Photo Courtesy of Flickr/whatsthatpicture
fter 8 months of running this website, I can now safely say that America has no clue how to talk about race in a manner that might generate understanding. Our comment threads — which for some stories contain over 100 comments — reveal people unwilling to listen and people only interested in entrenching themselves further into their position. And you don’t want to know what the comments that I deem unpublishable reveal.
This lack of understanding has had me wondering what we could do to develop a new language for talking about race. I still don’t know the answer to that question, but yesterday I stumbled across a blogger who was thinking like me and actually came up with a decent way to explain privilege to a defensive straight white male who might otherwise go into convulsions and launch counterattacks upon hearing the word privilege.
John Scalzi explains the idea through the use of a metaphor about video games. He says being a straight white male is like being the player in a video game that has the lowest difficulty level.
Scalzi adds nuance to the analogy by saying that players on a higher difficulty level might start the game with more points — more wealth, more charisma, etc. — but they are still on a higher difficulty level.
I think Scalzi’s explanation is really compelling and so did many of the straight white males who commented on it. It actually lead to a fruitful discussion that Scalzi carefully moderated. One commenter — who identified himself as a straight white male named Ian Ironwood — said something really earnest that gave me an “A-ha” moment. His views were echoed several times. Read his comment and tell me below how you would answer him. (Unfortunately, you can’t answer him on Scalzi’s post. It’s closed.)
However.
It’s not that we (straight, white, male) nerds can’t understand the concept of privilege (Latin, essentially, for “private law”) and how we’re benefiting from it, I believe. It’s the fact that yes, we didn’t have any more say in the character we were issued by the computer than anyone else, and we get tired of other players grousing like we did. No matter how good or how bad we do, it’s used as a justification for why we are, somehow, inherently at fault for our stats. And therefore most of the rest of what is wrong in the world. I’ll cop to straight white male privilege and how I’ve exploited it as much as anyone else would in my position, but I didn’t cheat to get that card. And having it doesn’t make me an inherently evil, unjust, selfish or immoral person any more than any other sociographic racial stereotype would.
Psychologically, that leaves you with two options: acceptance of your status, and developing some method of dealing with the guilt that being socially privileged forces upon you, like philanthropy or serial monogamy, or check out of the cultural matrix that imposes both the privilege and the guilt upon you. A movement known as Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), advocating Straight White Males abandoning those roles of ever-increasing social and financial expectation/privilege/guilt here in the West and pursue more fulfilling interests off the grid or in exotic foreign lands where you are merely one of many minority populations.
I mean, when you’re stuck with the lowest default setting and you have no way to correct it, why not abandon the Big Quest and indulge in little side-quests off in the hinterlands? You have just as much fun . . . and no one can call you a loser if you aren’t playing the Big Game. Hey, it beats enduring the ‘privilege’ of socio-racial guilt — what else are we supposed to do?
About the Author
i am a an 89% swm. The same people who have been speaking with me about white male privilege also tell me i am queer because of the 11%. i am very open minded and I get the concept of white male privilege and the reading i have been doing has helped me to understand that i have it. It will show up throughout my life in both obvious and the most quiet ways. What this analogy, and all the threads i have read has helped me to understand is that: 1. I have it. 2. its systematic and institutionalized not a conspiritorial 3. i cant completely get rid of it and, 4. However i can choose not to take advantage of it, and be the best person i can be.
Here is where i get confused.
By enlarge i have rejected my upper middle class values singing `i don’t want to sail with this ship of fools. Im am not going to give you the i am a good guy list, but i will say i am aware of what white men have done and and perpetuate in this world. And i know i live on stolen land. I try to live by 2 guiding principles, Love and Equity. I am also committed to a lifetime of unpacking the programming of patriarchy and white privilege. i raise my son, and we discuss these issues and he gets it and i understand the lies my father told me and i don’t do that to my son. At age 46 i have realized this is not enough and i have been seeking my place in the social justice movement. Quite regularly i am confronted on my white maleness. Its suggested to me or i am told that I am an oppressor based on the colour of my skin and the anatomy of my genitalia. I can support social justice causes but from the periphery not the core. I will always be an oppressor first and foremost. The message i here is welcome, but, take a seat and be a good white boy. Hence my confusion, i don’t want any person on this earth to be treated like this.
(cracking my knuckles). The most unfortunate thing about a metaphor is that while it can bring some understand to those who would normally refute the information presented, it can cause others to create another metaphor which further distorts the reality of the situation.
