War Handwavium

There have been numerous threads and flamewars and posts about privilege on the internet. If you read through any of them that have any length to them, odds are in favor that you will find someone making this assertion:

One privilege is not knowing how privileged you are

If I don’t know how privileged I am, then I am privileged because of my ignorance.

However, knowing my ignorance, I might go out and try to educate myself, make myself more aware, make myself more empathic to those who feel the effects of discrimination.

And once I’m aware of the effects others feel due to discrimination, does that mean I’m no longer privileged?

If one privilege is not having to know how privileged you are, is it possible to become aware enough that I’m no longer privileged? Or does all my awareness give me is the knowlege of my inescapable privilege?

Because if “awareness” really has nothing to do with privilege, then why do someone nearly always say that one privilege I have is not being aware?

Assetion:

Privilege is a subset of all discrimination.

If privilege is NOT a subset of all dicrimination, but rather the ENTIRE set of all discrimination, then instead of saying “privilege”, you could just say “discrimination”.

For privilege to be present, discrimination must be occurring somewhere. If there is no discrimination, there is no privilege. The recipients of privilege do NOT have to be the same people who are committing the discrimination.

But how to distinguish the subset of Privilege from the whole set of Discrimination?

Privilege is some “over power” that the dominant group receives above and beyond the equality waterline as a result of discrimination against some minority group. When the discrimination is removed and equality is achieved, the dominant group must surrender that overpower.

One example of privilege is the pay discrepancy currently existing between men and women for the same job. If the workforce of a company is split fifty-fifty between men and women, but the women are consistently paid less than men for the same job, then for equality to be achieved, men and women would have to be paid the same. If you assume that the budget at that company is a zero sum game, then to raise the pay of women, the pay for men would have to drop.

For example, if men got paid $12 an hour and women got paid $8 an hour, if the workforce was split 50-50 between men and women, and if the budget at the company for salaries is fixed, then to bring women up to a pay scale equal with men, women would have to get a raise to $10 an hour and men would have to take a pay cut to $10 an hour.

Non-privileged discrimination has the dominant group operating at the equality waterline while discrimination is occurring. The discrimination “sinks” the minority group below the equality waterline, but it doesn’t lift the dominant group above it. When equality is achieved, the minority group is brought up to the same level that the dominant group was already operating at.

One example of non-privileged discrimination is systemic racial profiling by police. A police force with sufficient numbers of individual racist police officers will demonstrate systemic racial profiling by the police force as a whole. People of color have some percent chance of being stopped by a police officer for no reason other than their skin color. White people have a zero percent chance of being stopped only because of their skin color.

For equality to be achieved in this situation, the racist police officers would be retrained or removed from the force, and then everyone would have a zero percent chance of being stopped for no reason other than their skin color.

With this distinction in place, discrimination could be defined as the existence of a DIFFERENCE in the treatment of two classes. Whether it is privileged or detrimental discrimination would depend on where the dominant group is operating at compared to the equality waterline.

Is “privilege” something you do or something you are?

Do I have privilege simply because I am a straight, white male and I can never reject my privileged status?

Or is privilege a function of something I do or FAIL to do? Is it a function of some power or advantage I recieve and refuse to reject? And if so, someone please explain to me WHY I can’t reject that power and advantages?

Peggy McIntosh, in her paper “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” was the first to use the term “privilege” in discussing issues of discrimination. And in the opening paragraph of her paper, it would seem that “privilege” to her is a function of “being” rather than “doing”, when she says:

(men) can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s power.

It would appear that “privilege” is something that applies to the entire class of all men. It would also appear that McIntosh is saying that individual males cannot, are unable to, surrender their privilege. She implies that it is impossible for individual males to be different from the class of all men. And that is the dicto simpliciter fallacy, which is explained perfectly well right here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html#accident

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Dicto simpliciter / Fallacy of accident / Sweeping generalization

A sweeping generalization occurs when a general rule is applied to a particular situation, but the features of that particular situation mean the rule is inapplicable. It’s the error made when you go from the general to the specific. For example:

“Christians generally dislike atheists. You are a Christian, so you must dislike atheists.”

This fallacy is often committed by people who try to decide moral and legal questions by mechanically applying general rules.

