone. Relying on neighbors to feed you when they had extra and you do the same in return.
My first “Rosa Parks” type story wasn’t from school. It was my mom talking about how awful the bus driver treated a black soldier in the '40’s (he was being told to leave the bus) and how she and some other women present circled him and told the bus driver to “move it”. She was still mad talking about it after all the years. It spoke volumes to me about my mom and how even small actions could make a difference. It might not have affected life at the time but the story affected ME–I think I’m a better person for it along the way.
My co-worker who escaped Viet Nam during the war has a story that really speaks of privilege. Her family actually had enough money to get out on a boat in the middle of the night that demanded everything they had. She almost died on the way over. She was working to support the ones still caught over there.
Where our family stands now was not “given” to us. It was built.
Totally agree. It’s one thing to point out differences and “privileges” associated with being white, suburban, middle class, etc., but most of us do not have any real sense of what these things mean on a granular level. Being stopped by police is at the level of rocks, not at the level of grains. There is so much more depth, and it isn’t really possible for people to get these things from exercises like this. I’m not suggesting that such exercises are bad, but that I’m not sure how useful they are in the bigger picture.
What would this even look like? We hear these war metaphors all the time - fighting, battling, etc. but what does that mean for those of us who are just getting up every day and trying to get the laundry done and food to the table and pay for our kids’ educations and to fix the oven? Do I need battle armor? A halberd? Being facetious, but really, most of us are just trying to hang on.
I don’t like the whole privilege talk. Not being discriminated against or picked on is not bad in some way, it’s normal. Discrimination is not normal. The “privilege” talk kind of normalizes discrimination. If you want the kids to feel the difference, give them examples of discrimination. And you can’t assume privilege based only on your sex and gender. There are lots of white people who are a whole lot less privileged than the Obama daughters (just an example, I’m sure growing up in the White House brings its own set of issues).
I think I know which college the OP’s D attends, but I’m not positive. If I’m right, it’s one of the schools that has a lot of “paper” diversity, but not much mingling between different kinds of students.
Years ago, there was a study of racial attitudes at a large public U. (I think it was UCal-Berkeley.) Students were surveyed about their attitudes towards others. Most were prejudiced against others. There were two groups of students who were FAR less prejudiced against others: those who had participated in sports and musical groups. The reason was almost self-evident; those two groups had actually interacted quite frequently with those from other groups. But the majority of students had gone through 4 years at Berkeley without really “connecting” with anyone from a different racial group.
@zoosermom I agree with your post #118 until I got to this:
I’m divorced. In fairness to my exH he remained involved in our offspring’s life. But partly because I am a divorced mommy, a lot of my friends are too. And, believe it or not, most of our offspring are successful, including those who had little or not contact with their fathers while growing up. One engaged parent is sufficient–not ideal, but sufficient.
Yes, for some of us, our “privilege” seems normal, the status quo. However, our normal isn’t universal. Some of us have a very different experience of normal. As I understand it, that is the point of these exercises.
To follow up Jonri’s excellent post, some parents work almost all their waking hours to provide housing and food for their children, and this is a huge labor of love. Maybe they save enough to buy property, which establishes some family wealth, and provides future generations a better life. I think most parents do everything they can for their children. It is sometimes difficult judging parenting from our own perspective of normal. imho.
I think when I said “the most important privileges,” rather than “an important privilege” or “a privilege,” I was saying the same thing as you when you said “sufficient – not ideal.” I think kids can do spectacularly well with one parent or even no parents, but I think the absence of one or both parent, is, in my opinion - which no one needs to share, a deficit - which I perceive as the opposite of a privilege. Not insurmountable, but not a plus.
But we don’t all have to agree on everything.
Allh, my husband is functionally illiterate and has always worked two manual labor jobs for us to educate our kids. we aren’t normal in the perspective of educated families. We just wanted better for our kids.
I have always admired your family’s story, as you have described it on this board. And congratulate you on the success of your children. They sound amazing.
Others cannot force shame upon a person, it is a feeling that comes from within. A person can internalize bad feelings about the situation or let it wash over them. Just because an outsider thinks a person should be ashamed of something does not mean that person is. Maybe there’s an aha! moment and a person feels guilty for being unaware of something. A next step would be dealing with feelings and figuring out how to deal with the issue. I would hope all of the students can move on and benefit from being jolted out of their bubble.
I can believe it. Our high school is incredibly diverse, but classrooms considerably less so. My son was in the music group and had friends who played in various diverse rock bands. His lunch table regularly consisted of kids from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. He had a couple of eye-opening experiences in how you get treated by the police when you are hanging out with white-only vs mixed race groups of kids. I don’t know how effective these diversity awareness exercises are, but I would like to think that there is some consciousness raising going on for at least some kids. Many, many kids who attend private colleges at least, don’t have a clue how lucky they are.
Just as a related example I was in a group of friends and the women started talking about how they’d all been harrassed, or groped or been stuck with a flasher at least once. The men were aghast, they knew theoretically that some women have been raped, but they had no idea that nearly all women have had at least unwanted experience with a man. They began to realize just how privileged they were.