“CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE” MEME AND WHY IT IS INEFFECTIVE
Okay, this has been bothering me ENORMOUSLY.
I talk about racism a LOT. I also blog a lot. For the entire duration of my social justice life I have never EVER used, “Check your privilege”. I didn’t even hear of the expression until a few months ago when a dude asked me, “Oh, you aren’t one of those ‘Check your privilege’ types, are you?”
At that point I had no idea what he was talking about. I confessed I had never heard of it. It’s not entirely offensive, but it’s generally a useless statement (I will explain later).
Then in the last month, I’ve seen a lot of “Check your privilege” haters on social media. Let me explain that I feel like I’m probably part of the most radical of the anti-racist (and feminist) movement and pretty far-in with knowing what the true inspirational movement leaders (organic intellectuals and academics) have been saying about anti-racism (and feminism), and I have NEVER EVER heard any of them use the words “Check your privilege”.
I really, honestly, have NEVER read anything by a legitimate anti-racist (OR Feminist) person who has used those words, let alone flaunt it.
So I had to google what this craze was about on knowyourmeme.com
Apparently, “Check your privilege” was first used in 2006 as a probe for talking about what it means to be privileged. I could see how these words came to life because when we are talking about systemic privilege, it is sometimes dubious to someone who doesn’t experience discrimination on the daily. Understanding where you are positioned in the world, and how it affects your daily interactions (either gaining you privilege or barring you through discrimination), is an important part of how people (with privilege) understand the experiences of people who don’t have the same privileges. The exercise draws on empathetic response to understand the resources people with privilege have attained by just being born in their skin and class position. The exercise is to demonstrate that the society we are born into already has a “structure”. This structure is better suited for some people (usually the people who historically created it in their favour) and how it fails to appreciate the lived differences of others and how that structure becomes a barrier to others’.
Now, this starts spreading in 2007 on a few feminist blogs and social justice social media. As of 2011 it begins to also be used to satirize the liberal arts-college-social justice blogger who considers themselves as more “enlightened” than the rest of their Facebook friends.
My stance:
I am not against the use of “Check your privilege”, but we have to appreciate that it just isn’t very effective. Social justice isn’t learned in a day and it certainly won’t be learned in a status update where it makes you stop and say, “Oh heck…sorry, I forgot I was a cis, upper-middle class, White male in the global North”.
Anti-oppression workshops, that I’ve helped facilitate for about a decade now, happen over the course of 4-7 whole days. And that is only Anti-oppression 101. This is a long process of understanding where you are situated and understanding that everyone experiences the world differently. It is a very intensive experience to have people realize new things about themselves and their friends. Moreover, it is a very intensive experience for them to develop a new way of moving in the world and appreciating that, sometimes, systemic and structural oppressions make individuals look like they have deficits, when really- it is the failure of a system that privileges some and leaves others in the dust. Anti-oppression practice is a commitment to work in the world differently; practice differently; and having an appreciation that all these shifts in worldview cannot be reduced to a meme like, “Check your privilege”.
Now, I understand why many people may be frustrated with this meme. It’s almost like an accusation that you’re an asshole. And worse- you were born an asshole because, for the most part, YOU didn’t choose to be a cis, White male. I get it. But the point of understanding Privileges and Oppressions are not to vilify you as an individual, but be aware of a system that creates inequities. “Check your privilege”, should NEVER be used as a personalized accusation. What it might be used as is a way to talk about why you, at the moment, may not be acting as the most empathetic person right now because you do not have intimate experiential knowledge of a consistent structural disadvantage another person faces.
These meme one-offs too often get obscured from their history and original intent. They get thrown around as if BAM- I’m gonna slap you with a few choice words and you’re gonna be Lawyer’d.
Wrong.
What I also find most problematic is that it encourages an “oppression Olympics,” where a person who inhabits more traditionally-discriminated-against roles gets to be the ‘be all and end all’ of “right”. Look, queer, poor, Black women can be wrong too. But this is not the point. Oppression is SYSTEMIC, which means we look to systemic inequities to understand how that queer, poor Black woman will likely experience more hardships in life because of discriminatory STRUCTURES that can be IGNORED by White cis men, who are more fit to the system. No serious, intelligent activist ever used oppression olympics to make their point more legitimate. No serious, intelligent activist would ever use their own identity as a means to win an argument. No, queer women of colour MIGHT say, “Look, a point of view you might not be privy to is one that I have experienced Know that this is a significant point of view that you have failed to appreciate because you are likely to have never had to battle against these institutions because your privileged position has afforded you the ability to not be aware that there ARE barriers.”
So, next time you get really annoyed with this expression, just appreciate where it comes from and get over yourself a little bit. There are very few instances when an activist is using it to accuse YOU and, more often than not, it is used to direct your attention to larger systemic issues.
I’d also encourage people to just stop using it- not because it is wrong, but more because it remains an ineffective way to talk about how to do better in this society.
This post was originally hosted posted here: http://melissafong.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/check-your-privilege-meme-and-why-it-is-ineffective/
Follow Melissa Fong on Twitter: @internationalMF
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