White Privilege?
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ALJO- “Had a job down the pit…BD…lucky devil…”
Alan, at the risk of appearing a humourless git, I wonder if you would have felt as comfortable posting a sketch by a bunch of Oxbridge graduates lampooning the conditions of slavery in the US in the 1850s.
I don’t know if you have ever watched anyone die of mesothelioma, not a laugh a minute experience. There are still a reported 2,500 deaths per year from the disease, a condition which was known about by the employers in the 1890s.
There has been much needed discussion about how much slavery contributed to the so called “national wealth” and the misery this caused. The discussion about other sources of “national wealth” have not be so eagerly pursued. It is unusual to go to a local graveyard aroung here that hasn’t got the grave of someone killed in a pit accident, or find an ex pit village that hasn’t got a memorial to the local pit disaster.
As the Alex Glasgow song goes:
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s blood inside
Blood from broken hands and feet
Blood that’s dried of pitblack meat
Blood from hearts that know no beat
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s blood insideClose the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bones inside
Mangled, splintered piles of bones
Buried ‘neath a mile of stones
Not a soul to hear the groans
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bones insideClose the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bairns inside
Bairns that had no time to hide
Bairns who saw the blackness slide
Bairns beneath the mountainside
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s bairns insideClose the coalhouse door, lad
And stay outside
Geordie’s standing at the dole
And Mrs Jackson, like a fool
Complains about the price of coal
Close the coalhouse door, lad
There’s blood inside
There’s bones inside
There’s bairns inside
So stay outsideVery effectively explained here:
What is white privilege?
We asked @JohnAmaechi, psychologist, best-selling author and former NBA basketball player to explain it for us.
👉 https://t.co/t7LIENTnPn pic.twitter.com/mQrYX6Y0N1
— BBC Bitesize (@bbcbitesize) August 5, 2020
According to this ‘White privilege’ is simply the absence of impediment on grounds of race.
Given we want a society where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all, I’d have said this was our bread and butter.
“As someone who lost a father, a grandfather and two great grandfathers to industrial deaths, I find the idea of white privilege as a bit of a joke, was being white any privilege at the battle of Orgreave, or when the police turned whole swaiths of the North East into a police state during the big strike?”
This is the whole point: the miners were oppressed because of their class, not because of their “race” or any constructed position in a racial hierarchy.
I can see the point he is trying to make. He is arguing for the absence of any impediment on grounds of skin colour. Obviously we go along with that,in fact proclaim that this one of the things we want ( see clause 4 if our declaration of principles).
But to express this in terms of wanting to get rid of “white privilege” is wholly counterproductive. He says that it is not meant as an insult to “white” people or to make them feel guilty. I think it probably is in many cases and certainly this is how it is, understandably, perceived by all “white” people (except those who do feel guilty).
“Privilege” is considered to be something bad. Thus Clause 6 of our declaration of principles calls for “the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic”. To say that somebody is privileged is to say that they have something they should not have and which should therefore be taken away from them. This is without doubt not at all the intention of that nice man but it’s the language of race conflict. In fact it’s inflammatory.
As socialists we can have nothing to do with the term but must actively combat it and make it a dirty word that should not be used.
Apologies BD for what may seem humour in bad taste.
But the real point was that you seemed to be doing what is being criticised – a league table of suffering and exploitation. No-body denies the misery of the mining industry but for many it was a good trade to follow in your father’s footsteps because there were worse alternatives, such as unemployment.
But again sorry if i gave any offence.
Next somebody is going to talk of “employment privilege” to describe those with a job compared to those without one Or to “public sector privilege” to describe those working there compared with those working in the private sector (the Dailies Mail, Express and Telegraph already do). And many more “privileged” workers will be identified until we sink into the stinking bog of “intersectionality”.
Meanwhile the really privileged in society — those who own and control the means of production — sit back and watch us squabbling over who is the most oppressed (and so needs the most money spent on reforms to benefit them). This is not a question of “identity politics” gone mad but of it being mad from the start.
I wasn’t trying to elicit an apology, so no offence was taken Alan. I was merely trying to point out exactly what YMS has pointed to, the issue of class. The contruct that is sometimes made is that because the people who benefited from slavery, etc. were white, therefore all white people benefitted from it, or as an alternative, “Britain” benefitted from the slave trade therefore “the British” en masse benefitted from the slave trade. We need to be opposing these false and divisive narratives. This does not mean that we should ignore racism, sexism, homophobia, we must call this out wherever it exists, however our case against these prejudices is two fold, like the reformists we oppose it because of the impact it has on the day to day experience of our fellow workers, but unlike them, we oppose it because anything which divides the working classes is an impediment to the long term solution of these problems, socialism.
And not just because it divides the workers, but the hidden premise of the existence of the wages system: no one talks about discrimination against black capitalists nor women billionaires: they may face hostility, discrimination from being allowed to join certain clubs or exclusion from certain levers of power, etc.
To the extent that these discussions highlight that equal doesn’t mean ‘the same’ and trend towards the idea of solidarity and ‘to each according to their need’, they ae useful, and we should be putting that message out.
