What Is (Fill-in-the-blank) Privilege?

 

It was a post by Ageless Possibilities that got me thinking about privilege.

What does being privileged mean? Does it mean having a comfortably well-off life? Having doors open easily for you? Not being subjected to discrimination?  Sometimes I think we tend to mix up terms, equating being privileged with being well-to-do or affluent. Although I think the real meaning is not being disadvantaged, being part of a group that gets preferential treatment that others do not, simply because you’re automatically assumed to be in a higher echelon of society. Being privileged means one is not subjected to automatic demeaning perceptions, judgments and hardships that others may face daily.

Words become buzz words and then after a while some tire of them and begin to sneer and speak of them with ‘air-quotes’. I’ve listened to conversations where people bemoan the fact they are now hard done by because of their so-called ‘white privilege’. They believe they’re not privileged at all because they worked hard to get to where they are. But what they miss is the fact that, other than perhaps their gender, they did not have doors slammed shut because of their race, ethnicity, skin colour or accent.

There are varying degrees by which people deem themselves to be privileged or not. Am I privileged if I worked hard to get to where I am, comfortable but not rich? Am I privileged if I had to knock hard on a door that didn’t want to open because of my gender/skin colour/ethnicity? Am I privileged because I can afford to travel, not extravagantly but can get on a plane, cross the Atlantic, tour museums, monuments and palaces? Should I feel guilty about that? Or instead, should I feel fortunate that I’m able to partake in the splendour of the world and different cultures. Sometimes feeling guilty or embarrassed eases our conscience about our privilege. But guilt alone is fruitless. Instead, we would do better to examine our place in the world, and how we are contributing to it.

If we deem we’re among the privileged – however we define that to ourselves – are we using that privilege wisely? Or are we merely chasing the next comfort, the next satiation? Are we fully engaged with our lives and the world around us? Are we experiencing the beauty of the world and ourselves in it?

The word ‘white privilege’ is common (I’m not white btw) but I believe there’s also brown privilege, where, having emigrated to a new country, you’ve integrated, worked hard, and are now at a place where you’re comfortable (I include myself in this latter category of brown privilege). Where you no longer encounter (or at least you’re at the point where you no longer notice it or even care) any prejudices you may have met in the early days of being the ignorant newcomer. Where you’ve assimilated and blended because that’s what it took to get to the comfortable life. And the comfortable life is what every immigrant wants.

There’s a common saying about the last immigrant wanting to shut the door to the line behind him. But the question is, what do we do now with the privilege we’ve acquired? Feel guilty? No, but we can honour it, acknowledge our responsibilities, pay our taxes, be good citizens, get involved, and not forget the past which may be the present of what others are experiencing today.

I began this post asking what being privileged meant, but now I find myself asking – what does brown privilege mean? I don’t have any answers (no surprise there), but I think it means having arrived, if not fully within, then pretty close to the circle of white privilege.  

I know privilege isn’t just about skin colour or social status or bank balance. It is also about being able-bodied or part of the dominant stream of society. It can mean taking things for granted that others must struggle for. Which is why, I think, if one finds oneself getting uncomfortable or defensive about being called ‘privileged’, there’s all the more reason to think about that.