What if Privilege was a Jar of Marbles?
Examining the Complexities of Privilege Through Allegory
I didn’t understand privilege until someone mentioned Band-Aids to me. When I walk into a pharmacy, I take for granted that I can buy Band-Aids that match the color of my skin. That’s not true for many people with darker skin tones, the lighter the skin tone, the less obvious a Band-Aid is on the skin. This example isn’t a natural law, just the way it is, but a conscious decision by a major corporation to only have bandages in one color.
Let’s say privilege is a jar of marbles. This allegory is simplistic and not meant to diminish the role of privilege and the disadvantages of privilege. By exploring this complex concept through a simple allegory, my hopes are to gain insight into privilege and how we interact with it in society.
A marble represents a privilege. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines privilege as a “right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.” This definition has two parts. Rights are claims by a person to property, power or ability. Immunity is the freedom from duty or liability. Privilege is the capacity to operate without obligation or penalization. In the second party, this ability gives a benefit, advantage, or favor not shared among all of the people with those rights. In other words, a right may be shared by many, but a privilege is when those rights are not applied equally, and one group has an advantage over another.
For example, under the Constitution, Americans have the right of freedom of religion. This applies to all religions and denominations. Privilege is when a small town puts up a nativity scene in the town square without objection or opposition. However, if a Jewish person were to put up a menorah for Hanukkah, there might be some opposition. And if a Muslim person were to display a passage from the Koran, there would likely be even more opposition. The right is the same, but the privilege is not having to fight in court or in the legislature for the same ability.
We all start with some marbles in a jar. These marbles are just there; they are not given to us, they are not earned by us. The number of marbles is based on our race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status and different demographics. Our jar may have the same marbles our entire lives, while others may come and go. The marbles are based on our society, changing with different contexts and situations, but they are all unearned, just given, and denote an advantage.
The media often references white privilege. For example, in the early 20th century white privilege looked like access to mortgages and loans, while those were not accessible to people of color and minorities. Today, fair lending practices have removed many obstacles, but the likelihood of being granted a loan may be based on race or ethnic concerns. A white person may expect to be able to get a loan at any time from any bank. People of certain racial or ethnic minorities may have to work harder to get the same loan, or may receive a higher interest rate, judged only on race or ethnicity due to prejudice. All people have the right to a lending, but that practice may not be applied equally across all groups.
Privilege can exist outside of race. A woman may not be paid the same amount for the same work as another man. A young person may be unfairly profiled and monitored shopping in a store. A Muslim may not be able to eat at the school cafeteria because the food served does not comply with her religious beliefs. A gay couple may be presumed to be brothers over a straight couple when pushing a stroller down the street. A trans person may not be able to use the bathroom because they feel uncomfortable using a bathroom of their assigned gender. A differently abled person may not be able to read a menu at a restaurant or have access a ramp to enter a building. All of these groups may have privilege in one way, but they don’t have the same advantages and benefits in other ways.
As a society, we have made great strides to increasing not only the rights to individuals but applying the advantages of those rights equally. Many obstacles have been removed and rights have been given to people of color, freedom of religion, improved access for differently abled individuals and so on. As we have given rights and applied them fairly, we have transferred marbles to the jars of others.
By eliminating privilege, we create a more fair society where rights and immunities are applied equally. Many people can step back and see the advantages of this process, the equalization of marbles in jars. Everyone gets the same treatment, the same opportunities.
However, not everyone has this same view. Instead of the appearance of the equalizing of marbles in a jar, it feels like the marbles are just being taken away. A person may start with a large number of marbles, many advantages afforded to them, but these tiny pieces are being plucked from their jar and given to others. This treatment can look unequal, such as an unfair acquisition or even theft. Of course, people who view the process this way feel slighted or mistreated, and this all might be while they are experiencing their pain.
For example, when talking about privilege, it’s easy to talk about the straight, white man as the epitome of privilege. In the abstract, an able-bodied cis-gendered man who is of European descent and heterosexual has many advantages in society. But not every example of this individual has a smooth, peaceful path. Many have significant disadvantages living in a rural or depressed area without access to jobs or services. A poor man may have privileges, but that doesn’t mean his life is comfortable. He may feel his only advantages pulled from him, depleting his jar of marbles.