Dr Raghib Ali suggested it was time to stop using ethnicity when deciding who needed help. He said focusing on factors like jobs and housing would help more people.
“This does not mean that we should ignore racism, sexism, homophobia, we must call this out wherever it exists, however our case against these prejudices is two fold, like the reformists we oppose it because of the impact it has on the day to day experience of our fellow workers, but unlike them, we oppose it because anything which divides the working classes is an impediment to the long term solution of these problems, socialism.”
And I concur.
The term privilege was not intended in the field of social studies to divide- it was not meant to weaponise one against the other.
Initially, in the field of discursive psychology and semiotics it was intended to ‘unpack’ the discursive operations of people who use violence (a lot of research in family violence use these tools).
The term privilege refers preference positions of one term over another
Take one binary division: male/female connoting two signifiers of gender (in this one a basic binary of male and female
… Men who use violence against women and children because they feel it is their entitlement to do so is called male privilege. In this context a man will use linguistic power privileging of male over female, the right to control based on gender characteristics. They will use a discursive operation (think of it and act on it) to use coercive control and then harm.
The term is used to study various forms of violence where an individual/ group use oppression and power-over another based on characteristics, based on entitlement, and so on.
I have limited space here to say how it is used as a research tool- the reason why it is used, is to counter the toxic effects of privilege and stop the harm to those who experience violence. It is used to build a theory around observations. And then use that theory in program design so that we can end the division and bring power-with relations and end those ‘isms’ and hold users of violence to account.
The term privilege should not be essentialist, it was not designed to be. Essentialist ideas hold that white privilege harms- I am white- so I harm… This is a wrong use of the term.
It has been taken out of context in some way from its research and intervention origins- it is a useful tool, but is was not meant to be used as an essentialist profiling tool- you are this skin tone so you use it… that is not its design. The below article gives an example of family violence studies researching one aspect of toxic privilege, and the same research method also applies to similar forms of bigotry used by people to cause harm:
https://www.responsebasedpractice.com/app/uploads/Language-and-Violence.pdf
It is sad that people can live in oppressed working/living conditions, who do not use violence, and can be labelled privileged- this term was designed to make the bigot accountable, and disambiguate use of violence, naming its use for what it is.
Sorry for some of the edits- A full day of work has made the 5am feeling fall into the 5pm!
LB
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Yes. He talks a lot of sense;
Dr Ali said: “The problem with focusing on ethnicity as a risk factor is that it misses the very large number of non-ethnic minority groups, so whites basically, who also live in deprived areas and overcrowded housing and with high risk occupations.
He added the whole population should have a “personalised risk assessment” rather than just targeting ethnic groups.
“It doesn’t make sense to put all ethnic minorities in the same basket as it doesn’t make sense to put all whites in the same basket,” he said.
Three very valid points. In fact the whole concept of BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) is not a biological classification but an absurd political one.
And there it is , It is measuring over modelling. If we measure this issue over generalising it, we ovoid putting it or all whites in the ‘same basket’ . That basket is essentialist thinking- and measurement of ‘personal risk’ is tailored to the person experiencing risk- but also measures and identifies those who cause risk When designing risk measures, the use of x /y markers help- it helps define the relationship over oppressor/oppressed with out using identifiable markers
x>y: is x has power over y. x<y: is x has power under y… and so on. It is a non bias assessment of personal risk. And yes it show it is not biological, and it has a political origin.
Currently, people are encouraged to compete to climb the apex structure. and x over y terms abound. Some will compete to get ahead of the others, all their lives, and arrive at a point that is still sub-alternative.
The analysis of personal and individual risk is not based on individualism- but on measuring risk according to those who use harmful activity, and use it with systemic legitimisation or historical based privilege (though lawed against- still continues).
If I have understood you right, LBN, you are pointing out that the researchers who innovated with the meaning of the word “privilege” meant it to be used only with regard to people who felt they were entitled to behave as they did.
Hence your conclusion that, as most “white” people do not think that they are entitled to be treated better than “non-white” people, the term “white privilege” would be being misused if applied to all “whites people”.
But that is precisely how it is being used by those who bandy it about. So we need to oppose them and insist that the term be thrown out as a slur — I was going to say racial slur but then “whites” are not a race.
ALB,
I have been involved in the family violence sector and other fields for over 20 years.
We used the term male privilege to identify men who use violence. It was used to assess gender based violence and its causes- and assist build a no to violence stance. It was used to identify the perpetrator, make them visible, and hold them to account.
It was designed to measure violence, get an understanding of who uses it, and then challenge it.
The article I posted shows how some use male privilege to exert power over women, but can be used to explain other forms of toxic power.
It was not a term to be used against people who oppose violence. Men, women and race are not homogenous, we are so deeply blended. The term is used to oppose violent narratives and their systemic origins.
There are systemic ‘isms’ out there. And should be challenged. I work within an environment where we are diverse (very diverse)- and we could not do the job we do if we looked at each other as the essentialist politics want us to be.
In privilege studies – a study of power-over- is to be used correctly, it focusses on systemic abuse and those who use it.
I feel that politics and partisan positioning has used/misused the science for better/for worse. The science was meant to be used to bring power-with to society ending violence and division of identity.
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