One very concrete way to think about privilege

Privilege is a common topic in diversity conversations, though it’s less mainstream than unconscious bias and microaggressions. I suspect it might not come up as much because it’s a bit more subtle, a bit more vague, and a lot more likely to trigger defensiveness in people who have lots of it.

This article is about being concrete about privilege in the hopes that we can more easily identify it in ourselves and eventually be less defensive about it.(Yes, I also recognize it’s insane I’m writing this as a white person. Here’s one of the many writers I admire who are better resources than I am (more linked throughout).)

Thank heavens for these world-famous AJR graphics!

Privilege refers to the advantages we have in our life. We often think of privilege relative to others. We usually have privilege when we are similar to the people who make up the majority in a group or who have the power (often the same types of people). This can be along any dimension, though historically gender, race, sexual orientation, class, and religion have been pretty big ones (am I demonstrating a good grasp of world history?).

As a general rule of thumb, if the people in positions of power or influence look and/or sound like you, you have privilege. This is largely because the people in power construct the institutions, which are the rules of the game, and it’s pretty likely they’ve constructed those rules to favor you (e.g., it’s still an exception rather than the rule to be both dedicated to your career and give birth to a child).

One of the trickiest things about privilege is that we often don’t know we have it. This makes pointing it out feel like an accusation to those who have a lot of it. It’s kind of like telling someone who’s trained their whole lives and become a world-class athlete that actually this whole time they were on steroids and didn’t know it. You’re being told your accomplishments aren’t worth anything, even though, as far as you knew your whole life, you were working really hard the whole time. I am concerned that when we talk about privilege with those who have it (including myself), if we don’t engage everyone, we’ll never get them to really listen, which means we won’t really get anywhere.

One of the things I love most about social science is it provides a scaffolding for thinking about abstract concepts. (I probably be in the humanities if my OCD didn’t make me so appreciative of science’s obsession with order). While we’re at it, I am also put at ease by science’s interest in trying to empirically understand what causes abstract concepts, but today we focus on the former — putting some abstracts into three almost quantifiable (or operational) conceptualizations.

What follows is one very concrete, loosely mathematical (emphasis on “loosely”; I mean, it’s barely math; ok, it’s not math) way to think about privilege.

I want to be very clear that this is absolutely imperfect, almost certainly problematic, and deliberately incomplete. But, most of the things I’ve read about privilege are either really specific examples of privilege that make it sound like mostly about flesh color band-aids (I’m not diminishing that; I just want more), which, while illuminating, don’t help me have a lens to understand how else it might manifest, or super thoughtful but also vague (“privilege is everywhere, ” which it is, but this doesn’t help me understand it more better).

Let me also be abundantly clear that the primary writings (as far as I know) about privilege are with respect to white privilege, which I have a f*ck ton of, and so this entire exercise might be entirely missing the point. While I try to reflect on my own white privilege, educate myself, and listen, there is no way for me to fully know all the ways that my life has a lot less friction because I have the same skin color as the people who write the rules, set the cultural expectations, and, for the most part, have most of the money.

Essentially, what follows is a model for thinking through privilege. As a reminder, all models are wrong, but if we use a bunch of different ones as lenses to understand the world, maybe we can actually do it — or at least get a little closer. I have a few more that maybe I’ll later roll out if I don’t totally regret sharing this one.

Privilege = 1-the amount of energy you spend getting ready to leave the house

That’s it. Think about when you’re getting ready to leave your apartment or house for work in the morning. What sorts of things do you have to spend time thinking about as you get dressed and prepare for the day?

• How much time do you have to spend wondering if what you’re wearing is too sexy? Not sexy enough?
• Do you think about whether people will be more likely to listen to you depending on how you wear your hair?
• Do you need to worry about someone assuming you’re a criminal if you wear something casual?
• What about any kind of clothing that suggests a religion (or lack of religion) of any kind?
• Do you need to research all the subway stations you plan on using or buildings you plan on visiting to make sure they are accessible?
• Do you need to prepare yourself for being told to smile wherever you go?
• Do you need to research the menus at whatever restaurant your friends are going to because you’re not sure if you can eat there due to dietary restrictions, or because of how much it might cost? Or because of whether you can even sit comfortably?
• Do you need to worry about whether it will be ok to hold hands with your partner wherever it is you’re going?
• How many roommates are you tripping over or trying not to wake up?
• Are you waking up in a house/apartment at all?
• Do you need to worry about where to put your child today? (I honestly have no idea how children work, but I assume it’s a whole thing.)
• Are you worried about physical harm that might come to you, either because of how you look or what you’re wearing?
• How worried are you about being in the wrong place at the wrong time near a police officer?
• This might just be for me: Do you feel totally nauseous because the entire world seems to think being somewhere at 7a is normal, and you feel physically nauseous anytime before 11a, and are convinced you have a longer circadian rhythm but if you say that to anyone they just assume you’re lazy?

A few notes on this:

1. This is nowhere near a complete list of things people might have to think about in the time they take to leave the house for the day.
2. I am concerned I’m conflating “privilege” with “burden”, and I don’t mean to do that. I hope it’s clear I’m still trying to understand privilege better, myself, too.
3. To that end: Please share some things you think about when you are getting ready to leave your home that I’ve missed. You can do it in comments here or on social media with me.

Finally, one thing that’s unresolved for me, in all honesty: Thinking about privilege can also engender helplessness — ok, I’m white, and that’s an advantage (usually, in the US, and in a lot of places). What am I supposed to do about it? I don’t have a great answer to that yet (though I’m doing a lot of research if that counts, and it may not), but I do think that acknowledging that not everyone has a one hundred percent equal starting point or, let’s say, incline in the slope of life (Hallmark, get at me), is an important step toward recognizing other aspects that feed more measurably into diversity, like individual biases and structural and systemic inequality (you know we’re in trouble when “systemic inequality” is the easy stuff).

Thanks!

P.S. This poem is much better than anything I wrote here.