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Reformatting that example to “privilege”: men as a class generally get paid more than women as a class for the same job, men as a class have pay privilege over women. You are a male. Therefore you must have pay privilege over women.

And what I want to know is this: Am I privileged because I BELONG to the class of straight, white, and male? Because if so, that seems to be nothing more than saying the class of men have privilege, therefore any individual male must have privilege, which is the dicto simpliciter fallacy.

And if I am NOT privileged merely because I am straight, white, male, if people using “privilege” claim they are NOT committing the dicto simpliciter fallacy, then HOW do they know I have privilege if they know nothing about my own, personal, individual, not-a-carbon-copy-of-the-class-of-all straight-white-males life?

Found an interesting article titled “Increasing awareness of group privilege with college students” here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_2_43/ai_n31977580/

It discusses a social experiment conducted in some college classes. Students were randomly assigned to different teams (red, yellow, or green), and were told they would achieve their goal by demonstrating skill at boling and hockey.

Each player is treated differently based on the color of their sash. Green players are not given any obstacles to achieving their goals, yellow players are given tasks that are harder, but possible to achieve. There are numerous barriers that the red players face. Additionally, the facilitator interacts with the different colors differently, giving encouragement and strongly affirming messages to the green, expressing some encouragement and some doubt to the yellows, and discouraging the red, or asking them to choose a different goal, one they could achieve.

The paper then gives some of the results from the study based on feedback the students gave at the end of the experiement, summing them up into several categories:

* Awareness of differential application of rules based on group identity.

* Awareness of the emotional impact of being treated unfairly.

* The effect of the facilitator’s non verbal and verbal behavior.

* Understanding of individual reactions within and between groups.

* Awareness of the barriers to discussing racism or oppression.

And I am reminded that every time I’ve seen a discussion online about privilege, someone always chimes in “One privilege is not knowing you have privilege”.

Of the five bullet points listed there that came out of this experiment, three explicitely state that people gained “awareness” and the other two talk about becomeing aware of something they weren’t aware of before.

If by “privilege” people actually mean “lack of awareness”, then could we stop doing the shifting-meaning fallacy and say “lack of awareness” when that’s what we’re talking about?

Found an interesting paper published in the Journal of Counseling and Development in July 2010, by Shannon Dermer. You can read it here: http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201007/2065707741.html

The description at the top of the page says: “The focus of this article is to familiarize the reader with terminology used to identify and label sexual prejudice, discrimination, and oppression.”

Sounds like it might be a good chance to see someone really distinguish what privilege is and is not. Here is Dermer’s definition:

The benefits, advantages, and immunity from prejudice and discrimination afforded to agents are known as privilege. Privileged people gain power “because of the entitlements, advantages, and dominance conferred upon them by society. These privileges were granted solely as a birthright, not because of intelligence, ability, or personal merit” (Black & Stone, 2005, p. 243). Privilege contains five core components: (a) it is a special advantage, (b) it is granted because of dominant group membership or as a birthright, (c) it is related to a preferred status, (d) it benefits the recipient and excludes others, and (e) entitled status may or may not be outside of the privileged person’s awareness (Black & Stone, 2005; McIntosh, 1998).

Well, it’s a long definition and it’s got five whole requirements to meet their definition, but it still has some problems.

The term “privilege” comes from “privus” meaning “individual” and “lex” or “legis” meaning “law”. A law meant for one person, to put them at an advantage above everyone else. A law that lifts the person above the equality waterline. Remove the law, remove the privilege, and that one person goes back down to being treated like everyone else. Peggy McIntosh was the first person to use the term “privilege” in regards to discrimination in her four-page paper “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” back in 1988. In that paper, McIntosh talks about “mens unwillingness to grant that they are overpowered” (above the waterline of equality), and she also describes the path to gender equality as asking ‘men to give up some of their power’ (because they are overpowered, have power that puts them above the equality waterline).

Back to Dermer’s definition of privilege, sentence #1: “the benefits, advantages, and immunity from … discrimination … (is) privilege”. Benefits and advantages would seem to point to something that puts a group above the waterline of equality, so I can go with that. Immunity from discrimination, though, would be something that occurs at the equality waterline. Everyone should be immune from discrimination, so immunity isn’t a privilege.

