Recognizing Privilege
Since I first read Peggy McIntosh’s White
Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack back in grad school, I have
been on a rather humbling journey-- one where I have started to notice little
things about my life. In fact, originally it was hard for me to process.
It’s like, in my first reading, I could only sip small amounts from the
cup because I wasn’t quite ready to admit some things about my life that were
rather uncomfortable.
Let
me back up and explain some things about McIntosh’s article. In
it, she outlines the idea of privilege and gives some examples of how it plays
out in her life. She is careful to talk about privilege in very personal
terms, for fear of generalizing how others might know or experience the world.
She explains that privilege is a system of advantages bestowed upon a
group by nature of their race, gender, ethnicity, class, religion or sexual
orientation (to name just a few). “I have come to see white privilege as an
invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day,
but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an
invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports,
codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.” She explains that
many of us from the dominant culture are familiar with the idea of individual
acts of oppression (ie. racism, sexism, classism etc), but that we don’t often
recognize how they operate systematically.
There
are two important elements of privilege I would like to discuss briefly here.
First, privilege is very hard to spot because it requires that we step outside
of our regular zone of comfort. And since we generally tend to avoid
discomfort, we can get stuck in this cycle of benefiting from the advantages of
our privilege without really questioning how we got so comfortable to begin
with. Second, living with privilege allows people to live under the false
notion that everything they have gained has been due to their own hard work,
talent, and intelligence. And I have learned, that this isn’t always the
case. There are a number of advantages I have likely received due to my
race, gender, sexual orientation and class-- advantages that many others have
not received. And it is pretty safe to say that there are many people who
have worked as hard as I have but who have not seen the same results, in part
because they have not been afforded the same privileges. Again, it is a
humbling thought because we would like to believe that everything we have
accomplished has been accomplished by our own merit.
There
are times when regardless of our privilege, we are disrupted by the
events around us. Maybe it is the sudden realization that many of our
workplaces are toxic for women after yet another story of sexual harassment and
assault. For those, like myself, who have lived with the privilege of my
gender, it is a shocking realization. Shocking because these incidences
have been happening all along, and shocking because we-- the dominant culture
at least-- have largely ignored them up until this point. For some
of us, it took a group of NFL players to take a knee during our favorite weekly
sports event to contemplate the injustices that linger today for people of
color. For those in the dominant culture, the players disrupted our thinking
and made us feel uncomfortable for a few moments. I wonder if our
discomfort with these displays is about the perceived lack of respect of the
players or our unwillingness to recognize the inequities that exist and the
role that our silence has played in perpetuating them. It’s these extraordinary
moments that give us an opportunity to see through our privilege.
In
her footnotes, McIntosh states that her purpose in discussing privilege is not
to make anyone feel shame or guilt. She isn’t saying that some people are not
“nice people” because they have benefitted from privilege or that this makes
people innately racist. But she does say that discussing privilege is
about observing, recognizing, and identifying the subtle ways that some people
may be advantaged by our culture.
As
teachers, this becomes even more important. Terry Jess, a high school
social studies teacher from Bellevue High School in Washington State, explains
that white privilege has permeated many different aspects of our educational
system. From the way we train and prepare teachers, to the factory model
of education, to the policies that demand compliance and obedience over
engagement and empowerment, we privilege certain ways of being. And it is
extremely important that we become more aware of the way systems work within
our schools and classrooms. Addressing privilege requires a mindset that
allows us to continually question our practices and choices as teachers. To be
open to considering how our decisions may reflect a position of privilege and
to continue our path as educators devoted to engaging all students and creating
a more equitable system for everyone.
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