Privilege exercise

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Activities like this just make me angry. My teen had to do one at school and came home so confused because they kept talking about white privelige and so many of the things didn’t apply to him, even though he’s white. It’s a difficult conversation to have with your kid when he’s made to feel embarrassed that he’s white and further embarrassed that he’s not coming from storybook circumstances.

It's a difficult conversation, yes. His discomfort is at being confronted with the privilege he never considered he had, even though he has all of it. It's important to overcome that instinct to internalize and say, "Who? Me? I'm not a bad person! How dare you!" and come to terms with what privilege actually means. Your language -- "he's made to feel embarrassed" is troubling. He isn't a victim. And it's incumbent upon you to reinforce that. He needs to listen more, drop his defenses, and not view a discussion about the zeitgeist as some sort of personal attack. And if he has moments where he feels like his input is not valued or that his station in life is being attacked, consider that a lesson in how other members of other races and ethnicities feel frequently in our society.

So now white people arent even allowed to be embarrassed? They should just completely deny their own emotions and focus on the plight of those less priveliged?

One problem here is that you're being reasonable here, and I agree with everything you're saying.

But there are one or more people at either end (or troll sock puppets, or Russian social media workers trying to stir up trouble) who just seem to want to use the concept of privilege to make allegedly privileged people feel bad, and, on the other side, pretending that racism is gone and trying to make liberal people feel bad.

My son came how and expressed the same feelings and also expressed confusion as to what he was supposed to feel. I shared my own experience and talked openly. I explained that this wasn't about whether you were "bad" or "good" but that rather it was about awareness and empathy. My guess is that you probably don't worry about the police stopping your son and questioning him. Do you worry that when your son walks in your neighborhood someone will call the police and report a young black male casing houses? These are things that have happened to black boys I know in my predominantly white neighborhood. I will say that class is often what interferes with white people understanding that white privilege exists because there are also privileges that come with wealth or being in different classes. In the US we "pretend" that everyone is mainly middle class. It's weird. Someone who makes $40,000 is middle class and someone who makes $200,000 considers themselves middle class. That is where it gets messy. A white working class kid who has to save up to buy soccer cleats because his parents can't afford them is frustrated that someone is telling him that he is privileged because he is white when he has black teammates from wealthier families that can afford to buy cleats and all sorts of other things for them that the white kid's family can't. That is a class/wealth issue. The thing is, that same white kid can walk into Starbucks sit and wait for someone without anyone calling the police on them. Try to talk to your son about the differences. If we can all do that we would all be better off as a society.

I am also not trying to start a class war. I am just trying to say that we need to talk to our children about these issues if we want them to have a better, more accepting world than the one we grew up in.--Signed a white mom from a working class background who is now in a different class than the one I grew up in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children attend a public school that is both affluent and diverse. There is a low grumble about how those high achievers at the school who are not white are held up on pedestals by the admins, receive 90% of the awards, and get into elite colleges with significantly lower grades and test scores than their white classmates. These students are just as wealthy as their white classmates, have highly educated parents and have had the same access to tutors and other enrichment, plus access to free summer programs at elite colleges and fully paid fly-in visits to colleges diversity recruitment weekends.

I understand this is a unique situation, but whenever anything is based exclusively on skin color, racial division in this country increases.

It’s not at all unique. It’s absolutely the way it goes now. Women and people of color are the new privileged, at least in academic situations

As a woman of color, it is news to me that i am now privileged. Thanks for letting me know, white person.

Y’all have to come up with more and more reasons why your kids aren’t the best anymore, don’t you? The entire American system was designed so you and your kids could always win and now globalization is changing things so you blame POC for now being advantaged? You just weren’t ever as smart or special as you thought. It was just privilege.

[Anonymous]

“I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”
-Groucho Marx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a part of a club and last night they did something called a privilege rally where they had a list of things like “I have never been a religious minority” “I have never wondered where my next meal will come from” “my parents are still married.” There were 75 items on the list and kids had to check off each item as it applied to them and then tally them up and place their number on a board. All the other kids had numbers in the 60s and 70s, my daughter had a number in the 30s.

She felt extremely isolated, and while I have to imagine some of this is sort of a “no one is staring at you you’re just self conscious” situation she says she felt like everyone was looking at her and she doesn’t want to go back.

Suggestions on how to handle this?

What an inane exercise.

Ask them to please stop it, and instead go spend real time helping at a homeless shelter nearby.

[Anonymous]

I don’t get this recent obsession with privilege. It is what it is, if you’re white and affluent, enjoy it. If you’re not, learn to live with your lack of whiteness and do something to change your lack of affluence if you can and want. All this bantering about safe spaces and feelings is BS. The world is what it is and isn’t changing anytime soon so learn to live with it. And no I’m not white and am a racial and religious minority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this recent obsession with privilege. It is what it is, if you’re white and affluent, enjoy it. If you’re not, learn to live with your lack of whiteness and do something to change your lack of affluence if you can and want. All this bantering about safe spaces and feelings is BS. The world is what it is and isn’t changing anytime soon so learn to live with it. And no I’m not white and am a racial and religious minority.

+1.

Plus, the real privilege is wealth, not skin color.

And having an American passport too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this recent obsession with privilege. It is what it is, if you’re white and affluent, enjoy it. If you’re not, learn to live with your lack of whiteness and do something to change your lack of affluence if you can and want. All this bantering about safe spaces and feelings is BS. The world is what it is and isn’t changing anytime soon so learn to live with it. And no I’m not white and am a racial and religious minority.

The world is changing. That's what some people are upset about.

[Anonymous]

I don't really understand protecting kids from "feeling uncomfortable" once in a blue moon. Daily of course, on a regular basis sure... but 1 exercise. OMFG, who cares....

This exercise was probably based on this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K5fbQ1-zps

[Anonymous]

I have seen this done multiple times at workshops I have attended. People take steps forward in reaction to statements that should range across all types of privilege... race, gender identity, class, able-ness, sexuality, etc. When done correctly, it should be somewhat eye opening and help people be more aware of the privilege they DO have that others may not. For instance, one question was “did you grow up assuming you would go to college?” Makes a huge difference to how you approach school and life. It doesn’t devalue the accomplishments you achieve, it just makes you realize others might have to work harder to get where you are.

So people should walk away with questions. Granted, there should have been some additional framing and consideration around how to make it comfortable and constructive for teenagers. But in my experience, the people who feel the most uncomfortable are those with the most privilege, not the least.

[Anonymous]

What these types of exercise often miss is that, by global standards, anyone earning more than $20k/ year and living in a democracy is truly privileged.

And our kids should learn to appreciate that, and do their best based on that fact, instead of learning how to play the oppression olympics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What these types of exercise often miss is that, by global standards, anyone earning more than $20k/ year and living in a democracy is truly privileged.

And our kids should learn to appreciate that, and do their best based on that fact, instead of learning how to play the oppression olympics.

Those are not mutually exclusive goals, you know. By global standards, a household with an income of $20,000 a year living in a democracy may be privileged. By US standards, a household with an income of $20,000 a year is almost certainly highly unprivileged. It is possible to acknowledge both realities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this recent obsession with privilege. It is what it is, if you’re white and affluent, enjoy it. If you’re not, learn to live with your lack of whiteness and do something to change your lack of affluence if you can and want. All this bantering about safe spaces and feelings is BS. The world is what it is and isn’t changing anytime soon so learn to live with it. And no I’m not white and am a racial and religious minority.

+1.

Plus, the real privilege is wealth, not skin color.

And having an American passport too.

+ 2 and I’m not white and am a first generation American.