There’s a meme going around over here:
http://privilegedenyingdude.tumblr.com/
about a “Privilege Denying Dude”.
(edited to add: Looks like the site is permanently down due to copyright violation with the original image. See comment #1 and #2)
It consists of the same image of some (apparently straight) white male, all with different captions on the picture. The captions are supposed to be the straight white male denying that he has privilege. The site apparently is set up so that anyone can create an image/caption and submit it to the site. I’m not sure if there is any sort of “approval” process or if the person just rubber stamps pretty much anything. But if you read through the archives of all the captions people have created that are their attempts to show how a straight, white male denies his privilege, one thing becomes abundantly clear:
(edited to add: Copyright issue with original image (see comment #2) caused me to composite the head of Lenin on top of the original image.)
For those wanting a full explanation of what privilege means, they can go here:
http://www.warhw.com/equality-waterline/
Privilege was a term coined by Peggy McIntosh back in 1988 in her paper “The Invisible Knapsack” to describe something fairly specific: A benefit that members of a dominant class recieve that lifts them above the equality waterline and that benefit comes as a result of some form of discrimination.
To be a “privilege”, you have to have
(1) Discrimination
(2) Benefit to the dominant class that is above the equality waterline as a result of that discrimination
If you don’t have discrimination and a benefit that lifts the dominant class above the equality waterline, it isn’t privilege.
If you read through the archives of the “Privilege Denying Dude”, what you find are captions that are encapsulating a number of different concepts, most of which are NOT privilege. I went through the archives and found 217 captions and then sorted them into various categories.
Of all those captions, I didn’t find a single one that actually called out something specific that fit the above definition of privilege. Most of the captions were bringing up issues of straightforward discrimination where the dominant group was at the equality waterline, so there was no privilege that would go away once equal rights was achieved. In other words, they point to detrimental discrimination, rather than privilege-producing discrimination.
Some examples of captions that point to detrimental discrimination:
“What is wrong with just a civil union?” (In states where gay marriage is recognized, the benefits of heterosexual married couples did not go down as a result.)
“I like gays. As long as they don’t hit on me.” (Homophobia, certainly, but no benefit to the privileged class of all straight people, so not “privilege”.)
“I’m not a bigot. I’m protecting America from invading Muslims.” (Fear-based religious bigotry. But again, no benefit to the privileged class of all non-muslims or all Christians, so not privilege.)
Going through all the captions and trying to categorize them, I came up with several different ideas, none of which mean “privilege” as Peggy McIntosh defined it.
As mentioned before, the largest category was detrimental discrimination. Discrimination where the dominant class is operating at the equality waterline, so there is no privileged benefit coming from the discrimination.
Other categories of captions include:
(2) Apathy.
(3) The straight white male denying they are homophobic, racist, or sexist.
(4) The “privilege denying dude” saying something hypocritical. Usually PDD denies they are prejudiced, and then says something prejudiced.
(5) complete non-sequitors.
(6) Actual instances of reverse discrimination
Some more details of these categories and some examples of captions that fit in them:
(2) Apathy. THe caption shows the privilege denying dude not discriminating against some class and not recieving some benefit above the equality waterline as a result of soem discrimination, but rather demonstrates that the dude is apathetic towards people in minority classes.
While this is not nice behavior, it isn’t actually a demonstration of privilege in any way, shape or form.
Captions that fit the category of “apathy”: “Your concerns are invalid. Mine are not.” (A blatant outcome of apathy.) “I would be flattered, if someone randomly hit on my on the street without my consent.” (The dude does not get what it’s like to be in the shoes of a woman harrased by men.) “I know what its like to live in poverty. I’m a grad student.” (The dude does not get what it’s like to be in the shoes of someone truly poor.)
Not getting what someone else’s life experience is like is a lack of empathy. An inability to identify with someone else. Willfully maintaining that your experience is the only experience is one form of apathy. So is willfully refusing to understand someone else’s experience.
Basically, these captions of Apathy can be summed up as Ebenezer’s question “Are there no workhouses? No prisons?” And while Ebeneezer is fairly well universally regarded as, well, a Scrooge, the captions don’t actually point to Privilege.
(3) The Straight, White, Male dude, denying that they are homophobic, racist, or sexist, or similar. If a conversation actually gets to the point where the member of the dominant class is swearing up and down that they do not have the heart and soul of a racist, something has gone wrong with the conversation.
I refer to Jay Smooth’s excellent video post about how to tell someone they sound racist:
http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_to_tell_people_they_sound.html
His point is to focus on what the person SAID or DID that was prejudice, and not let the conversation drift over into what kind of person they ARE.
Interestingly enough, once someone starts denying that they ARE a racist or bigot, the response is very often “That is insufficient evidence to prove your innocence”. At which point, the conversation has turned into “prove to me you are not a racist” rather than focusing on the thing the person said or did that was racist. The captions by the Privilege Denying Dude for category (3) include the following:
“I’m a gay white male. I don’t have privilege.” (The word “privilege” is in the caption, but no actual privilege is mentioned. If the person has privilege, be specific about what that privilege is, what benefit they get above teh equality waterline as a result of discrimination.)
