Friday, May 23, 2014

"Check Your Privilege!" and "Micro-Aggression"

EDIT:  If you get angry and want to skip the post, make sure you watch the Eddie Murphy SNL bit at **.  It's worth more than the rest of the post put together, anyway.

A bit ago, I did a visit to an educational institution.  And found myself talking to some students.  They were perplexed by two phrases.  One of the phrases, "Check your privilege!" I had heard, though only distantly.  The other, "Micro-agression," is so absurd I had to ask them repeatedly whether they were serious.  They were.

Background:

1.  Check your privilege (no, that is not satire.  Seriously.  Not. Satire.)  The "Know Your Meme" info...

2.  Micro-agression.  Some examples, which are actually just people being rude.  Look, folks, people are rude to me all the time.  Well, it's usually Angus or de Marchi, but you see what I mean.

A recent attempt to get a former U.S. Army Colonel to "check his privilege turned out well....for Colonel Schlichter.  His claim was that his "privilege" was that he was better and worked harder.

I'm not so sure.  It's really just a point about the benchmark.  If women are disadvantaged compared to men (and they may well be, systematically so), then that's a problem.  Using "Check your privilege!" just because you are losing an argument and have your facts wrong doesn't seem very persuasive.

And that was the point the students were making.  They were having a discussion, suggesting an alternative interpretation or presenting evidence on some policy question.  And the "social justice activist" would interrupt, shout "Check your privilege!" loudly in the other person's face, and strut away, as if repeating a memorized phrase won the argument that otherwise was being lost egregiously.  It's no better than "That's un-Islamic!" or "That's not what the Bible says!"  It's no better because it's no different.  It's just a way for a loser to counterattack and be seen to win, at least in the eyes of co-religionists.

Except....that in fact the indignation-professionals actually do have a point.  There are a set of behaviors that really do single out black, Asian, Hispanic, Arab, etc. folks.  And women are hit with a whole set of attacks, some conscious (and therefore threatening) and some just clueless (and therefore hurtful).  Some examples.  White men are disproportionately the rudeness inflictor, and women and minorities are disproportionately the rudeness target.  It doesn't even out, and usually no one even says anything.  So the reaction is not totally off-base, even though I think the "micro-aggression" moniker is useless.  If people are rude, ignorant jerks, or bullies, they have to be confronted.

And the white men doing it need to be confronted by other white men.  "Hey, not cool. You can't say that."  Until that starts happening, we won't make much progress.  And I don't how it can happen when we are also telling white men that they are so privileged that they have never had to struggle for anything.  That's not true:  they have had to struggle against other white men.

**I have always thought this SNL skit with Eddie Murphy was a bit disturbing.
**And now I see why.  It is exactly the "Check your privilege logic."
**  White people just give each other free stuff!

I have to say, Colonel Schlichter, we sort of do that.  No, you had to work hard, and all that.  But a black person who worked just as hard might well have been passed over for promotion, and a woman certainly would have been.  People are tribal.

Here's the problem, in a nutshell.  Black people sometimes see race as an explanation for almost everything.  White people usually see race as being essentially irrelevant.

Any loser will tell you that success is nothing but luck, or privilege.  The game is rigged.  THAT's why I lost.

And any winner will tell that success is nothing but talent, a pure meritocracy.  The game is fair.  THAT's why I won.

Who's right?  Nobody.  Sometimes losers really did get cheated, and sometimes the winner really did have an unfair advantage.  But not all the time.

UPDATE:  From comments, ZB writes:
Munger, I like you. But your age is showing. I've worked in management in a large company in the last decade, and preferring white men in a promotion or hiring choice is the opposite of what happens now. People are fighting the old fight and the consequence is the violation of moral prohibitions. And it's hurting economic activity.

My response:
ZB, that's a fair point. But, to be clear, I'm talking about old men. Like me, or the Colonel. We worked hard, sure. But the selection process was biased against others, if only because they had no chance of being educated or making connections.

There are two things that are true, simultaneously. 1. Some white men lose out on jobs taken by minorities and women who are, by the "usual" standards, less qualified, but were chosen BECAUSE of their minority or female status. 2. In many, many businesses, and especially including my business, academics, women and minorities are grossly under-represented compared to their share of the population. And that's even more true in management. You being right that #1 is frustrating doesn't change the fact that #2 is frustrating.

So, my claim is really tactical. If women and minorities want to close the gap, they are going to need the support of white men. And calling white men privileged and bigoted is not going to help solve the problem. But that's okay, with many "activists," because they need the gap to justify their fundraising and their "training" seminars. They are indignation professionals, rather than being serious about solving problem #2.


Update 2:  A "checklist," if you want to find out about YOUR privilege.  For comparison, I was a 43/100.  But then I grew up in a very poor house with an abusive alcoholic father who hadn't graduated from high school and was really angry at the idea that other people might get educated.  I was very fat, was called "Mole" all through school (and not in a nice way, if there IS a nice way to be called Mole; the origin of the name was physical resemblance, I should note). 

