I recently recognized a layer of privilege I didn’t know I had.

As some of you probably know, I also administer The Hathor Legacy, which looks at how film and TV portray women. It’s a feminist media site. I founded it in 2005, and I’ve been proud of it. But here’s where a subtle shift in perception can uncover a glaring bit of privilege.

Hathor was always intended to be about women and how they are marginalized. It wasn’t that I didn’t care how other people - people of color, queer people, etc. - were treated by the media. I’m very interested in those issues, too. I was just sticking to the issue of women because it’s where my expertise lies.

A few months ago, it hit me: some women are queer. Some women are of color. If you don’t cover them, it’s not a feminist media site. It’s just a site about white heterosexual women, and how we get marginalized.

Privilege enabled me to start a site about white straight women, written primarily by white straight women, about things that affect white straight women, and think I was doing something for women in general. Because white and straight are the default, and I fell right into that thinking.

Eh. I got over the cringe effect with realizing I have inherited privileged views and prejudices a few years ago. I tell myself it’s self-centered to worry about how embarrassingly dense I’ve been, when surely there’s something I could to to make up for it. And in that vain, I took action and posted a shoutout requesting women bloggers who are not white and/or not heterosexual to come and write columns on the site.

Maybe it’s not so much how enlightened we are as how enlightened we’re willing to become.

One of the most annoying privilege memes I’ve ever dealt with is “Anyone can get rich in this great country; if they don’t, it means they’re just not working hard enough.” I encountered this meme almost daily as a kid growing up in a highly conservative “red state” in the US, but I imagine there are variations of it all over the world. The basic idea: “This society is working out great for me; if it’s not for you, that might mean we need to make changes, and that could mean I would lose something, and I don’t want to, so I’m going to blame you. If this society isn’t working for you, it’s your fault.”

If my needs have been easily met my whole life - not just for food and shelter but for things like dignity and fair chances - I may be less likely to notice that you, in my very same society, are not getting yours met. It never occurs to me that other you could be making the same efforts in life but getting a different result, right in my backyard.

I don’t realize how privileged I am.

And my privilege to be in the favored group creates another privilege: my philosophy of life need not account for the lives of Others, i.e., people not in my favored group. What about all the people working 2 jobs - more if they can get them - and never getting ahead? Are they not “anyone” and are they not “working hard enough”?

“Well, they’ve made bad choices,” I say, pictuing unattractive middle aged women and people of color slaving away in restuarants or factories or as maids and janitors. I don’t even think of potentially lethal jobs in coal mines and oil rigs because I don’t see those places. I picture these Others getting themselves criminal records or unexpected baby mouths to feed, because they made bad choices. I don’t think about the time Daddy got my arrest record expunged so I wouldn’t get kicked out of college. I don’t think about how my sister handled her unexpected high school pregnancy so it wouldn’t affect her future. No, the choices made by people Like Me are justified by the end result. The choices made by Others are condemned by the end result.

But they’re frequently the same damn choices.

The fact is, some poor people do make bad choices. But some of the most powerful, rich and successful people in my country have made the very same choices - drug abuse, running over pedestrians while driving drunk, gambling, wasting money like crazy, unplanned pregnancies. If these choices don’t have a consistent result in the life of everyone who makes them, they can’t be the cause of the effect that is poverty.

But I don’t have to consider any of that. I can just dismiss you as argumentative and go watch some mainstream news channel which reaffirms my view that all is right in the world. There is no mainstream channel that reaffirms the viewpoint of Others: and that’s their own damn fault because they haven’t created those channels or proven themselves a valuable consumer group to market to. All is right in my little world.

Here in sunny California, there are families of Mexican descent who’ve been here longer than my white ancestors. There are also people who arrive here everyday from Mexico, often without much in the way of resources.

I have a friend who’s Mexican-American by descent but her family’s been in the US for several generations. She has brown skin. Her English is as native as mine. She works in IT and can get more performance out of cheap-ass computers than anyone I’ve known. But on a recent trip to the eye doctor, he leaned in as if speaking to someone hard of hearing and asked her in a tone of Great White Concern: “Do you have insurance to cover this prescription?”

Because we white people have heard Mexican-Americans are frequently uninsured or something (sorry, one of the kids yelled over part of the soundbyte, but we’re sure it was that you’re all downtrodden and stuff). We worry about you, you know. Our way of showing that we care is to single you out for special assumptions attention and make ourselves feel good about a total non-deed let you know we’re here for you. Isn’t that nice of us?

