Privilege part 4 – We (almost) all have privilege

A couple of weeks ago I took on the notion that privilege was a myth and likely pissed off political conservatives. Last week I took on the idea of calling people out for their privilege and likely pissed off political progressives. This week I want to talk about everyone having privilege and disadvantages as well as the responsibilities that go with that reality. I also hope to deconstruct what privilege is and hopefully set parameters for a better conversation on this subject. But I will probably just piss everyone off.

My basic premise is that just about everyone has privilege. Once we recognize this, we are then in a position to understand the true nature of what privilege is. We also can begin to become more compassionate regardless of whether this is a situation where we have privilege or disadvantage (Is that the proper term for opposite of privilege?) knowing that in other situations the reverse may be true. So this recognition can open up lines of dialog that are more productive than the polarizing conversations we so often find ourselves in today.

Let me add a quick caveat. Someone will bring up someone in a coma or a homeless person, or someone living in a fourth world nation and say, “What privilege does that person have?” Fair enough. This is why the title is that almost all of us have privilege. But if you are reading this, then you clearly have privilege – reading privilege. The illiteracy rate in some parts of the world is high enough so that this type of privilege should not be taken for granted. So while you may have difficulties in many areas of your life, the fact that you have been able to get into a position to read this blog from a computer tells me that somewhere along the way, you enjoyed privilege as well. As we will see towards the end of this entry, we will note that this is not a bad thing.

Many individuals are open to recognizing the fact that they have privilege, if the way we recognize this fact fits with their general political assumptions. For example, it is not hard for the white lesbian to admit that she has race privileges as long as we also recognize that she has disadvantages due to her sex and sexuality. By recognizing her race privilege, the white lesbian hopes to further a political program that serves her sex and sexuality interests. So this recognition is not hard for her to make. Indeed sometimes when I listen to progressives talk about privilege, it can often feel like it is a race to victimhood where the homosexual disabled trans-man of color is the winner. Nevertheless there is a recognition of privileges one has among progressives and often that recognition becomes a way to confess their privilege to each other.

But here is where things get a little more problematic for progressives. They tend to only recognize certain groups as candidates for suffering from loss of privilege. If you are a person of color, female, sexual minority, disabled, Muslim etc., then fine you get to use the language of privilege. White heterosexual Christian males are barred from doing so. Thus, there is a lack of recognition of the contextualized nature of privilege. That is where a blind spot thrives among those who talk a lot about the problems of privilege, but only the problems of privilege that fit their political desires.

For example, who has more privilege in our society, the conservative Christians or a member of the LGBT community? The conservative Christian right? Now let’s move to academia. Who has more privilege? Well if you are seeking a position in academia, then there is no question about the answer. It is the member of the LGBT community. According to data I collected for my book, Compromising Scholarship, 4.4 percent of professors in scientific and humanity fields are less willing to hire someone if they find out they are homosexual, and 16.8 percent of professors are well willing to hire someone if they find out they are transgendered. However, 38.5 percent of professors are less willing to hire someone if they find out they are an evangelical. Being able to be hired without having your sexuality or religion held against you is a very nice privilege to have.

You might think that this sort of bias is limited to obtaining an academic position. You would be wrong. While Inbar and Lammar’s work deals with political bias, they do show that political conservatives face bias in obtaining an academic position, getting published, participating in a symposium or being considered for a grant. Since my research shows that anti-Christian bias is stronger in academia than anti-Republican bias, is there any question that such wide ranging biases also apply to conservative Christians? It is reasonable to believe that conservative Christians will face a bias in obtaining an academic position, getting published, participating in a symposium or being considered for a grant that does not apply to sexual minority groups. Being able to do important aspects of your academic job without being punished for your religious beliefs is a good privilege to have.

Finally, research (Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter’s chapter “The Vanishing Conservative” in The Politically Correct University) has also indicated that social conservatives are placed in lower status jobs even when taking into account their productivity. In other words, a social conservative has to work harder, and produce more, to get the same type of academic position as others. And who tends to be social conservatives in academia? Religious folks, and especially conservative Christians, is the correct answer. Pretty great privilege to be able to work in a setting that matches your level of productivity.

None of this is an argument about who has more privilege in the general society. I do not have to show that conservative Christians are globally worse off than sexual minorities to assert that sexual minorities have privilege in academia relative to conservative Christians. The evidence that conservative Christians have a disadvantage that sexual minorities do not suffer from is very solid. And given how important academia is in helping to shape our culture, having an advantage in that field is not something to ignore.

