The Privilege Walk

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

First, let's start with the video:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/06/what-is-privilege_n_7737466.html

Then, let's look at the questions.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dayshavedewi/what-is-privilege#.ih3DbEB0j

Feel free to take the quiz yourself if you dare. Myself, I scored a +9.  I never had to take a step back, but I did miss a few steps forward (I am a straight, white, male of mostly Anglo-European descent, but I did grow up pretty darn poor by North American standards to parents who did not have HS diplomas).

I do want to point out one thing, though: the point of this is not to shame anyone, nor does it suggest that everything should be equal.  It will never be equal, and obviously the inner-city black kid and the upper-middle class white suburban kid alike had zero control over what family they were born into.

The point is to show people who don't think privilege is a big deal are wrong, that "if you work hard enough, you can succeed" is not exactly true. If you are far enough behind, you will *never* catch up if the system is against you- and denying one's own privilege is not helping others to catch up in any manner.

Comments

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

+16

Many of the questions were so subjective that I have no confidence in what my score means. It seems high to me, but I also think the test was designed to insure middle class, white, straight men end up as the Übermenschen they are. I am curious to see how privileged I am relative to others here. We are all typing this on computers, or tablets or smart phones, so, globally speaking we are already close to the cream of the crop, privilege-wise.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Off the scale, and I'm not American, and my father once lost a job.

But I know how lucky I am.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I second the bit about subjectivity.

They ask if you fear sexual assault, but don't ask if you have ever been assaulted.

They ask if you are afraid of the police but don't ask if you have ever been arrested.

The most sheltered upper class twit of the year could take this test and score "less privilege" than your typical middle class father of 2.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Success is hard work + luck.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

My two parents worked four jobs, so the one step back I take on #1 is more than cancelled out by the steps I take forward and the steps I don't take back on 6, 9, 14, 15, 26, 28, and 31.

Their work ethic may have rubbed off - I have two jobs - so I get to take three more steps forward on 17, 24, and 32.

That's a .... nine point swing?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

In regards to the quiz's own obvious bias/subjectivity...

Question 2 should be changed from "If you are able to move through the world without fear of sexual assault, take one step forward." to "if you have never been a victim of sexual assault, take one step forward."

Question 5 should be changed to "If your primary language is the official language of where you reside, take one step forward."

Questions that come to mind that should be on the test but are not.

Take 10 steps forward if you are "able-bodied" and able to lift/carry 20kg or more.
If you are unable to read without difficulty, take 5 steps back.
If you are able to do multiplication, division, and basic arithmetic without a calculator take 2 steps forward.
If you have ever been a victim of physical violence take one step back.
If you have ever had a physical injury serious enough to warrant immediate medical attention take one step back
Take one step back for each member of your immediate family who died before the age of 50.

I have quite a few more but those are the most glaring.

[garote]

Bullshit.

If the point of this quiz is to claim that you're screwed if "the system is against you", then these questions should be mainly concerned with "the system".

I fully endorse consciousness raising when it comes to the obstacles faced by those with (broadly speaking) non-standard traits that culture and "the system" punish simply for being non-standard. These biases loosely form the idea of privilege, and they run the range from the merely unfortunate ("can't find cosmetics that match my skin tone") to the completely unacceptable ("people attribute mistakes you've made to flaws in your racial/gender group"). But this quiz is largely unconcerned with "the system". Instead it's mostly about your family's level of affluence while you were growing up.

If "the inner-city black kid and the upper-middle class white suburban kid alike had zero control over what family they were born into" then why are there so many questions about their family environment - their affluence - stuffed into a quiz about privilege?

To send a message to the affluent: "Fuck you for having affluent parents."

(Yes, one could point out that there is a subtext, wherein the bias of the system feeds back into the level of affluence of the parents, hence a bunch of questions about affluence. But that deliberately joins the affluence of parents into the biases of "the system" itself, which leads straight back to: "Fuck you for having affluent parents.")