ASU publishes 'black male privilege checklist'

Arizona State University has published on its official website a "checklist" to address "Black Male Privilege."

ASU's “Project Humanities” initiative "facilitates critical conversations among diverse communities through talking, listening, and connecting" by exploring "shared ideas and experiences." The initiative lists several "initiatives," including one called "Privilege and Bias."

According to the university, the initiative "hosted 2-hour workshops that explored everyday manifestations of privilege." The page lists several different events from 2014, and says "These workshops have now evolved to be Humanity 101 in the Workplace: Lessons in Privilege and Bias."

According to a separate page, Humanity 101 in the Workplace "speaks to workplace teams by analyzing and addressing systemic privilege and bias within communities, organizations, and businesses. Through the lens of race, class, gender, age, sexuality, religion, ability, and more, participants focus on the Humanity 101 values essential to personal and professional success-- compassion, integrity, respect, forgiveness, kindness, empathy, and self-reflection."

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Examples of “Black Male Privilege” include the following:

• “When I read African American History textbooks, I will learn mainly about black men."

• “I can rely on the fact that in the near 100-year history of national civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the Urban League, virtually all of the executive directors have been male."

• “I will be taken more seriously as a political leader than black women."

• “I can be a part of a black liberation organization like the Black Panther Party where an 'out' rapist Eldridge Cleaver can assume [a] leadership position."

• “I have the ability to define black women's beauty by European standards in terms of skin tone, hair, and body size. In comparison, black women rarely define me by European standards of beauty in terms of skin tone, hair, or body size."

• “I do not have to worry about the daily hassles of having my hair conforming to any standard image of beauty the way black women do."

• “I have the privilege of not wanting to be a virgin, but preferring that my wife or significant other be a virgin."

• “I can live in a world where polygamy is still an option for men in the United States as well as around the world."

• “I come from a tradition of humor that is based largely on insulting and disrespecting women; especially mothers."

• “Most of [the] lyrics I listen to in hip-hop perpetuate the ideas of males dominating women, sexually and socially."

• “I can believe that the success of the black family is dependent on returning men to their historical place within the family, rather than in promoting policies that strengthen black women's independence, or that provide social benefits to black children."

• “I have the privilege of believing that feminism is anti-black."

• “I will make significantly more money as a professional athlete than members of the opposite sex will."

• “If I go to an HBCU, I will have incredible opportunities to exploit black women."

• “In college, black male professors will be involved in interracial marriages at much higher rates than members of the opposite sex will."

• “I have the privilege of marrying outside of the race at a much higher rate than black women marry."

• “I have the privilege of knowing men who are physically or sexually abusive to women and yet I still call them friends.”