Sarcasm aside, I’ve never had a doctor ask me if I was insured. I have had them ask which insurance company I’m with. It’s a slight shift in meaning, but oh so telling.

If you blog about white privilege, you’re probably sick to death of people playing the “white trash” card in your comments. Their argument usually goes something like this:

• “Being white didn’t give me all these privileges you’re talking about.”
• “I know plenty of [minority] people who are better off than I am.”
• And the advanced version, which I’m guilty of using myself: “It’s really more about class than it’s about race.”

I am “poor white trash”. I can relate to all of the statements above. I grew up looking the part of Average White Girl, but middle class white people always pegged me as “different”. This left me vulnerable to losing opportunities and even jobs to white people who “fit in” better. Also, after my family made its great escape from White Trash Hell into Middle Class Purgatory, I learned to my surprise that there were black kids in the world who’d grown up with more money than I ever had. And so on, and so forth.

Here’s where the confusion comes in. Yes, I have a legitimate grievance against the system. Yes, I’ve lost out on things because I didn’t have the $20 to invest or know the magic social password that would have marked me “normal” (read: “middle class, preferably white”). And yes, it hurts when you don’t fit in with your own race because of your class, and you don’t fit in with your class because of your race. It’s hard to see privilege around that stuff, but the examples are out there.

Wealth gets you a ticket, but it doesn’t guarantee you a seat

One of the black kids I went to school with whose family was richer than mine? We discovered we’d given identical answers on a test, and she’d gotten some of them marked wrong while I got 100%. When we examined her other papers, we realized the teacher had been doing this for some time: “giving” the black girl a lesser grade. And one of the Jewish girls I knew whose family was richer than mine? When she was absent for a Jewish holiday and missed a test, one of her teachers decided to teach her a lesson by refusing to let her make up that test anytime but on a Saturday - the Jewish sabbath. The teacher offered truly pathetic excuses why after school, during lunch and during the girl’s study period wouldn’t work. Sunday wouldn’t work because it was the teacher’s Christian sabbath! The girl’s mother had to call the principal and threaten to bring the ACLU into it before she got a proper time slot to retake the test.

I’ve never been pulled over for “looking like you’re out of your neighborhood” (unless you count the time I was lost in a snotty part of Beverly Hills in an American car, gasp!). I’m not nearly as likely to get pulled over for traffic violations as black or Latino people, even if they grew up with more money than I did. Taking things a step further, I’ve never felt pressured to join a gang just to survive. I’ve never worried I’m going to get shot in my own neighborhood (and I’ve lived in some neighborhoods the white middle class considers “bad”).

That white skin would get you a seat, if only you had a ticket

My approach is to look at all the types of privilege that affect an individual. Take me, for example. I have white privilege and heterosexual privilege and able-bodied privilege working for me; I have class privilege and male privilege working against me. In the case of poor whites, the class privilege often takes more from them than the white privilege gives them (i.e., the college admissions board prefer my skin color, but if I can’t somehow pay tuition, I’m not getting in). In my personal experience, white privilege may be a total bust, and I have the right to feel that way: I do not have the right to muddy a discussion of white privilege with all my anti-privileges. But before I learned to separate the types of privilege, I’m afraid I probably did that once or twice. Not in the “minorities have it so easy” tone that marks one type of troll; I just couldn’t figure out which part of this stuff I wasn’t getting.

Not a credit to our race

I will probably write a whole post on this someday, but I’ll leave you with one last point to consider. In my experience, poor whites are one group of people that even PC folks think it’s okay to take potshots at. Make a “dumb blonde” joke, and someone sooner or later will call you on your sexism; make a “you know you’re a redneck when…” joke, and chances are everyone will take it as good clean fun. This is something that makes me generally distrustful of the supposedly “progressive” thinkers out there, and I assume it affects other poor whites simiarly. See, we’re an embarrassment to the white race. We’re proof that whites are not invulnerable to the repressions they’ve visited on other races. So we’re taught to keep quiet. On one level, we know we shouldn’t take that crap. On the other hand, experience has taught us if we take a stand, we’ll stand alone. I don’t know how many times I’ve endured jokes about my homestate when a potential new friend asks me where I’m from. And if you know me, you know I’d never let an insult to my gender go by without comment.