The response cited in this article by the straight white male “nerd” was good…it sounded good. it gave me, a noble pan-afrikanist and nationalist, a warm-fuzzy feeling about racial division on the inside. However, he cannot go to a land where he would be a minority and treated as one. There are several examples, I will only give a few. Africa (which for cultural and intellectual reasons I will refer to as Afrika) has a majority Black population, however, when you go to South Afrika, matter fact, almost any part of Afrika with a respectable White population, you will find Whites as the dominate economic force of the country. They own the land, businesses, and flow of money. If you visit other nations where you have a Black majority with intermixing Whites, like Brazil, you will find whites being the controllers of the nation and Blacks the servants. Even in China, Whites have privilege as they are seen as more successful and more handsome then those of less-pale, browned or darker skinned individuals. My best friend has been living in chongqing for the past 2 years and can attest to this.
Yeah…the original point is society is a diachronic phenomenon…therefore active reality stands on passive reality…interesting the places you’ve picked have had hardline white colonialization…generalizing makes the world such a simple place, albeit a distorted view.
Interesting story, and yet I still have some mixed feelings on it.
Whereas I agree it’s difficult to talk about race, I think it’s as difficult for minorities as it is white people, male or female. I think the Bill Cosby episode some years ago pretty much proved that.
I also tend to believe that in a controlled environment some people might see themselves in a much different light when it comes to privilege. I remember participating in an experiment where an equal number of whites and blacks stood at a line. Then the moderator read off statements and said if these things had ever applied to you in your life to take a step forward. At the end of 10 questions almost all the black people in the room were in the top 3 spots, while most of the white people hadn’t taken a single step forward. What happened the next week? Three of those white people didn’t come back, and one of the black people didn’t come back either.
So, it’s scary across the board it seems.
John Scalzi’s straight white male privilege perspective leaves the real issues out in the rain. While the Mario-Luigi guide to straight white male privilege gives a clear understanding of the head start those who fall into this category enjoy, its explanation seems only to apply to getting ahead in the workforce. This take gives the impression that those whites don’t have to work hard. However, “privilege” or not they have to prove themselves to move ahead. In the end, is it the individual’s fault he is born white? Of course not…so what is there really to discuss?
This is why real insight into white privilege would have explored how both male and female whites exploit their race card to assume entitlement, to be seen as embodying only good values and behavior, to side step rules, to engage in and avoid responsibility for crimes. Scalzi–an Italian name–may not enjoy this latter privilege. A discussion as such wouldn’t encourage “it’s not my fault” responses, another negative attitude stemming from the social ideology of white privilege; in fact, it would either accurately depict which whites enjoy all the privileges versus those who can only benefit from fractions of it, or it would do away with the mentality that encourages many of them to strive for their success myth through fraudulent means.
Another real issue in this discussion would have been to evaluate whether or not this advantage has made them better, just increased their anxiety of playing the white game–hence some exiting to “play the white privilege game” serving other cultures–or dumb down everyone else who uses “white mentality” as their benchmark of best success. Unlike the video-game analogy, these issues above may be seen as ruthlessly controversial; more importantly, they suggest white privilege is accessed by whites who are straight, gay, male, female, young, old.
This was good! Substance!
Interesting analogy and likely somewhat applicable but I’ve been hearing about “white privilege” for about 15-20 years and yet many of the same problems facing blacks and latinos still remain. Those problems principally are much higher rates of high school drop-outs and babies born out of wedlock. Since Asian-Americans have generally done quite well for themselves after migrating to America, is there an “Asian Privilege” designation as well?
Frankly, I think everyone needs to focus on the problems they face personally and how they can fix them rather than complaining about real or perceived advantages others have. Improve yourself rather than waiting for others to do it for you! This article is a good start:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304192704577404083592261456.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
Asians and African Americans, apples and oranges… Asians have a radically different history than that od African Americans an so their outcomes are different. They were pretty much allowed to evolve (AND COMPETE) naturally relative to AA… Because of the role AA were forced to play in economy both natioanlly as well as globally they were not. So with Af. Am. it is like picking a fruit way before it is ripe and thus disrupting normal course of things… I guess yes Af. Am can just pay attention to the personal like Dr. Head out in UCLA medical school was focusing on improving himself when residents photoshopped a pic of his face onto that of a gorilla. Some whites also need to focus on their own problems and not on otherst it seems.
Proverbs 17:15 “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.”
Proverbs 29:27 “An unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked.”
First of, the analogy is indeed brilliant, best I’ve ever heard it put. Now granted, your privilege may not be your “fault” (directly), and at this point the phenomena of ‘white privilege’ may be lees of a conspiratorial event, and more so something systematical perpetuated. But then does this mean that you have no agency in it all? No. What happens now is that it becomes is your responsibility to correct it. And in the terms of the analogy – this means change your settings, relinquish your power, and allow the playing field to become level again.