With Ferguson over the last couple of months and the 2014 Isla Vista killings several months before that, white male privilege (as compared to the experiences of women and racial minorities) has been brought more under the microscope — at least over social media. I’m going to walk on eggshells here. As an upper middle-class white guy, there is mostly only downside if I offer opinions on questions of race and privilege. Where I see nuance in those questions, others might see me as offering self-serving qualifications that justify or blind me to my privilege. “Shut up and listen” probably isn’t bad advice. I’m pretty good at listening, but shutting up has long been a problem for me.
Maybe it shows I’m too steeped in pop culture, but at some point during my musings about the race and privilege question, The Shawshank Redemption came to mind. Seems to me that Andy Dufresne could be excused for thinking that he had it pretty rough. He was cheated on, unjustly charged with and convicted of murdering his wife, served twenty years in jail, and only made it to a better place through patience, industriousness, and crawling through “a river of shit” before coming out clean on the other side. So, you can imagine he might be skeptical if told that he owed his life on the beach in Mexico to his privileged status as a white man.
And, yet, it’s true. Certainly Andy’s (fictional) path was not easy, and he prevailed in the end because of admirable personal qualities and actions. But the fact is that Andy prevailed in ways that simply would not have been available to his black friend, Red. For example, the education and social connections that leads to Andy becoming a banker never would have been available to Red back then (and would be much, much less likely even today). Red (even if he had the tax background), unlike Andy, probably gets thrown off the roof before Hadley settles down and takes his tax advice. The warden probably never lets a black guy near the books for the illegal accounts. Even with a suit & tie, Red probably can’t just waltz into the bank and withdraw large sums of money without drawing suspicion.
From Andy’s perspective, he went through hell to get to that beach in Mexico. He has reason to feel like he earned every bit of what he has, and having someone attribute it to white, male privilege may well provoke a negative reaction. And, still, without white, male privilege, he would probably be dead or in jail. He had and took advantage of opportunities not available to Red.
I see this movie-as-metaphor to be more descriptive than proscriptive. It may be a trite example in any case. I’m not presuming to advise anyone to act or feel differently on this issue than they do. But, for my part, I felt like the metaphor offered me some insights into the dynamics involved.
Dog, I agree with your points. Andy’s white middle class privilege staged him for an escape, and the money to get to Mexico. Red almost certainly would not have “made it out” as Andy did. A parolee’s life, living in a rooming house and bagging groceries is out, but only a few steps back up.
The example and metaphor are not trite, IMO, but well taken.BTW, I think that selecting Forrest Gump over Shawshank redemption for the Oscar in 1994 was no well taken.
Whenever talking about privilege, it is easy for two things to emerge from those discussing it:
-Your privilege is the only reason you are what you are
-My hard work put me here, not my privilege
The best article I’ve seen on the subject of privilege is this one:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/
It does a good job of helping me understand that:
-Hard work is still required, but it isn’t AS hard as someone that doesn’t have the privilege
-Someone without the same privilege as me might do everything better than I’ve done, and worked harder than I have, and still not be as successful.
-While I didn’t choose my privilege, neither did those in less privileged positions. We’re both stuck with it.
-No one is asking me to apologize for being a straight white male. People just want me to know that my life is impacted by that.
I’d qualify that last statement. Different people want different things out of discussions of privilege. It’s tough to say whether just having you know is the only thing any given person might want.
True. More accurately, most reasonable people won’t want me to apologize for being a straight white man, but to factor that into my actions.
You don’t need to apologize, but you do need to work to correct the systemic injustice that gives rise to your privilege.
We agree. I think most people, if they actually accept the concept of their privilege, would work to correct it.
It seems to me that most people that try to keep those injustices in place also are under the false belief that their success is 100% due to their hard work.
There is another group that enjoys a privilege. Those are aspiring artists, musicians, actors, dancers and others in the arts and motor sports community that are the children of upper-middle class and upper class. Their parents can subsidize them while they learn and hone their skills.