And if we have an accent of any sort - many of us do, since by definition it’s the higher classes who get the privilege of their accent being declared “no accent” - we’re supposed to put up with being made fun of and/or being fetishized. Or being expected to change it, if we’re “serious” about getting certain jobs or promotions. We’re vulnerable to class assumptions that we’re ill-educated, lazy, immoral or even criminally perverse (only in redneck jokes is incest somehow a topic for humor!).

While these points still aren’t germaine to a topic about white privilege, I’ve seen them get dismissed in discussions about privilege and bigotry in general, and in those cases they are relevant. Hopefully, something in this post will help someone weed out trolls and/or communicate more effectively with sincere poor whites who mistake a lack of class privilege for a lack of white privilege.

Here’s a nice example of what this site’s about.  Angry Black Woman was asked by a man - presumably white, since he didn’t say, and we all know what that means - why she feels the need to identify herself with race, in addition to “angry” and “woman”?  He says,

I mean, I myself am an “angry guy”, but I don’t really feel the need to add race into it. So my question is, why is there a need to put race into the picture?

Wow, dude, the privilege is like right there and you don’t see it. ABW nails the problem: her race is making Angry White Guy uncomfortable.  He wants her not to mention it for all the reasons she says.

“White” is not a race.  It is a cultural (delusional) default.  It’s everyone who’s something other than white who belongs to a race.  White people have the privilege of being race-less.  Angry White Guy feels no need to bring race into it because he doesn’t belong to a race.  He simply belongs.

(This post has a definite US slant, simply because that’s the only country whose culture I’ve experienced firsthand.  I suspect it’s different elsewhere - feel free to comment.)

This all started from a comment made by DNi on my post, Personal Privilege List. I started thinking about it, then some stuff happened, then I thought some more, and then I reached a conclusion: yes, there is a definite privilege extended to extraverts for no good reason.

First, a definition session since people often use “introverted” to mean shy and “extraverted” to mean friendly.  It’s not that simple. Extraverts are people who need external stimulation from others.  Introverts are people who are stimulated by their own thoughts and ideas, and sometimes need to limit external input because they’ve got so much going on internally.

When I tell people I’m introverted or that I enjoy time alone, I tend to get a couple of negative responses.  The first is boredom, because I’m talking to an extravert and my response to “what did you do this weekend?” isn’t providing them any external stimulation.  They have every right to find me dull.  Unfortunately, society takes it one step further, inviting them to judge me as lesser because I don’t provide the stimulation they want.  It’s considered normal that introverted kids who do well in school - “nerds” or “geeks” - should be bullied by extraverted jocks or popular girls.  It’s considered okay to promote a less qualified employee with a “better personality” (read “extravert”).  And so on.

The other negative reaction I get is the assumption that I’m emotionally damaged, and that’s why I’m introverted.  This assumption rests on the assumption that everyone is naturally extraverted.  In fact, there’s data to indicate that extraverts and introverts may simply be wired differently; brain chemicals in introverts may simply be a lot more active than in extraverts.  They’re more often in output mode than input, while extraverts are the other way around.

Furthermore, while I agree that emotional damage can lead to introversion, in my experience it leads to extraversion even more often.  Ever met someone who can barely function without a romantic partner?  Will lie to people to maintain friendships just so they always have someone to hang out with?  Constantly steps on people to get with a “better” crowd?  These aren’t exactly functional examples of extraversion.  And what about functional introversion?  Introverts are less likely to engage in damaging relationships because they’re content to be alone.  They’re less likely to get bored and frustrated when there’s not much going on.  They’re not going to create drama just to get something going on.

As I see it, the world needs both kinds of people.  My theory on why extraversion is considered normal and introversion aberrantin the US is that introverts are independent thinkers, and that doesn’t make for good little consumers, obsessed with “keeping up with the Joneses”.  It doesn’t make for the preferred type of voter, either - one who puts candidate likeability ahead of capability.  One who votes for what their friends or family vote for, instead of examining the issues.  Introverts are likely to notice those rather simple solutions you’ve been avoiding out of laziness or because your real motive has yet to be revealed.

And most offensive of all, introverts don’t want your approval badly enough to torture themselves to get it.

I’m making a list of personal privileges I’m aware of having. You’re invited to post your own list in the comments. The purpose of this exercise is to get us thinking, so there are no wrong answers. Some of these privileges are pretty lame.  Some of them have a flipside.  For now, I just want to look at how I look at privilege.

I am not counting any “privileges” I’ve earned for myself: by definition, privilege is something you’re simply handed.

