I’m a white male, too, and I also recognize that I have a lot of privilege as a result. In my opinion, my position of privilege makes it harder but not impossible for me to understand the views and experiences of less privileged people.
Doesn’t feel that way to me either. Last year when my D was a senior in high school she was sitting with a group at a table in the dining hall after team practices. Another group of students, some minority, were at the table next to them (2 were on my D’s athletic team and she considered them to be friends). Some of the girls at the adjacent table must have been listening to their conversation. All of a sudden 3 of the minority students jumped up and started screaming at them to “check their privilege.” Created a huge scene in the dining hall and was the subject of an article in the student newspaper the following week.
And what was it that they were talking about that prompted the outburst? One of the girls asked another where she got her headband. The girl replied Lululemon.
Just heard a piece on NPR yesterday about how Wilson was largely responsible for making sure we had a Federal Reserve. Who knew? I think this brouhaha was a good thing in that I now know a lot more about Wilson than I did before, but I don’t know that taking names of long dead guys off buildings and programs is the way to go.
I would tend to agree with this.
@DecideSomeHow To the feeling of blame, I can’t say I have an answer to that for sure. Personally, the acknowledgement I think goes a long way. The solutions to fixing the wrongs of imperialism and racism and more over the past 250 years are neither obvious nor easy, and much debate goes on about what to do: but knowing that something needs to be done is the key matter. I do think there is a level of validity in the feeling of blame if you don’t have a formal understanding of privilege, and it very well may mean giving something up. The idea is to try to find a solution that works for all, and that can only be done when everyone comes to the table with a good understanding of privilege. Having privilege doesn’t invalidate your life or your accomplishments or your hard work and I think that’s important to remember.
@HarvestMoon1 Please, I’m saying nothing about intelligence. None of this is too hard conceptually and even if it was, this board is a place where it would be understood. I’m asking for receptiveness to education on ideas in an attempt to correct misconceptions. Devolving this to implied insults is not helpful.
As far as my nuances, I am actually paraphrasing from many other articles that I constantly see and find that discuss this issue. These nuances are very used: just not in your circles is my guess. That doesn’t make them any less used, though, and since there is an understandable lack of overlap between circles, a great first step is to share information between. That is why I posted here in the first place.
Misunderstanding is present on all sides: media, of course, helps to oversimplify and create these black and white issues. So yes, they were probably in the wrong there from the details provided. I don’t think a few high schoolers are the leading authority on the face of the issue though. Obviously if the newspaper picked it up, there was some obvious disagreement about it. Hopefully the article did call out the other students and helped to discuss what privilege actually is. Really, telling anyone the single phrase “check your privilege” isn’t going to do much: you have to explain why privilege matters.
I’ve heard discussions basically about the branding of privilege: it makes those with it uncomfortable. I think while that is fair, we just need to educate people on it so that it’s not a phase that people start disliking simply on principle. That is a legitimate issue for sure. But the nuances of the phrase are nothing in comparison to the idea of privilege and the huge affect it has on our society that is denied often because of this small nuance.
Of course, he and others worked hard to reduce the racism in society.
Nobody gets to control the definition of “privilege”.
Re: #481
Wait, these are all students at a boarding high school? Wouldn’t all or almost all of them be from highly privileged backgrounds?
Well no, @PengPhils that’s not what the article did. It was an article written by a girl of color complaining about “white privilege” on campus. Mind you, this boarding school has one of the most diversified student bodies in the country with a large percentage of students (of all ethnic backgrounds) on financial aid - many on full scholarships.
The article created quite a stir and called girls out by name. It somehow managed to connect this dining hall incident not only to “white privilege” but somehow to “racism” as well. The girls seated with my D were juniors and seniors, some with college apps that would be filed shortly. Being labelled a “racist” in today’s world can have some pretty severe consequences. So we as parents advised our D’s to issue their “sorry, sorry, we were being insensitive” to “de-escalate” the whole affair. And for what? For having a private conversation about a headband?
