Sunday, July 19, 2015
It's easy to admit that privilege exists, but admitting it exists in ourselves is a whole other beast, and it seems like the more privilege you have, the less you actually get the concept of privilege. Personal accountability is a bullet dodged far too often, and according to a study released this past week by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the reason why comes with a common misconception of what privilege actually looks like.
Accourding to a report by the Pacific Standard, during the study a group of 94 and 91 participants respectively were administered two different surveys: one covering racial inequality in America and the other childhood experiences. One group answered the survey straight away, while the other read a paragraph providing evidence of white privilege in multiple aspects of society. Researchers found that those who read the paragraph first were more likely to deny white privilege in their survey, but also more likely to claim harship in the other one.
They further predict that "...such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists."
In other words, many fail to realize that a life with privilege is not a life without hardship, and just because one is oppressed in a single way, does not mean they do not benefit from privilege in any aspect at all. Tom Jacobs, author of the Pacific Standard article mentioned above, argues that we like to believe that in this country everything we gain is based off of our own merits, and when this idea is threatened, we feel offended, we feel like we're being told that we don't earn what we have. And yet, being accountable for one's personal privilege has nothing to do with denying their merits, but rather, admitting advantages. It takes a great degree of maturity to admit there is a difference between the two, but make no bones about it, a difference does exist.
Do you see individuals deny their privilege frequently? Do you agree with this study's explanation for this behavior? Express your thoughts below!
Accourding to a report by the Pacific Standard, during the study a group of 94 and 91 participants respectively were administered two different surveys: one covering racial inequality in America and the other childhood experiences. One group answered the survey straight away, while the other read a paragraph providing evidence of white privilege in multiple aspects of society. Researchers found that those who read the paragraph first were more likely to deny white privilege in their survey, but also more likely to claim harship in the other one.
They further predict that "...such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists."
In other words, many fail to realize that a life with privilege is not a life without hardship, and just because one is oppressed in a single way, does not mean they do not benefit from privilege in any aspect at all. Tom Jacobs, author of the Pacific Standard article mentioned above, argues that we like to believe that in this country everything we gain is based off of our own merits, and when this idea is threatened, we feel offended, we feel like we're being told that we don't earn what we have. And yet, being accountable for one's personal privilege has nothing to do with denying their merits, but rather, admitting advantages. It takes a great degree of maturity to admit there is a difference between the two, but make no bones about it, a difference does exist.
Do you see individuals deny their privilege frequently? Do you agree with this study's explanation for this behavior? Express your thoughts below!
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Recognizing that another individual has privilege does not necessarily mean we are able to ridicule them by stating that they don't deserve what they have. But at the same time, it isn't fair for them to "deny" their privilege, because privileges are granted to people based on factors they had no control over such as gender, class, race, et cetera, for all these things are merely assigned by pure luck. Being able to admit that one has advantages based on privileges does take much maturity, but it is what you do with that privilege that really counts. It's important to stand up for and defend what is right when you see that someone who does not possess a similar privilege is bullied by society because of it. Is it okay to perpetuate privilege simply because we don't possess the same privileges as others or because we deny having any privilege whatsoever?
ReplyDeleteI agree with the results of the study conducted by Pacific Standard. I, as someone who sees people deny their privilege quite often, feel like another reason people deny privilege naturally is because they assume privilege is synonymous with easy, or handed out. When people look over their life, everyone thinks of the struggles they face and assume it is as hard as it gets. They don't stop to see how even harder their struggles would have been had they been colored, disabled, or not cisgendered. The best way for people to understand privilege is to make sure they understand that the concept of privilege does not mean that someone who has privilege gets whatever they want easy. Privilege just means that there were not an extra set of obstacles in your way due to personal factors beyond your control.
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