On Privilege and Its Limitations

I.
There is longstanding resistance, by no means exclusively but certainly pronouncedly, among straight white cisgender men to the notion of privilege. After all, from Oprah to Omarosa to Obama, there are examples of people who don’t check those boxes who have nevertheless achieved positions of prominence, power, and prestige. For straight white cis men who do not occupy such positions, the suggestion that they are privileged must seem like a cruel joke. Wherein lies privilege for someone experiencing poverty (to say nothing of various physical and mental health issues for which whiteness and maleness are not cure-alls)? And for those who have labored long and hard and perhaps escaped or avoided poverty, privilege and its implications (namely, that such efforts are inconsequential given the preferential treatment conferred by race and gender) must seem incredibly belittling. In short, why accept something you see no evidence of, especially when the facts of your life seem to run contrary to it?

Privilege, however, can best be understood not by what we see but rather by what we do not see. If you are straight, white, and cis and you grow up surrounded by those who are straight, white, and cis, you are going to register straight, white, and cis as the default. Queer, gay, black, brown, and any other identity that you do not share effectively becomes “other.” Please note that this does not necessarily require any overt malice on your part. You can be a tolerant person who does not consciously practice bigotry, but the extent to which you have normalized your identity will inform your perspective.

Now imagine a society that has undergone a similar normalization. Imagine entering this society as an “other.” Might your perspective be different? Might you notice things as a member of an outgroup that you would not as a member of an ingroup? When you say that you don’t see privilege or evidence thereof, is this because it doesn’t exist or because you lack the lens with which to view it?

Another possible reason why straight white cis men may be resistant to privilege is that they overstate its implications. Privilege can best be understood as probability: the likelihood that some aspect of identity increases the chances of a favorable outcome or decreases the chances for an unfavorable one based on societal attitudes. For example, according to The Washington Post, 68 unarmed people (a problematic number in that someone can be unarmed yet still violent, but that is neither here nor there) were shot and killed by police in 2017. Of those 68, 30 were white and 20 were black. There are substantially more white people than black people in the United States. Despite this, if you are black and unarmed, you face a greater likelihood of being killed by police than if you are white and unarmed. If you are white, these increased odds of survival are indicative of the privilege that you hold. It does not mean that having white skin makes you bulletproof or removes you from harm. It does not mean that having black skin guarantees that you will be shot. All it means is that the odds favor you. To check your privilege, therefore, is to simply demonstrate awareness of this.

I am a straight, white, cisgender man. While I am a religious minority (Jewish), my identity otherwise conforms to what society at large treats as the default. When I acknowledge my privilege, I acknowledge that my status as part of that default may have improved my chances of receiving favorable outcomes or avoiding unfavorable outcomes. It does not mean that I did not work hard for what I have (I spent two years of my life holding down three jobs at a time) or that I am not deserving of it. It does mean that by virtue of the perspective I have, there may be challenges and barriers that I am not privy to because they do not impact me directly. As such, when others who don’t share my identity speak of these challenges, I feel an obligation to at least hear them out. To do otherwise would be the equivalent of burying my head in the sand. It would also make me an asshole. If you too are a straight, white, cisgender man and your impulse is to respond to discussions of privilege with an eye-roll and a denial, I would encourage you to either reconsider that response or seek a nice, cozy beach with adequate space for your noggin.

II.
Then again, that would have to be a very large beach. Privilege, if you recall, is a measure of how likely someone is to experience favorable or unfavorable outcomes based on an aspect of one’s identity. While that encompasses a lot, discussions of privilege tend to be narrow to the point of myopic, focusing predominately on race and gender in a very broad “societal” sense. On the one hand, it makes sense to place emphasis on an area where you believe the stakes to be highest. On the other hand, however, making that your exclusive focus is disingenuous. After all, privilege is contextual.

