How do you feel about the word "privilege"?

submitted by moody_ape from self.GenderCritical

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[–]anfd 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This article from International Socialism (2014) has some good insights (even though naturally one can guess the conclusion beforehand: Marxism is the best analytical framework): http://isj.org.uk/whats-wrong-with-privilege-theory/

Basically: privilege talk tends to focus far too much on what individuals do (and which group they're a member of) and disregard the system view. "Check your privileges" comes too easily off as an accusation, and competing claims of privilege make it more difficult to build the solidarity between different social groups (some of which might be legitimately said to have more "privilege" than others) that's necessary to effectively struggle for any systemic change, as opposed to scoring points against individuals in face-to-face situations.

[–]moody_ape[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks for the link. I'll def check it out! I think minotities disregard the system view because they think it's important to "name the opressor" instead of talking about something as intangible as a system. I used to agree with it when I used to tend towards wok culture because I think this idea it has its merit. For example, the headline "husband kills wife out of jealousy" is different from "wife is killed by jealous husband" because in the first one you focus on who did the action and in the second one you focus on who suffered the action. It's important to show that a man commited the crime because male violence is way too present in our society and it's a phenomena that should be adressed. However, focusing on the individual (even as a member of a particular group) doesn't seem to work very well to promote the necessary systemic changes.

[–]anfd 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think privilege talk and naming the oppressor definetely has merit. It's not hard to agree with that. But whether it works equally well for both clarifying things to yourself and among your peers and for communicating things to outside people whose help you are likely to need is another question.

Here's another link to an article on the "privilege topic" I read some time ago and found useful, by Cedric Johnson (it's really long, sorry!):

The Wages of Roediger: Why Three Decades of Whiteness Studies Has Not Produced the Left We Need

His point:

"Whiteness studies has produced a form of anti-racist politics focused on public therapy rather than public policy, a politics that actually detracts from building social bonds and solidarity in the context of actual organizing campaigns, everyday life, and purposive political action. This political problem is not strictly Roediger’s, but is one that besets the contemporary left more generally and is derived from the cultural turn within Western academe and the U.S. Left since the sixties, the rejection of modernist political projects as irredeemably tarnished by histories of racism and imperialism, and a resulting deep, pervasive suspicion of constituted power." [...]

"Contemporary white self-flagellation over being a “good ally” [...] [imposes] a social hierarchy on political life based on identity claims rather than demonstrated commitment, political acumen, organizing skills and capacity or other criteria that should matter."

Johnson along with Adolph Reed have been said by some to be guilty of class reductionism and thus playing down the effect of racism in the US. I haven't looked into it enough to say whether or not that is the case (I don't live in the US).