Sentence #2: “Privileged people gain power “because of the entitlements, advantages, and dominance conferred upon them by society.” I read “gain power” as getting more power than they would have if they were operating at the equality waterline.

Sentence #3: “These privileges were granted solely as a birthright, not because of intelligence, ability, or personal merit” (Black & Stone, 2005, p. 243).” No disagreement here.

Sentence #4: “Privilege contains five core components:”

Component (a): “it is a special advantage”. Advantage/disadvantage points to a difference in power between two groups, but does not distinguish whether the group with the advantage is above the equality waterline or operating at it.

Component (b): “it is granted because of dominant group membership or as a birthright”. Agreed.

Component (c): “it is related to a preferred status”. OK. It is better to be in the advantaged group rather than the disadvantaged group. Doesn’t really say whether the advantaged group is at or above the equality waterline, whether they have privilege or not.

Component (d): “it benefits the recipient and excludes others, and”. This seems like just another way of saying what’s already been said, that there must be two groups that are separate from each other and one group is at an advantage over the other group which is at a disadvantage.

Component (e): “entitled status may or may not be outside of the privileged person’s awareness “. This is orthogonal to the issue, really, of whether a person is operating above the equality waterline due to discrimination. But whether the advantaged group realizes they are at an advantage points to one of the more common alternate definitions of privilege, namely “empathy towards” or “awareness of” the disadvantaged group’s situation.

For a paper that describes itself as trying to clarify and define the terms of discrimination, this one failed to distinguish privilege from detrimental discrimination, and actually gave privilege the secondary definition of empathy/awareness, which is a different idea.

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.

Many discussions of bias and discrimination fail because of a lack of awareness of the distiction between being and doing. Jay Smooth pointed out long ago to focus on the bias reflected on what a person says and does rather than attempting to say that the person IS a bigot. Focus on what they say/do, avoid commenting on who they ARE.

There has been a little bit of a flap on the internet because Charlie Stross ranted about a bunch of things he doesn’t lime about SteamPunk as a genre. This was essentially a behavior based complaint, in the form of ‘I don’t like steampunk stories that do this or do that.’ One complaint was that a lot of steampunk glosses over how brutal the world was during the industrial evolution, his much discrimination there was, and how steampunk glosses over that brutality. Basically the way i complain about how military fiction glossed over the realities of war, Stross was complaining about how a lot of steampunk glosses over the realities of the time era it places its stories in.

Stross’s rant generated somewhat of a kerfuffle. I am not going to attempt to categorize all the reasons people were disagreeing with Stross, but I do want to point out anecdotal evidence about one complaint I saw. Someone accused Charlie Stross of secretly writing his rant agai.st steampunk because the accuser assumed steampunk had more female authors than science fiction, and Stross was really trying to squeeze out female competition.

Stross wrote a rant saying he didn’t like what steampunk stories DO. Someone turned around and accused him of BEING sexist.

The flip side of this is that while it has become less socially acceptable to prejudge someone based on who they are (black, female, gay), there seems to be more social acceptance to judge a person on what they do.

Bigots might try to take their prejudice about who people ARE and attempt to repackage it as if it’s purely based on behavior. A racist might try to say that blacks are statistically more likely to be stopped by police as an attempt to say clacks behave differently (completely disregarding the existence of systemic racial profiling by police). Misogynysts might try to repackage their prejudice against who women ARE and try to cast it under the shadow of something women DO. Homophobed might try to claim their resistance to gay marriage has moving to do with who gay people are, but rather try to cast it in terms of something behavioral based. I recently saw someone attempt to justify opposition to gay marriage by attempting to redefine marriage as something really only for people intending to procreate children, and since gays can’t procreate in what would be their spouse, then they shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

And it occurred to me that this is two different sides of the same failure coin.

People fighting discrimination sometimes mistakenly takes what some does and turns it into a pro.ouncement of the kind of person they are.

And sometimes people try to take their discrimination based on who people ARE and try to camoflage or justify it as judging someone on what they DO.

