S/R #4

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Synthesis: To deconstruct systems of privilege, we must closely examine our own lives to understand how we function within these systems to understand more thoroughly how we participate, and thus propagate within such systems.

Response: As we examined privileges this week, I was most struck by the quality of how subtle or unnoticeable the advantages are to the privileged, and how difficult it is to recognize these privileges. I can recognize this in the system of white privilege, because it can be hard for me to realize that so much I take for granted as universal- such as, the acceptance by others that my opinion is purely a representation of my personal thoughts, rather than a representation of my entire race's opinion. Since I have this mindset, it's hard to imagine a life where that is not the case. I attended the Conference on White Privilege in Pella, IA when I was a first-year in high school. It was an amazing thing, to hear directly from people of color about how every-day experiences that remind them of how their race is an obstacle in so much of what they do. It helped me think about oppression more in terms of non-conscious wielding of privilege, and less in terms of open acts of conscious discrimination by individuals. A major theme of the conference was racism being contingent on power: in order to combat racism, the group with power (white people, generally, in this context) must be willing to give up power to level the playing field. Many white people attending the conference struggled with this idea, including me, but it helps a bit to think about this privilege system paralleling a privilege system I understand more personally, being on the unprivileged side: male privilege. It's easier for me to see how male privilege can not be combated without the cooperation of men to give up the privileges they do have. For instance, it's not hard for men to say they support women being given equal opportunity for promotions. But when it comes to giving up their promotion to an equally or more qualified woman, it's harder for many to give up that privilege.
Along with the theme of "invisible" privileges, I have noticed even more clearly through some of my own discussions this week with individuals how much of a barrier to changing the "roots" of patriarchy the invisibility of privileges to the privileged is. I had a conversation with a guy in one of my classes about feminism recently, and he was talking about how he thinks much of feminism is overly 'radical'. I believe this view stems from an inability to see the challenges that women face because he perceives his privileges to be held by everybody. Thus, it's not that he doesn't want there to be gender equality, it's just that he has the perception that there is gender equality. This further illustrates how important it is to have men (or whites, or heterosexuals, etc.) to open their eyes to their privileges in order to give them up. Unfortunately, our patriarchal society discourages those with privilege to do that, as can be seen in "I Love Feminism: Why a Wussy Boy Stands Up for Pussy Power".