There are lots of groups who do, and it’s going to depend on how wide or narrow your focus is. As compared to most of the rest of the world, almost any American is going to be relatively privileged. But, you’d have to focus pretty narrowly to find many categories of social and economic privilege into which I don’t fall.
On which topic, there is this Louis CK bit.
I don’t disagree with your analysis of Shawshank. But I do think it’s important to keep in mind that the privilege you are talking about is *upper middle class* white privilege, and not white privilege generally. It’s important to remember that the kind of educational, social, and economic advantages that I, or you, have are not shared by most whites or blacks.
Shawshank is fiction, with a protagonist designed to appeal to the readers. The majority of whites in prison *also* don’t have that level of privilege – statistically, they are likely to be high school dropouts with several previous convictions and a serious drug or alcohol problem.
While even these individuals may have some level of white privilege, it’s not at all like the kind of privilege an educated banker would enjoy. And it’s important to keep this in mind when thinking about privilege.
Similarly, when I was in law school (not a bastion of the underprivileged by any means), I had a professor – Harvard grad and former Supreme court clerk – explain how white privilege works by using the example of how when he met with the governor, they both ordered the same drink. It would have been hard to have come up with a worse example of white privilege. Unless he earnestly told us that most blacks don’t have trust funds…
That’s not how white privilege works. That’s how class privilege works. To a large extent there is an overlap, of course. But they are not the same.
Very good points. When I was writing this up, I was thinking of the matter from the angle of a person who has to climb through a river of shit still being privileged.
How about this: even in Maine in the 1940’s, a black man who murders 2 white people gets the death penalty
What do people want? Acknowledgement. I am glad that you wrote this blog and I am glad that you are at least trying to understand the issue. Acknowledging that there even is an issue is a step forward.
The analogy I think of is the Barry Switzer quote “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” Those with less privilege don’t want white straight males for example to feel guilty for being born on third base, we just don’t want white straight males to think they hit a triple and then look down on those who struggle to make it to first base. Yes it takes hard work to hit a home run from third base, but don’t look down with disdain for those that only make the accomplishment of first base. Be grateful for privilege and use you privilege to help other achieve.
I work with agencies that work with the homeless and I honestly think we would have a lot less homeless people if non-homeless people acknowledged their privileges and luck in life. Non-homeless people often refuse to help the homeless because they totally blame the homeless people for being homeless, when luck and privileges play a much larger role than what we all want to acknowledge. One does not have to help the homeless if they can blame the homeless themselves. Acknowledging differing privileges in life helps combat this entitlement.
Another acknowledgement of privilege is the ability to fail and the ability to learn from mistakes. Those that are very poor and many minorities are not allowed the privilege of making any mistakes. Slate has been running a series of article by Linda Tirado that are excerpts from her book Hand to Mouth. She made the mistake of parking illegally and so her car was impounded. This led to her losing her car, then losing her jobs, then losing her apartment, etc. Yes, there are plenty of white straight males that also wind up this poor too, but minorities are more at risk of being so poor that even one mistake of parking illegally can ruin your life. Read the comments on the Slate articles, people are harsh, and several tell her she deserved everything bad in her life because she made a mistake. She should have been perfect. You don’t have to be perfect with privilege.
Privileges give people more changes to succeed in life.
Something that I always tried to emphasize when working with diverse groups of people was to learn about and accept dialogue and consensus decision making. To me there is inherent unfairness in what we think of as the hallmark of democracy: “Majority rules.” Think of someone, who because of their status of “privilege” is always on the winning side of “majority rules”. They are clueless about the impact of the opposite situation, namely someone who is never on the winning side of “majority rules.” Cluelessness vs resentment. Nothing helpful in that scenario. Would be best for all if there were more efforts towards learning the ropes of dialogue and consensus-decision-making. Even if voting is mandated, preliminary efforts in that direction would be helpful. Of course, these process take time, which none of us has any of, especially when we have to make a “decision.”
I recall hearing of a poll that demonstrated that 2/3 of Americans blame poverty on the poor person (Lack of work ethic, addiction, ect.) while in Europe only about a 1/3 blame the poor person and 2/3 blame societal reasons for such a person’s condition. Completely reversed.