If we recognize that we have privilege over ideological enemies in certain contexts, then we can be more honest about what we ask of others. Do we want to be shut down with a “check your privilege” comment? Then perhaps we should be slow to do that to others. Do we want to engage in mutual introspection with those who have a disadvantage in a given situation? Then it would behoove us to engage in such an introspection when we are making the charge of privilege. Do we get tired of seeing Christians playing the victim card in places like academia? Are we doing the same thing in other contexts and how do we think that looks to others?

But the opposite is true as well. Political conservatives often complain about how the universities are stacked against them but seem eager to dismiss struggles people of color face in a racialized society. If they experience unfair stereotyping as a conservative on college campuses, then they also should be sensitive to the unfair stereotyping leading to problems black men face as being violent or the challenges Hispanics face being stereotyped as outsiders. Even as some conservatives blow off the concept of privilege, it is amazing how often they talk the language of privilege, without using the word privilege when they complain about academia or the media or Hollywood. If conservatives want their concerns to be heard, then they would do well to learn how to listen to the concerns of others.

In other words we all know at times what it is like to be privileged and what it is like to be disadvantaged in society. We could use that fact to gain understanding of the plight of others. When someone talks about feeling disadvantaged, we can consider what it was like when we were disadvantaged. When people complain that we have privilege, we can consider what it was like when we tried to inform others of their privilege. The reality that we at times have privilege and other times disadvantage should be used to create more understanding between us. Instead we generally use the concept of privilege to beat others over the head in our cultural and political fights. But if we take away the weaponzing of claims and counter claims about privilege, then perhaps we can learn about this concept in ways that create consensus instead of division.

So here at the end of my series on privilege, let’s get beyond the partisan attacking of each other. Let us acknowledge its reality in our lives and the lives of our out-groups so we can move on to break down what privilege is and what role it should play in our lives. Remember McIntosh’s list of white privilege. I invite you to go back and look at it. There were items on the list such as not being looked down on because of our race, being represented in education curriculum, and having an employer treat one well despite race. You know when I look at many of these privileges, I see that they are basic human rights. They are what we should expect for all of us. This may not be true for each of McIntosh’s claims. For example, it is not a basic right that one’s neighbors are pleasant. But it is true in enough of the items on MaIntoch’s list that we may need to stop thinking about them as privileges and start thinking of them as rights.

I have come to the conclusion that when we talk about our privilege, we really are talking about basic rights. Privilege implies that they are a special allowance given to only a special few people. Rights are something given to all of us merely because we are human. Rights are not to be eliminated but rather they are to be defended. They are to be extended to everybody. Check your privilege is really check your rights and the proper answer to that is “No!” On the other hand, those with privilege should be not only grateful but also seeking to help others to gain those basic human rights.

Maybe this is where our consensus can develop. That we no longer seek for others to give up their privilege, rights, but that we are committed to others having those rights. This means we can talk about these rights in all the different contexts where they exist. The conservative Christian does not have the same rights to an academic position as the Muslim and my hope is that the Muslim would want to change that circumstance. On the other hand, the Muslim has a harder time getting a mosque built in certain areas of the county and at least this Christian would like to see that changed. If we can drop our partisan attacks against each other, we can make our society better for all of us and not just those who are on “our side.”

Having said this, I know how hard it is to drop weapons that have worked so well for many groups in the past. Those on the left have obtained a lot of political traction by making claims that conservatives are a bunch of bigots. Those on the right have obtained a lot of political traction by complaining that the left is a bunch of snowflakes. What if we can both acknowledge that in gaining this political traction that we are tearing our society apart? We could work together to be sensitive to the loss of rights of those who are our political opponents. The right will not seem so bigoted if they are concerned that progressive groups have their full rights, and the left will not seem like snowflakes if they fight for the rights of conservatives as hard as for progressive groups. Would it not be nice if we worked towards a society where privilege is maximized for everyone?

You may remember in my first post in this series, I contended that I was not very much interested in certain ideas such as microaggression and cultural appropriation because I did not see them as well-defined or useful. But the concept of privilege was different for me. Privilege is real, but more importantly, it is a concept that I believe can be used to bring people together, even though it has not done so to date. If we convert the notion of privilege to rights for all of us to enjoy, then we can enter into the sort of productive conversation that we need to bridge so many of the divides we have in this society. If we fail to do that, then privilege will continue to be the barrier we have made it to be.

This ultimately is my vision of how we can begin to bridge the polarization in our society. This is my vision on how we can move towards a society where rights and privileges are maximized across the political spectrum and not merely due to partisan desires. This is my vision on how the concept of privilege can strengthen us. It feels like an unrealistic dream given the degree of ideological hostility that poisons our society. But we have to begin somewhere and using an honest assessment of the nature of privilege seems like a good place to start.