We tend to understand this in a geopolitical sense. In Malaysia, a form of Malay supremacy is written into the nation’s constitution. An ethnically Malay person living in Malaysia enjoys both explicit and implicit privileges. Yet if that person were to immigrate to the United States, said privileges would be lost. That same person may move from a culturally dominant position in one country to a disadvantaged position (owing to anti-Asian stereotypes) in another. The privilege conferred changes with the context.

This is hardly an international phenomenon. A straight, white, male Christian college student may benefit from the privileges conferred by those identifiers in America at large but not necessarily within the narrower context of the college that he attends. At an institution such as Liberty, his status as a member of a culturally dominant group is sustained if not significantly amplified. But at an institution such as Evergreen State, that status is lost.

Herein lies a point of contention. When calls are made for people to check their privilege, it is often only the broader societal privilege that is invoked. Limiting the scope in this manner overlooks privilege’s malleability. A refusal to acknowledge contextual privilege – or the loss thereof – is decidedly ignorant if not also hypocritical and self-serving.

III.
Not only does the sole focus on societal privilege ignore the way that it is shaped by context, but it also tends to ignore the idea that multiple (often asymmetrical) privileges can and do exist simultaneously.

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Assault

While numbers differ from source to source (and while male victimization is most likely underreported), there is broad consensus that women are considerably more likely to be sexually assaulted than men. Male privilege can be found not only in this disparity but also in a number of attendant issues: victim blaming/victim shaming, ineffective or indifferent law enforcement responses, and so on. Men who resist this truth (“But I haven’t assaulted anyone”) are mistaking the nature of privilege. It isn’t about what you have or have not done; it is about what you are more or less likely to experience based on aspects of your identity.

But while women are more likely to be sexually assaulted, women are less likely to be falsely accused of sexual assault. This is an example of an asymmetrical privilege: the number of sexual assaults greatly exceeds the number of false accusations thereof. However, that is cold comfort to those who have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned (often men of color, such as Ronald Cotton or Daryl Hunt) or threatened with castration. If male privilege is signified by being unburdened by the possibility of being assaulted, being deprived of justice, and having one’s character assassinated, then female privilege is likewise signified by not having to worry about being falsely accused and treated as guilty until proven innocent.

This is not a contradiction. Privilege is not an either-or. The same aspect of one’s identity can increase one’s likelihood for positive outcomes in one regard and likelihood for negative outcomes in another. When we discuss privilege, we should acknowledge this complexity. However, we should also acknowledge its asymmetry. “Everyone is privileged in some way” may be true, but that does not take into account the sometimes-substantial differences between those privileges.

IV.
Of course, denying privilege is only part of the problem. Privilege can be and often has been distorted. As mentioned above, privilege is probability. It is not destiny. To assume that an outcome is necessarily the result of favored/disfavored group status, absent an examination of other factors, is intellectually lazy. When we try to elevate privilege from a predictor of probability to a granter of certainty, we demonstrate a form of narrative bias, a logical fallacy that involves ignoring or downplaying information that runs contrary to the cultural narratives that we’ve accepted. Assigning people the roles of victim and oppressor makes us resistant to all of the ways that they may not be.

Privilege exists, and it has for some time. The discussions of recent years give only a new definition to an old problem. Taken constructively, these discussions can serve as a reminder of the work that remains to be done in producing a fairer society (1). But when privilege is ignored when inconvenient or distorted, the result is a form of self-righteous grievance-mongering that accomplishes nothing save for the alienation of those who most need to hear the message.

(1) I am a libertarian, and I have approached this issue from that perspective. If your reluctance toward confronting privilege stems from the belief that it is a “Marxist” construct, please consider the ways in which the state actively screws people of color: a failed and discriminatory (see crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparity) War on Drugs, costly mass incarceration, law enforcement’s shoot-first reaction to the invocation (actual or suspected) of Second Amendment rights, and so on. Eliminating these destructive practices would be consistent with limited government conservativism while striking a blow against entrenched white supremacy.