In both situations, it’s a problem of failing to distinguish the fundamental difference between doing and being.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/rand-paul-supporter-stomps-head_n_773857.html

A supporter of the party whose slogan is essentially “Don’t Tread on Me” stomps on the head of a woman.

Because, lets face it, hasty generalizations are easier.
Because it’s no skin off my nose.
Because I am really too scared to think right now.
Because I slept through history class and skipped out of that stupid diversity class.
Because that’s what fear and bigotry lead to.

(Note, these are some captions for a cartoon I’m thinking about. Also need to find a good image to go with it.)

So, first, I feel the need to try and categorize what this post is about, and thereby attempt to explain what it is not about.

Persuasive -> To induce someone to undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty

(in)effectiveness -> able to produce the desired effect (or not)

privilege -> A term used in discussions of inequality to point to people who are NOT in the minority group.

guiltbattery -> trying to persuade people to do something you want by making them feel gulity.

That’s the first cut of what I’m talking about.

The second cut would be to say that I understand the intentions and connotations of the term “privilege” as it relates to discrimination. If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, we could describe that situation one of several ways. We could say Alice is at a $100 disadvantage to Bob. Or we could say that Bob has a $100 advantage over Alice. In discussions of discrimination, historically, the focus of the language has been on the disadvantages of the minority group. The American Civil War was couched in language of fighting slavery, rather than focusing on how whites had various advantages over blacks.

More recently, discusstions of discrimination have introduced the term “privilege” to take the differences between two groups (white and black, for example) and shift the focus to the advantaged group. For example, studies repeatedly show that American police commit racial profiling, stopping people of color far out of proportion to whites. We could say that people of color are at a disadvantage of racial profiling. Or we could say that whites enjoy the advantage of not having to worry about being pulled over by the cops simply because of their skin color.

All of this language is meant to point to the DIFFERENCE between the way two groups are treated. And I think the goal for most people talking about this is to remove that difference so that the two groups are treated EQUALLY.

I think one of the goals of using the term “privilege” is to get white people to see things from a minority’s point of view. A white person isn’t going to experience racial profiling. So a white person might say something ignorant like “I haven’t experienced racial profiling, so you’ll have to prove to me it exists”. And then one response to that ignorance has been to tell the white person the reason they haven’t experienced it is because they are white, that they have an advantage over blacks that means they don’t have to worry about being racially profiled, etc.

The goal of “privilege” seems to focus on fighting ignorance. Many people live life as “out of sight, out of mind”, and privilege is a way of trying to get someone’s attention on a problem that they will never directly experience. White people have never suffered racial profiling in America. So, white people might not think its a problem needing fixing. So, often times, the first step is getting white people to realize that there is a problem that minorites have been dealing with all their lives.

The problem I keep seeing though is two-fold. First, people using the term “privilege” seem to be steadfast in their refusal to acknowlege the negative connotation packed into the term. The etymology of “privilege” is from Latin prvilgium, a law affecting one person (prvus, single, alone, lg-, law).

If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, there is a $100 DIFFERENCE between the two. We could say that Alice is at a $100 disadvantage under Bob. Or we could say Bob has a $100 advantage over Alice. But the end goal of the conversation around discrimination is to achieve equality. Or at least that’s why I’m in it. And when we discuss the end result of equality, if Bob has $105 because of privilege, then that means when everyone has equality, that Bob will end up with something like $90.

The etymology of privilege is about laws that put individuals above the rest of the people. That those people are at an advantage above the “equality” waterline. And that if you remove that “privilege”, then the people who had privilege will metaphorically sink to stand equally alongside the rest of the population.

People using the term “privilege” will often swear up and down that this is not their intention and that this is not the meaning of the word as THEY use it. But a word doesn’t mean only what the speaker wants it to mean. A word means what its entire history brings along with it. And privilege is in part about laws the lift one group above the rest.

The problem is that if you were to achieve equality with regards to something like racial profiling, then the way white people in America don’t have to worry about being stopped by the police because of their skin color? That would be how everyone would live. It wouldn’t mean that white people would have to start worrying a little bit about being racially profiled. It would mean that whites wouldn’t change, and people of color could stop worrying about it.

