Privilege
I’ve been having a few conversations recently with people about privilege. Mostly about how people in our communities benefit from privilege yet refuse to acknowledge this or don’t know how. It’s not an easy thing to recognise that there’s stuff you don’t have to deal with if you’re non-Indigenous or male or able bodied or whatever. But when it really comes down to it we need to recognise and challenge this privilege if we want to make some decent changes within our communities.
And as often seems to happen when I have an issue popping up in conversation a lot, a really good article on the topic pops up in my RSS feeds!
I highly recommend you take five minutes and read this article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh. It is superbly written and is a real make you think-er.
I think it’s a really interesting exercise to go through for anyone wanting to question privilege and how it works on their own life. Especially for those of you out there wondering why we’ve managed to remove most of the overt legal forms of discrimination yet the statistics still show a massive bias towards the able bodied straight white guy. Our behaviours as humans are so habitual and discrimination and privilege are definitely creatures of habit!
I’d love to hear what anyone else thinks about this article.
Incidentally, I found this article on the Women’s Creative Collective blog which I recently came across and it’s fecking excellent, you should read it too!
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4 Responses to “Privilege”
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Is the real problem the privilege of some, or the lack thereof for the others ? It is very difficult to let go some of your privileges (but I agree it is sometimes necessary to let other people and things survive), less difficult to share them… In France we nearly have a “society of privileges”, with almost a tradition of strikes to keep them. I’m thinking particularly about the french national train enterprise; where people work less a day, retire earlier than anywhere else in the country, and are constantly on strike to keep that. It is very irritating for other french with less privileges (who are also usually irritated by the fact of taking 3 hrs more to get to work nearly once a week…), but we also have strong faith in the fact that nobody should loose any privilege. Quite paradoxal and complicated issue, that is…
So I was reading your comments on ‘White Priveledge’ this morning. And it didn’t take me long to find a good example. I got up to read the newspaper and looked at this.
Do you see something wrong with this picture? Well you can’t see it that good so i’ll describe. 24 full colour
pages of the ‘Northern Territorian News’ (3/2/09) and not one dark skinned baby. There are quite a few babies who would appear to be of all kinds of descents, a couple whose skin you’d describe as light brown.
Here are some letters and texts I just wrote to the NT News.
Is this a joke?
Looking at your special feature ‘Babies of 2008′, it would appear no black babies are born in the Territory! The White Australia Policies must have been a great success, what a great legacy to leave for our future generations!
Micky in Adelaide River
Whose ‘Babies of 2008′?
Great to see so many proud parents and their babies featured in the paper, but where are the dark skinned kids? Did ‘sifting through the pictures of the Territory’s cutest’ mean sifting out pictures of Aboriginal or African beauties?
Rod Halligan of Virginia
What’s wrong with this Picture?
I’m just a visitor to the Territory, but it doesn’t much looking around to see that the pictures featured in ‘Babies of 2008′ pictures are in no way representative of the babies born in 2008 in the Territory, which my hospital worker friends confirm, while flag waving racists take no hesitation to tell
me that the Territory will soon be ‘overun’ by Aboriginal people as they are having so many more kids. Does it take a visitor to the Territory to see something wrong with this picture, are the Territorian’s editors so used to this culture of discrimination that they don’t even notice this blatant racism?
In any case this is your responsibility, as your feature confirms and affirms that a child’s future and cultural acceptance in this country is determined before they are even born.
Reuben Rishi,
visitor from Melbourne
If you like me feel like this projection of White Culture into the future paints a gloomy outlook,
write them on ntnmail@newsltd.com.au or txt +61428686397 and welcome to blog response.
By the way i was just about to search for – what kind of needle doesn’t eventually break when patching canvas
on canvas – and what’s a good handstitch?
sorry your website must not like my html code
you will be able to find pictures of the paper on my myspace photo album.
good* to see racism alive and well in the Territory. Bloody hell…
Hmm re canvas, needles will always break eventually, especially if doing hard work like canvas. I recommend visiting your local craft shop and getting the fattest needle you can buy (not including knitting needles!) so long as the eye is right for your thread.
And the stitch depends on what you’re doing really, try this site http://www.stitchopedia.com/
xox