On explaining privilege

[mousme]

I keep coming back to RaceFail09. I really wish I wasn't, but it's troubling me, for obvious reasons, and not-so-obvious reasons.

I am not going to try to unpack the invisible knapsack here. I'm just thinking out loud.

Okay, so I am what the Intarwebs would consider a PWC (Privileged White Chick). So far, so good. I am also a lesbian. That makes me both a woman and homosexual. Still with me? Good.

This means that I get the dubious privilege of explaining privilege to those around me who are either not women, or not homosexual, or neither of the above. I get questions on the topic of GLBT issues all the time, especially when I start a new job/meet someone new/enter a new situation. Essentially, I spend a lot of time coming out to people, and then explaining What It All Means. Whether I like it or not, people assume that I am somehow the Official Representative of the Local GLBT Community (which is totally not the case, and I usually try to explain this right off the bat, as part of my little GLBT 101 spiel).

Clicking on a lot of links in the Epic Debate Fail Of Doom, I am coming across a plethora of posts by self-described PoCs (People of Colour), who are righteously annoyed at having to explain themselves to the PWPs (Privileged White People) who ask them for information/clarification/cluebats/etc. Some have downright been foaming at the mouth.

Okay. So I get that this is annoying/frustrating/makes you want to tear your hair out by the roots/possibly commit vehicular manslaughter after particularly stupid-seeming questions. I get it, I do. If one more person asks me if I would choose to be straight if I were given the opportunity, I may not be held responsible for my actions.

That being said, I feel that it is important for me to do this anyway, regardless of what my feelings are on the subject. Yes, it's annoying when someone proclaims that their good friend/cousin/mailmain/busboy is gay and that's totally fine with them, and it's annoying that they seem to want a pat and a cookie for it. But you know what?

They're not going to educate themselves.

It's as simple as that, really. If we, the People Lacking $Privilege, don't say: "You are mistaken in your assumption, and here's why," they are never, ever going to get it. No way, no how. I'm not suggesting that we need to deliver a three-hour multimedia presentation on the ins and outs of privilege, and spoon-feed it to them. But give them something, for crying out loud!

PWPs, myself included, are far from immune from asking really stupid questions to which we honestly don't have the answer. From my perspective, when I ask a stupid question, it's okay to look at me as though I just grew antlers (although my feelings will be hurt, I have yet to die from that particular affliction), but then I would very much like to be told why my question was stupid. It was asked in good faith, and a good faith answer would be appreciated. Even if it's an answer along the lines of: "That question isn't relevant/is stupid, and I don't have the time/energy/capacity to explain it to you in full, but some research in $Place is a good place to start."

Yes, it's tiresome. No, we shouldn't have to do it. No, each individual should not have to suddenly be the representative of $Group to which they belong. It sucks. Absolutely. Nonetheless, it's the reality of the situation, and at the very least the PWPs ought to be encouraged to move past those first tentative steps they're taking, to take the initiative and go out and educate themselves. First steps aren't enough, but if they get whacked on the head with the You-Are-Privileged-And-Therefore-Wrong-Forever Stick, then they're going to pull back into their shell and never come out again, and now it's a lost cause. First steps don't deserve a cookie, but they don't deserve a beatdown, either.

Oh, and while I can fully understand that that last paragraph is essentially an argument about tone, please rest assured that I am not trying to say "If only people had been more civil/polite/less hateful/whatever attribute you please, then this terrible misunderstanding would never have happened," because of course that's patently not true. Maybe the debate would have taken on a different form, and that form would likely have been equally filled with fail on both sides. I'm just lamenting the fact that many people (the aforementioned PWPs) are going to come away from this angry, more confused than ever, and less willing to learn.

I keep swearing I'm done with this, but then I come back and poke at it some more, so I'm no longer going to promise anything. :P

:::ETA:::

I have apparently been linked into rydra_wong's Linkspam of Doom thing.

So, dear New People Following The Fail To My LJ, I feel compelled to lay down a ground rule, should you want to comment.

Don't be an asshat.

This means no flaming, no personal attacks, no mudslinging, no outing people. Post in good faith, and with an open mind. Wait ten minutes before typing your responses, if you must. If you're still mad, then wait ten more minutes.

