He completely misunderstands privilege. Privilege is when you get conscious or unconscious benefits from a demographic trait about yourself that you cannot control. These benefits may be overt (getting paid more as a man) or they may be covert (being able to walk down a street alone at night without fear of violence). I want to stress the last type of privilege. A privilege does not have to be something positive; it can simply be the lack of something negative. Privilege is not personal. Privilege is institutional and cultural. It is macro. You have privilege because you are part of a group that has privilege. It is not because you are special or different or better in anyway (any more than those without privilege are not special or are worse in any way). Checking your privilege doesnt mean anyone is asking you to say I only have things because I am part of privileged groups. It does mean someone is asking you to say By position of a characteristic I was born with, I have been helped, or at least not hurt, more than others without this characteristic. - Violet Baudelaire, responding to the Princeton op-ed that went viral last week (via Jezebel)
Posted on: Mon, 05 May 2014 20:35:23 +0000
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