Privileges I have:

• If a violent crime’s commited against someone I know, I’ll automatically be low on the list of suspects.
• Even when my family was quite impoverished by my country’s standards, I never had to worry about having enough to eat.
• Whether or not I wear makeup, long hair or polished nails, it’s very unlikely anyone will speculate about my sexual orienation on that basis.

Um.  Okay, that’s a very short list.  Believe it or not, I gave this an hour.  I had others; some I dismissed because I realized they were things I’d actually earned for myself, others because they just weren’t that true once I started thinking about it.  But if you join in, we can brainstorm together.

I came across this tidbit in an article I was reading online tonight:

Explorer Captain James Cook, who gave this plant the botanical name of “intoxicating pepper”, first discovered kava kava. Kava has been used for over 3,000 years for its medicinal effects as a sedative, muscle relaxant, diuretic, and as a remedy for nervousness and insomnia.

My first thought was a sarcastic “Wow, Captain Cook predates Jesus!” because, obviously, if it’s been in use for 3,000 years and he was the first to discover it, he must have lived 3,000 years ago.

Of course, this isn’t what the writer means. The writer means “Of the Anglo sect of humanity from whose perspective I write and you are forced to read, Captain James Cook was the first to encounter this ancient herb.” Kava had no existence before it was found by whites: after being found by them, its prior existence became a simple “history”, suitable for books and encyclopedias. No more alive in today’s world than the Spanish Inquisition.

After my initial sarcasm, however, I was sobered by the realization that I’d grown up hearing similarly idiotic statements and I’m not sure at what age I stopped accepting them without thinking. “Christopher Columbus discovered America! And a bunch of people living on it! Who, um, somehow had no idea it was there until he pointed it out to them!” And for a nice added dash of Anglo privilege, let’s not forget the man’s real name was Don Cristoval Colon - but if that’s what we’d learned in the first grade, we’d have immediately recognized he wasn’t of Anglo descent and perhaps gotten the dangerous idea that people other than English speakers could contribute to society (or whatever it was he did). As an added bonus, we gloss over the fact that he thought he was on the other side of the world and the natives he met were therefore Indians. Instead of getting a good laugh for that one, we just didn’t make the distinction for about 200 years - and when we did suddenly realize how unfair that was of us, we didn’t bother to consult the people we’d been calling Indians. We just came up with the name “Native Americans” and patted ourselves on the backs for being so PC. “American Indians” saw it a bit differently, however:

At an international conference of Indians from the Americas held in Geneva, Switzerland at the United Nations in 1977 we unanimously decided we would go under the term American Indian. We were enslaved as American Indians, we were colonized as American Indians and we will gain our freedom as American Indians and then we will call ourselves any damn thing we choose. –Russell Means

Freedom, sure - but you’ll also need history privileges if you want to make it stick.

Every website has to begin somewhere, and I thought I’d start this one with some outside reference material on the topic. Invisible privilege comes in many forms - white privilege, class privilege, male privilege being among the better known. I’m starting with an article on white privilege that neatly addresses other forms of privilege (since none of them exist in vacuum to each other):

From Peggy McIntosh on White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack:

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. 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.

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don’t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.

My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more like “us.”

This is a well-drawn example of how the privilege pyramid works. It’s easier to see when others have advantages you don’t; tougher to see when you hold advantages others don’t. You’re trained from birth to see your privileges as rights you are owed simply for showing up. But if not everyone has those “rights”, then clearly they are privileges. If you claim not to support unequal rights dispersed on random criteria such as color or gender, then you need to listen carefully and investigate before dismissing claims that other people don’t fully share your “rights”.

Peggy’s White Privilege Checklist includes some thought-provoking items that hadn’t occurred to me:

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

Numbers 17 and 18 particularly interest me. As a woman, I know what it’s like to have my less-than-stellar moments put down to my gender’s alleged inferiority. I know what it’s like when people clearly expect less of me because I’m a woman. I know what it’s like to have to be nice when people applaud you for being “pretty good for a girl”, even though that’s the very thinking that eliminates you from competing with men. I wonder how white men are able to relate to this sort of thing? Perhaps the ones who come from a rich or poor family experience the class version of this: lowered expectations for the poor, for example.

Peggy goes on to say:

For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

Indeed. Some of these privileges need to be removed from the people who enjoy them - such as the privilege to ignore someone whose color or gender arbitrarily forces them onto a less powerful rung on the social ladder than you occupy - but others should be corrected by being extended to everyone:

For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them.