Believe Me I Am One of You: When the Privileged People Do Stick and Deny Their Own Privileges
Pretending to be relevant to the lower class only makes the social inequality even worse.
When people talk about being poor, most of them — especially the privileged ones — everlastingly define that poverty stems from a laziness or a lack of hard work. Some of them are aware of what privileges they have and some are not. Are they also aware that poverty is also related to inequality in access which means it is a structural poverty? Hmm… a riddle!
No matter how hard the privileged people refuse to acknowledge their innate privileges, it doesn’t change the fact that the economic level still plays a significant role in determining one’s life.
Look at the hindsight when the pandemic rates were at its peak. It has deepened the gap between the lower-middle and upper-middle classes in Indonesia that had previously been absolutely wide. While the upper-middle-class workers could still work from home, for instance, most workers from vulnerable groups had to lose their incomes due to deteriorating economic conditions. In education, students from the lower-middle class learned less during the pandemic than those from well-off families. Don’t you think the poor students don’t even own any device to provide online learning? Exactly.
Then why in the midst of this gap of inequality is extremely difficult for the dominant group to recognize the privileges they have?
Privilege is where you have obtained wealth and a very comfortable life by doing nothing. Born and being a member of a particular demographic group is not a hard work. This privilege is owned by the dominant group in economic class, gender, race, etc. Dominant groups tend to deny the privileges they have.
According to several academics who have studied white dominant groups in the United States (US), this denial occurs because the dominant group is driven to take refuge from psychological threats that have the potential to disrupt meritocratic beliefs and individual self-concepts. The meritocratic belief emphasizes that success is the cause of talent and hard work. It probably is, but what talents and hard work will do if there is no wealth to help? The individuals from the dominant class who realize the concerns of class disparity factor will admit that effort and hard work alone are not enough to put them in the good circumstances they live in. Such a recognition would undermine the belief in the meritocracy of the dominant group.
Teo You Yenn, a sociologist from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore explained that one of the biggest obstacles to dismantling inequality in the neighboring country is the meritocratic narrative that has been taken for granted by society without any attempt to criticize it.
Furthermore, people are reluctant to acknowledge their privileges to avoid feeling guilty for being a person of a certain dominant class. Acknowledging the privilege means acknowledging that they tend to benefit from the injustice that occurs. This can lead to negative individual judgments, both about themselves and their groups.
Acknowledging the privilege gives a discomfort to them and to avoid this, the privileged people use several ways to hide their privileges. They admit that they are part of a dominant group, but refuse to totally admit it and just claim they have been given unfair advantages. This rejection constantly reinforces the understanding that everything they get is the outcome of their hard work throughout their entire life.
Another way to refuse admitting the privilege is applying a luck narrative to elaborate their achievements. Taking the luck factor sounds more down-to-earth than using the hard work narrative — which seems to only focus on yourself. Unfortunately, the luck narrative can actually strengthen the legitimacy of dominant groups for the benefits they get and also neglects the existing social inequality.
As far as they want to be seen as ‘struggling’ wealthy people, there are the existences of those who literally want to be perceived as non-privileged. Concealing privileges can be done through the misidentification of the social class. For instance, people from upper class identify themselves as middle or even lower class.
Sure everybody has their own struggles in life. The plight of privileged and minority groups is equally valid and important to conceive. However, the suffering of people that experience systematic discrimination and exclusion must be distinguished from the daily struggles of individuals from the dominant group. We cannot equate the plight of non-formal school teachers who have to work with inadequate wages and safety net with the struggles of high school students who are pursuing master’s education abroad. This misidentification of social class generally occurs because inequality is just getting worse. Economic disparity tends to make a person feel poor, even if they are financially well off.
The acknowledgment of privileges will be on the same boat with the support that individuals give to pro-low-income policies, such as affirmation policies and social assistance.
Considering that the privileged group dominates the Indonesian political scene and has great power to push policies that are more pro-poor to the lower class, it’s very important to engage this class to dismantle their privileges.
On a personal level, we actually can do critical reflection regarding the privileges we have. This reflection can be helped by using data analysis based on economic disparity so that we are able to portray the magnitude of inequality that occurs around us. We can do some practice to raise awareness about the importance of economic disparity in determining one’s life.
The American Psychological Association (APA) — the largest specific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States — provides several practice methods to help us recognize the bearing of economic disparity by attitude establishment, discrimination and oppression experiences, earnings, privilege, and property ownership. Interacting with more people outside the class is assured to increase individual empathy for the struggles of other social classes.
Given that there is an imbalance of power in the relation between individuals from the dominant class and people outside the group, the interactions must be carried out with the aim of equilibrating these power relations. One thing that the dominant class can do is to give the minority class more opportunities to tell their stories.
Come to think of it, the minority class are more likely to elaborate their difficulties more accurately if they have the opportunity to be heard, and are more likely to help dominant class to understand the plight of other classes.
An attempt to dismantle privilege is a complex matter that requires the role of the state and institutions such as schools and any other community.
Inequality must be narrowed so that the barriers between the rich and the poor can be opened. In this way, all people of the community can interact and understand the lives of other classes.