Using the water metaphor, if Alice is up to her neck in water, and Bob is nice and dry in a boat, the issue is a question of whether the end result is that Alice gets to be nice and dry in her own boat, or whether Bob has to get out of his boat and everyone has to float with life preservers on.

If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, would the goal be that Alice and Bob both have $105? Or is the goal that Alice and Bob both have $90, because Bob really was enjoying a $15 advantage above and beyond what was “equal for all”?

Put simply, where is the “waterline” of equality?

My experience has been that it is impossible to ask this question to anyone who is using the term “privilege”.

Is the waterline of equality that everyone worry a little bit about systemic racial profiling by the police?

God, I hope not.

But if “privilege” has in its etymology laws designed to put individuals above the rest, then that’s exactly what privilege means.

Just because you say that’s not how you’re using the word doesn’t mean that the etymological baggage packed into the word suddenly goes away.

If one class has privilege over everyone else, then the waterline of equality is below that class.

If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105 because Bob has privilege, then the waterline of equality is somewhere less than $105.

And I don’t subscribe to that notion of equality. I’m more of a “rising tide lifts all boats” kind of person. I don’t think that equality is a zero sum game. I think that it is possible to bring everyone up to $105, to bring everyone up so that they’re nice and dry in their own boat.

Some time ago, I was having a discussing with someone who kept using the term “privilege” in what I perceived to be a negative way. I told him that I got the impression that he was using privilege to make people feel guilty. More specifically, I said he was using privilege as a “guiltbat”, hitting people over their heads with it. He replied that sometimes people need to feel guilty.

Why would Bob need to feel guilty for having $105 unless the waterline of equality is below $105?

From what I could surmise from this person’s guiltbattery was that he wanted to spur people in the privileged class to action to help support the cause of equality.

He wanted to persuade people to get off their asses and do something about discrimination in the world.

OK. I’m cool with that goal.

The problem I was having was that I questioned the effectiveness of privilege guiltbattery as a tool of persuasion. And I especially had an issue with privilege guiltbattery if it camed packed with the assumption that Bob needed to give up some money for there to be equality. That Bob needed to worry about systemic racial profiling by the police.

I don’t think that’s really what racial equality with regards to systemic police behaviour should have as a goal.

Seriously.

Some people using “privilege” are using it in a way that implies Bob can keep his $105 and they just want to bring Alice up to $105. But even if the speaker is using it that way, the listener may hear it in terms of the words full etymology and history. Charlie talks about “privilege” without guiltbattery, but Bob might hear Charlie’s words and take them to mean his $105 is above and beyond what equality would support.

Privilege connotes that the person with privilege is above the waterline of equality.

It may be that the speaker is trying to use it with the denotation of pointing out the difference, but the listener doesn’t have to hear it that way, because that’s not the only meaning of privilege.

And this problem gets exacerbated because there really are some individuals out there who want to use “privilege” as a guiltbat.

Which means that if your goal for discussing the differences between two classes of people by using the term “privilege” is to achieve equality by persuading the un-discriminated-against-class of people to fight for equality, then I question the effectiveness of that technique of persuasion.

The guy who told me that sometimes people need to feel guilty, he didn’t persuade me to help his cause.

It seems that the problem of the terminology of “privilege” is that, at least thus far, it has been used to describe the difference between two classes without talking about the final goal. So, the final goal is then left to the different speakers. And some speakers may approach it with a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach, but some people are approaching it with a “you need to feel guilty about your status” approach.

If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, there is a $100 difference between the two. We could say that Alice is at a $100 disadvantage under Bob. We could say Bob has a $100 advantage over Alice. But none of those statements actually say what the speaker’s vision of equality looks like. And while some may view equality as everyone having $105 or more, others may be viewing Bob as needing to be taken down a notch.

Talking about “privilege” with regards to discrimination without talking about where the waterline of equality is means that each speaker and each listener may have different ideas about where the other person envisions the waterline to be at. And while it is possible to use “privilege” to denote nothing more than “difference”, it is also possible to hear the term “privilege” and interpret it to mean that those at an advantage will have to come down a notch for real equality to be achieved.

Talking about privilege without awareness of where the waterline of equality is proposed by the language is foolish.