All this flowery discussion is great - it would be nice if the reasonableness and open mindedness that you promote could be put into practice. I feel it bears little resemblance to the reality of how things actually play out.
And for the record and specifically in response to your “just not in your circles” remark, I take no issue with most of the objectives of the protesters, I do however have a huge issue with their methods of achieving them.
Before this Princeton protest started, who here knew that Woodrow Wilson was a stone-cold racist, an avowed racist, racist even for his time, who re-segregated the federal government? I didn’t, though I think of myself as well-informed.
I mean, the dude deliberately pushed hardworking government workers out of their good jobs because they were black. I can see the protestors’ point.
@PengsPhils - When then term ‘check your privilege’ is used as a stick to beat someone with, it loses any worthwhile meaning it could have. I have no respect for someone that wants to yell at me to check my privilege, or tell me that I should be ashamed, or guilty, or anything else.
as for
I don’t owe anyone an explanation. But if one insists - my dad grew up poor in rural NC, gave 14 years of his life to the USMC, got a college education, worked hard and had the resources to put me through college. Did I get a head start in life? Yes, absolutely. But I reject the term privilege, because is nothing more to me than someone simply calling me a ‘slight racist’
Apparently, one of the consequences is substantial political support.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2015/Pres/Maps/Nov23.html#item-4
@ucbalumnus - I have linked the Boarding School Review for you below. It lists every boarding school in the country with the percentage of their student body on financial aid. If you scroll down you can also click on the link that provides you with the percentage of students of color and international students.
http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/highest_percentage_students_financialaid/sort/1
Some of those boarding high schools have yearly tuition as high as $79,000 (THINK Global School), with many in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. Even very high SES families would need financial aid to afford sending their kids there, so percentage of students on financial aid at such schools does not really indicate how many of them are from low SES families.
I did. Honestly, I thought it was common knowledge. Personally, I think this is another example of basic liberal=good, conservative=bad thinking that kind of pervades the popular culture, particularly on questions of race, gender and sexuality.
People are shocked to learn that Wilson was a racist because he is thought of mainly as the first progressive President of the 20th century, and hence could not have been a racist. If he is associated with anything other than the Presidency, it is with the school, and for that reason I think he is thought of in the context of an eastern, Ivy league intellectual (rather than as a southerner for example), which again our popular culture tells us is the antithesis of racism.
And I too can see the protesters point about the celebration of Wilson as some iconic figure is troublesome. I personally think that Eisgruber was right to say that the school should acknowledge the bad with the good. I really doubt that anyone has a serious problem with the protesters making their point about Wilson, and I personally think that there is nothing wrong with airing the issues of how large of a role the legacy of Wilson should play on the campus, particularly on a going forward basis. Does anyone really think that they are going to rename the Wilson school? I doubt it. But should the school have put the Wilson mural up in Wilcox when it was remodeled? Eh, maybe not the best decision.
The larger problem with the protesters demands was the idea that there should be “training” on the “true role of freedom of speech and freedom of thought”, and their demand for a segregated space for black students on campus. I think a great many people should and do have a problem with the type of thinking that would produce demands of that type.
@ucbaalumnus My own observation with higher SES families that cannot afford the boarding school tuitions is that they opt for the private day schools or religious based programs with lower tuitions.
Maybe it was common knowledge and I’m the only one who didn’t know, Ohiodad51. That’s why I asked.
I suspect that if the protesters had sent a polite letter to the president of Princeton about Wilson’s legacy, there wouldn’t be much pressure to change anything, including the mural. We sure wouldn’t be talking about it.
“Check your privilege” is the new “shut up, I have zero interest in contemplating the merits of your arguments because I dismiss you as a person.”
Yes, and I suspect that this protest is not the very first time anyone at Princeton has tried to raise the issue of Wilson’s racist acts.