Regardless of how the marbles got into the jar, any removal of marbles will feel like a loss. When a group of people holds all of the marbles in their jars, any change feels like a loss, a deprivation of rights and abilities. Though this isn’t true, the feeling is genuine. It’s important to acknowledge these feelings because they are intense and justified. People will feel a sadness of the loss, frustration at the changes in lifestyle and routine where certain presumed privileges now require more work. Individuals will feel angry, their marbles were taken without their consent, even though they were never theirs in the first place.
It is important to examine how we got here. A straight, white man does not possess the same jar of marbles from the beginning of time. These advantages, privileges were accumulated over decades and decades of white men having all the power. Slavery, women as property in marriage, abuse, jailing of homosexuals, the mistreatment of differently abled individuals all consolidated power under particular groups of people in the United States. These groups were not able to own property, were criminally liable for existing, or didn’t even have the protection of any freedoms in the constitution. These privileges have been passed down from generation to generation, unearned and not freely shared.
Why can’t we just dump out all of our marbles and start fresh? We can’t because of three factors: scarcity, shame and fear.
Scarcity is the feeling of “not enough” and is a powerful driver for people. If you know that a hurricane is coming, you might got to the store to stock up on items to weather the storm. You feel you won’t have enough to make it through to the end of the storm. This same idea applies emotionally, but does not operate in the same way. As humans we can be convinced there is not enough safety or freedom or power to go around, so we consolidate these as much as possible.
An unarmed black male is more likely to be shot and killed by a police officer than an unarmed white male. A black man does not have the freedom to move through society without committing a crime as a white man. Furthermore, a police officer is likely to have less liability from killing a black man than a white man under the same conditions. What is the cost in affording the same treatment of all unarmed men and the same liability for every police officer who kills an unarmed man? It’s nothing unless we don’t think that there is enough safety in the world.
It’s not possible to talk about privilege without talking about shame. To move forward, all of us as a society must acknowledge that these privilege marbles are ill-gotten gains. It’s easy to deny culpability in pulling all of the marbles in your jar, but if your jar is full, you’re taking advantage of all of the benefits at the expense of others. I don’t believe that anyone wants to treat another person this way, but the pain of acknowledging this prevents discussion and discourse on privilege. It’s easier to ignore and obfuscate when it comes to discussions of privilege, but they are necessary to move on as a society.
Fear drives a lot of actions in individuals, and fear drives the creation of privilege and the disenfranchisement of groups of people. I believe many people of privilege acknowledge the advantages at some level. They fear what their lives will be like without these benefits. Furthermore, many people achieve these advantages at the expense of others. By empowering and disenfranchising groups of people, there is a fear that those people will turn on them and treat them the same as they have been treated. This fear of the turning of the tables, loss of privilege, drives people to hold on to the status quo as much as possible.
The paradox of privilege is that much of it is in our heads, but the effects of privilege are very real. The difference between different races is cultural and not scientific, but the effects of those ideas hut a lot of people every day. While a person of privilege might feel loss when a privilege is taken away, that person is likely not harmed. But the removal of privilege and applying laws and rights to everyone fairly can help a lot of people.
Furthermore, what feels like a loss, is an equalization, it’s the ability for all of us to hold the same number of marbles in our jars for the same rights. In the current system, straight, white men have an abundance of marbles, an overflowing amount of privilege, an ample amount. Any equalization will feel like it is pulling marbles from straight, white men disproportionately, and for the most part, this is true. Privilege can be taken for granted since it’s been there since birth, but it’s unearned. Often these privileges, these marbles, were unfairly taken from several groups of people though slavery, misogyny, homophobia, etc.
The feeling of loss is real, but the circumstances don’t warrant keeping those privileges. For example, a person lives a very rich life with a lot of property and wealth. What if that wealth was stolen by the person’s ancestors? It must be returned to the rightful owners. It hurts the individual who has lived with the comfort of wealth his entire life, but it doesn’t mean that restitution is not justified.
So, we are now in the same situation. Privilege is bestowed on generations of Americans who have not earned the privilege, and those privileges were stolen over the many centuries before. To move forward, we have to make these rights and opportunities available and apply laws and rules fairly. This can be hurtful but it’s the right thing to do.
How do we move forward from here? We have to talk to each other, and listen, really listen to all of the pain and suffering on all sides. By coming together and uniting in humanity, we can see how we don’t need to be afraid and we all want the same lives for ourselves and our family. Only by talking to each other and listening to each other do we have a chance to move forward.▪️
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