I was spat on, had my lunch money taken most days until the 8th grade, and I was OFTEN the only white kid in my classes.  I was often called out as "fag," "honkey," "ofay," or "fatso," along with others I've probably forgotten.

I did go to Davidson, but I went because I worked two jobs to pay for it.  It's always felt to me like a secret identity when the rich white liberals I work with secretly admit that they don't really know how to talk to black folk.  Because they have never met one without a mop or a tray at those lilly white private schools where they were taught how to be rich white liberals. 

The answer, of course, is that the very idea of "talking to black people" as a cultivated skill is a mistake.  That's an actual person in front of you, not an abstraction that you learned about in your sociology class.  Just listen; your black acquaintance doesn't really want to hear you jabber how many "black friends" you have, or how you drove your Volvo to Moral Monday.  Some of my colleagues are surprised to see I won an "Image" award from the Durham NAACP.  The reason was that we talk about race in my class, and we talk about it as if we were all people, not representatives of racial categories.

10 comments:

Zachary Bartsch said...

Munger, I like you. But your age is showing. I've worked in management in a large company in the last decade, and preferring white men in a promotion or hiring choice is the opposite of what happens now. People are fighting the old fight and the consequence is the violation of moral prohibitions. And it's hurting economic activity.

Mungowitz said...

ZB, that's a fair point. But, to be clear, I'm talking about old men. Like me, or the Colonel. We worked hard, sure. But the selection process was biased against others, if only because they had no chance of being educated or making connections.

There are two things that are true, simultaneously. 1. Some white men lose out on jobs taken by minorities and women who are, by the "usual" standards, less qualified, but were chosen BECAUSE of their minority or female status. 2. In many, many businesses, and especially including my business, academics, women and minorities are grossly under-represented compared to their share of the population. And that's even more true in management. You being right that #1 is frustrating doesn't change the fact that #2 is frustrating.

So, my claim is really tactical. If women and minorities want to close the gap, they are going to need the support of white men. And calling white men privileged and bigoted is not going to help solve the problem. But that's okay, with many "activists," because they need the gap to justify their fundraising and their "training" seminars. They are indignation professionals, rather than being serious about solving problem #2.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that your tactical suggestion will be rejected on the basis that its premise (the support of white guys is needed) is anathema. That's not to say it isn't a good tactic.

There is a genuine problem, but it won't be completely solved. Your post here is about as good as it will get.

Daniel Strunk said...

It seems as though you view the "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" with incredulity. I am curious as to the reasons behind your incredulity.

Angry Alex said...

The KKK in their wildest dreams couldn't have devised a better way to suppress minorities than what passes for contemporary urban public education. Who needs the Jim Crow when the NEA can do the same.

Old Odd Jobs said...

The 21 "microagressions" linked to here are just daft. You yanks never cease to amaze me when it comes to this stuff. Neurotic, pious loons. oops, another few -isms for you to agonise over.

Anonymous said...

I second what ZB said. A friend (white male) quit his job because he knew his chances of ever becoming a manager were practically nil. Over 90% of the managers at this Fortune 100 company was a minority, female, or both.

WOCIV said...

To Anonymous, though I wonder what Fortune 100 company that is, the way you are identifying with a white male and not the other people in management is exactly what concerns about privilege are supposed to be pointing to. It's pretty easy to show (you did it) that some people in the US are taken to be normal and some are not. Women still don't all feel "normal" or "standard" at work- and being aware of this is demoralizing. When others say things that make it clear they too don't think women at work are "normal" and that "white males" are the ones who truly belong there- it's called a microaggression because the damage isn't major, it's minor, but what it reveals are the attitudes that explain the resistance to women in the workplace. I think it is worse for black people, and the expression "but I have black friends" is a great example of how abnormal white people still find black people. Those things matter in all sorts of ways, aside from just being hurtful. I know people want to protect their self-image, but there's nothing so scary about thinking through our prejudices. It makes us better and won't take away from your achievements in life one bit.

Norman said...

This is a really good post. Thought out and engaging with a range of different opinions without being dismissive. I learned some things and have new ideas to think about.

Whenever "check your privilege" is used dismissively, it's not going to help. But getting people to realize they *are* privileged is very important.

John Scalzi had a good blog post on the subject from several years back: Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is

Also, this video of Dustin Hoffman discussing Tootsie is a great illustration of how being privileged means we are missing important information.

Ben Kennedy said...

I did not fully understand the Eddie Murphy skit until I was in college and going through the drive through at McDonalds with a non-white friend. After he orders and before we pull up to pay, he tells that we're going to get some free stuff because the girl taking the order was of a similar non-white ethnic background. Sure enough, there were multiple free apple pies in the bag.