“Cultural appropriation? I’m 1/64th Cherokee Indian on my mother’s side.” (This is “I am not a racist” at its basic. If the person did something that qualifies as cultural appropriation, refocus the conversation on that specific behavior. But again, no privilege is shown here.)
“Racist? My best friend’s hairdresser’s boyfriend’s gardner is African-American.” (If they did or said something racist, keep the conversation focused on that. But again, this caption does not demonstrate anything that fits the definition of “privilege”.)
(4) The Privilege Denying Dude saying something hypocritical. This is often the PDD saying they’re not prejudiced, and then saying something prejudiced. Often this is a subset of (3) denying they are prejudiced, but sometimes its just demonstrating the PDD saying something logically inconsistent. Examples:
“Why do gays have to flaunt their sexuality? ‘Scuse me, gotta kiss my girlfriend goodbye.”
“The hibaj is oppressive, it takes away a Muslim woman’s choice to wear what she wants. Ban it.”
“She slept with 3 guys from our frat. What a slut. Dude, you slept with the entire pledge class? Pound it, bro!”
Hypocritical statements like the ones above show the PDD being logically inconsistent, which casts doubts on their argument. But it doesn’t actually demonstrate any Privilege.
(5) Instances of logical non-sequitors. Red herrings. The PDD caption has absolutely nothing to do with privilege, and might not even have anything to do with discrimination.
My favorite example of a “Privilege Denying Dude” caption that has absolutely nothing to do with privilege or discrimination is this one:
“It’s snowing in august. Global warming doesn’t exist.”
The fact that people are using this as an example of some dude showing privilege indicates that privilege has become meaningless as a vocabulary term. In this case, the word doesn’t mean anything more specific than “something I disagree with” or “things that are bad”.
To be talking about privilege, you have to talk about something that involves discrimination against some class of people and this discrimination creates some benefit to the dominant class that puts them at an advantage above the equality waterline. If there is no discrimination and there is no benefit that lifts the dominant class above the equality waterline, surprise, it isn’t privilege.
Last but not least, we have category (6), examples of reverse discrimination.
The nearly perfect example of reverse discrimination in the caption of the Privilege Denying Dude is the caption that said: “I’m not racist for not dating minorities. I can’t help who I’m attracted to.”
Think about this for a moment. The standard homophobic response is to say that gays have a choice to date people of the opposite sex, but that they CHOOSE to be attracted to people of the same sex. The above PDD caption is condemning the White Privilege Denying Dude for only dating white people, as if he has a choice in who he is attracted to.
If you get to make a white male “wrong” for only being attracted to white females, then how do you explain to congress that they shouldn’t make laws telling gays that they are wrong for being attracted to the people they’re attracted to?
If you want to keep government from legislating what goes on in your bedroom, consistency would require you refrain from judging what others do in their bedrooms.
Another caption that is an example of reverse discrimination: “I can’t be homophobic. I love lesbian porn.” This is partly (3) denying they’re prejudice, which indicates the conversation has gotten off track and should focus on what homophobic thing that person said or did.
But when straight, white, male dude says “I can’t be (homophobic, racist,sexist) because I do (some action they view as an outcome of having non-discriminatory beliefs)”, rather than putting the conversation back on track of whatever specific prejudice thing the person said or did, the response is often “That doesn’t prove you’re not (homophobic, racist, sexist).” Making the conversation even more about who they ARE rather than what they DID.
Another caption that reflects reverse discrimination: “My greatest fear, is not having a dick.” Again, think about this for a moment. What happens if you flipped it around and said it about someone who is in a minority group such as a trans-gender person. Transgender people have one physical anatomy, but mentally have a gender identity that is opposite of what their physical anatomy is. A trans-phobic person might dismiss a person with female anatomy and male gender identity as crazy for wanting to change their anatomy. Why exactly would you make someone wrong for wanting to *keep* their anatomy?
The captions in this last category aren’t showing privilege, but actually are showign a form of reverse discrimination.
Of the 217 total captions in the Privilege Denying Dude archives, not one caption pointed to a benefit that lifted the dominatant group above teh equality waterline as a result of discrimination. By and large, most captions pointed to detrimental discrimination, discrimination where the dominant group operated at the equality waterline and discrimination pushed the minority group under the equality waterline. Discrimination, yes. Privilege, no.
If the word “privilege” was being expanded from meaning “privilege” which is a subset of discrimination, to meaning the superset of all discrimination, then I’d say stop using “privilege” and just use the word “discrimination”.
But the Privilege Denying Dude meme goes much further than that. The captions show that people use “privilege” to mean “apathy” (which is something completely different), “denying prejudice” (which means the conversation is about what kind of person they ARE ratehr than what they said or did, and “hypocritical positions” (which are nothing more than logical inconsistencies about anything, which might have nothing to do with privilege or discrimination). These are all things that many would describe as “bad” but aren’t actually meeting the definition of “privilege”. At its worst, the captions show people using “privilege” in a way that reveals their own prejudice against members of the dominant class, and use “privilege” as a cover for their prejudice.
If the term “privilege” can actually be used to mean all these different things, then the Humpty Dumpty’s who use it to mean whatever they want it to mean have succeeded in rendering the term meaningless.