My friends (LJ and RL) are a varied bunch, with a wide range of experiences and opinions. The one thing they have in common in this LJ is respect of my space. I would ask that you also show this respect in your posts. (So far so good, btw.)

If you don't follow this one rule, I will ban you summarily, no questions asked.

Comments

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Law supposedly is an objective codification of how the government is to exercise authority. When the law favors (or privileges) any group even a formerly "underprivileged" group it commits injustice. Law, to be law, cannot command injustice. Individuals, on the other hand, behave unjustly all the time. It's an unfortunate drawback of the human condition. We don't have to like it, and I don't, but I don't think it can be eliminated from the human condition. The best that we can do is not support it and insist that the law not reflect or encode such bad premises. What we do not need to do though is establish some arbitrary group memberships and designate them privileged or unprivileged and attempt to make "social justice", an oxymoron, you understand, by granting "compensatory favoritism" to those groups designated "unprivileged." That just perpetuates the whole problem, if not make it worse.

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[hector-rashbaum.livejournal.com]

And I just don't think in an unequal society, fairness is as simple as "do the exact same thing to everyone". If you've got a scale with four weights on one side and two on the other, neither removing one weight from each nor adding one weight to each will balance it. You can add two weights to the two side and none to the four, you can remove two from the four side and none from the two side, you can remove one from the four side and add it to the two side, but you will never balance it by deciding the only method to achieve balance is to not treat each side exactly the same. When one group is working from a disadvantage, you do not achieve equality by suddenly demanding the exact same treatment applied equally to both them and the group at an advantage.

Once you have your scale balanced? Then yeah, the only way to keep it balanced is to treat each side the same. But that only works when you're starting with equality.

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

This is a perfect illustration of what I mean. You cannot treat people as objects, as means to someone else's ends and get justice. People are not "little weights" that you can move around willy-nilly with the law — they have lives and rights, which is something to which both left and right collectivists are stone blind. Equality of outcome is something no "philosopher king" or "committee of concerned citizens" will ever be able to adjudicate to anyone's satisfaction, and the attempt to do so breeds more animosities than it cures, inevitably. People mouth words like "equality" without even thinking. It's hard enough to create and maintain a legal system that dispenses equal treatment let alone a system which attempts to create equal outcomes — and I dare anyone to find any two people who would even agree on what those equalities of outcome would even be. It cannot be done. When the law becomes a tool to manipulate people and outcomes then it is no longer a tool of justice; it is the arbitrary toy of competing political pressure groups, until it breaks down completely.

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[hector-rashbaum.livejournal.com]

What we do not need to do though is establish some arbitrary group memberships...

This jumped out at me upon rereading; I think it's a good example of just how fundamentally at-odds we are. Where you are seeing the creation of groups, divisions newly established, I'm seeing divisions that were created long ago.

I do agree with you - that it is wrong, and entirely against the purpose of law, to create these arbitrary divisions and legislate as if one group deserves something the other doesn't. But you're working from a view that this is what's happening now; I'm working from the view that it has happened, and needs correcting.

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Groupings are fluid and change all through time. Individuals come and go into and out of them. You're imagining a tinkertoy world of static clockwork that fits whatever definition you want it to have, now and into the future. The groups you imagine being established "long ago" do not exist except in the minds of collectivists.

People are not aggregates; they are individuals. The idea that there are "black people" or "gay people" who can be legally defined and benefited (or abused) without running afoul of the law of unintended consequences is a delusion. There is no "average wealth" in any meaningful sense of the term; there is no "average utility" or "average satisfaction." Five joyful people and one miserable one do not constitute a "moderately happy group." The group is an abstraction; the individuals are the only real, concrete entities. "Happiness" is non-distributive.

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[elf]

The best that we can do is not support it and insist that the law not reflect or encode such bad premises.

I think you're wrong.

I think the best we can do, includes not only "not supporting it," but actively preventing others from supporting it, and trying to mitigate the harm that has been done, and is being done.

The best we can do also includes getting informed, so we know what the real problems are--and it's not like there's any shortage of information about how racism works, who it affects, and why it's bad for everyone.

Re: Privilege or Justice: Pick one.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

You can use persuasion all you want and often it produces good results. When we try to use the law to police thought though, it always ends badly.