Your Life of Privilege
“A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.” Beverly Sills
First, thank you everyone who read last weeks post on Art and Criticism. I talked about how awareness was needed and criticism was good for showing both merits and faults, now we’re expanding that idea. The culture and media we consume, along with individuals we engage; are all seeped in an invisible world of privilege.
What’s privilege? Betty Brown states, “Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf.”
With privilege defined, let’s identify our own. Personally, I identify as a white, male, straight, educated, able-bodied, western, healthy, heterosexual. It’s easy to make a larger list, but I wanted to give a small example. These are my privileges, things I benefit from; while existing in society’s institution. Identifying can cause people to become defensive so remember, this alone does not make you an enemy, though it can draw suspicion. This isn’t about guilt, but about building compassion. This isn’t about you, this is about awareness both inside and outside yourself. It’s about changing perception (identifying), educating yourself (reading and critiquing) and finally joining the conversation (applying).
âThere are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’ â David Foster Wallace,This is Water
The difficult task of identifying our privileges is done, though with constant observation, listening and engagement, we might identify more. It’s important to remember that privilege is both outer (society) and inner (psychology). Changing our perceptions is inherently difficult. The goal is similiar to Neo from the first Matrix; when he saw and understood the Matrix code.
Unfortunately, it’s improbable to get to that zen like state. It’s akin to wearing a friends prescription glasses, your vision is blurred, its painful, and you want to take them off as soon as possible. I’m asking you to leave them on, because the pain will subside, the vision will get clearer; though a blur will always be prevalent. We can never stop questioning our privileges, constantly checking ourselves and absorbing different perspectives. The code will become clearer; the blur giving way to awareness and self-appraisal. So, lets train ourselves using different mediums.
The following examples will not include all oppressions. They are tools to begin a discussion and make the invisible world more tangible. This will be difficult, in fact you might reject it, but try and push past the pain of prescription glasses and pierce the illusion of The Matrix. Ok, lets take a look!
The Help, a popular movie released this year (that I haven’t seen), has received criticism for how it portrays POC (people of color). The film follows Skeeter (Emma Stone), as she writes about the trials of African-American women in the 1960’s. The issues focus on how the story distorts the history and trials of African Americans in the time period. What other movies fall into the privilege trap?
Red Hood and the Outlaws,one of the New DC 52. The issues of this comic have been spoken across the blogosphere, but this picture might help identify the privilege. Look at this picture and see what would inspire strong posts from women and others about Starfire, the woman in the picture. Is it her posture? Is it the positioning that seems to facilitate a male gaze? Read the issue, and identify what the non-privileged discussions are talking about.
Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a recent entry into pop culture. Can you identify the institutionalized videogame privilege? Has it gotten better? Count how many characters are in this game. Then ask yourself how many people of color there are? How many women? How many LGBT? Now look at your videogame library and ask yourself the same questions.
âThe really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.â â David Foster Wallace, This is Water.
The invisible world is now discovered, testing senses and awareness. Through criticizing (merits and faults) all that we consume and interact with; the invisible world will never slip from our grasp. Our first instinct is empathy, but our privileged psychology often taints well-meaning empathy, and marginalizes.
Compassion is our goal, and remembering you’re not evil; rather it’s about awareness and opening ourselves to criticism, suspicion (when we join conversation), and overcoming our innate defensiveness. A language to respect the non-privileged will develop; mistakes will be made by joining the conversation, but overcoming our natural defensiveness is important; as we strive to acknowledge our personal privilege and improve.
Diving into non-privileged discussions (made to avoid patronizers) will be difficult; remember this is not about you; discussions, rantings and general lack of trust towards you are the effects of being privileged. We have glimpsed the invisible world and awareness; through criticism, trial and error combined with meaningful dialogue; can improve our respective mediums and culture.
- Resources:
Finally, A Feminism 101
Fantastic Outline of Privilege and how to Overcome
XOJane
A Structural Definition of Privilege
Privilege in Action
TransGriot
Image Sources:
Thumbnail Black Lava, White Privilege from TransGriot, Matrix The Matrix and Quantum Conciousness, Striving Cruzine, The Help USA Weekend, Starfire Beyond the Bunker, MVC3 Attack of the Fanboy
