This
essay serves as a critique of the liberal use of “privilege checking” and “white
privilege” by turning the logic of these concepts to reflect back upon those
that utilize them ignorantly to perpetuate the very systems of power that they
oppose. Lest I be labeled a reactionary
conservative critic or accused of hiding that identity under the guise of a
leftist vocabulary, I confess that I am a devotee of the left politic, albeit
not one of particularly fanatical devotion.
I have faith in the principles of patience, tolerance, and education
which I believe are essential to the canon of liberalism. Yet, a particularly obnoxious and
hypocritical, if not heretical, sect of liberal pseudo-intellectuals insist on
blaspheming against these sacred values even as they pontificate in their name.
These inquisitors of the left are incessant
in their reminder to “check your privilege”, especially focused on the white,
heterosexual, cis-gender, male (as they should be) but their aim is not the
recognition of privilege but the demonization of those with it. My critique of exposing the hypocritical
tendencies of some on the left is not to undermine their rhetoric, for such a
critique presupposes the relative validity of such terms, but originates from a
desire to see such terms consistently applied, precisely because they are of
such vital importance to our political body.
In principle, I am grateful to reminded of my privileges, and not in a way demeaning to those that lack them. I am sincerely appreciative of those who remind me that there is more to comprehend beyond the intellectual horizon of my race, gender, and class. It humbles me and keeps me focused on the ideals of patience, tolerance, and education to which I subscribe and I hope, makes me more a more respectful and charitable ally of those less privileged. But in practice, I feel like this is rarely the way that privilege checking is utilized, and hence in contradiction to the liberal tradition that gave rise to it. Too often I have noticed that when one is accused of white privilege (or any privilege for that matter) and reminded to check said privilege, it is not used as an opportunity for education, but for condemnation. It is not an invitation to a meditation on one’s complicity in a system of oppression, but is an oppressive accusation meant to silence perceived opponents. The accused are not educated to recognize the systems of racism, sexism, and classism in which they are complicit but are simply shamed into silence by being labeled racist, sexist or classist. Such rhetoric is thoroughly impatient, intolerant, and ignorant and utterly opposed to liberal thought. It only serves to perpetuate the oppression that conservatives may engender, and only reinforces their perception of liberals as oppressors themselves.
The understanding of privilege checking and white privilege was conceived within the confines of liberal academia and the rhetorical use of them is most explicit in student activism on university campuses. Privilege checking is not intended to cause shame, guilt, or dismissal of one’s individual struggles. It is not about the individual at all, but about the system of implicit advantages they possess simply by occupying a particular identity in society. It is ironic that professors and students who are disciplined in the critical recognition and subversion of privilege and power, perpetuate it so ignorantly. Then again, that is exactly how power and privilege function according to their ideas. According to Peggy McIntosh who first popularized the term “white privilege,” white people are indoctrinated to be unaware of the privileges they benefit from and the power they possess. Liberal students are told to think critically but are in fact reinforced to regurgitate the ideology of their authoritative professors; thus they may verbally be educated in tolerance but are behaviorally being indoctrinated in intolerance. Such a system protects the privileged against hostility while directing hostility itself upon those lacking its privilege. I see the same oppressive pattern repeated in the protestations of liberals against conservatives. Such rhetorical violence only reinforces conservative misunderstanding of authentic liberal principles and divides liberals against one another in a paralysis of contradictory accusations of privilege and abuses of power.
Ideologically-driven leftist academia and media insulates liberals into the delusion that they are necessarily morally and intellectually superior to those of a conservative ideology. Conservatives are rationalized as immoral and ignorant and often prejudicially accused of being racist, sexist and classist against people of color, women, and the poor, among other minorities. While I find it impossible to deny that these tendencies exist within conservative politics, and may even dominate the agendas of conservative party leaders, I also find it necessary to admit of the possibility that there exists a state of mind between moral purity and depravity. To deny such a possibility is to subscribe to that monstrously inauthentic moral binary of good and evil which deludes so much of conservative thought. My family is thoroughly conservative, and though I am compelled to disagree with them on most societal issues, I cannot accuse them of villainy, be they family or not. They are simply ignorant and misunderstand the opponent they perceive liberal thought to be. And I find it hard to blame them and other conservatives when faced with the condescencion coming from the pseudo-intellectuals that dominate so much discourse from the left. Just as it is essential for white allies of people of color to check their white privilege in discourse, so too is it necessary for liberal proponents of privilege checking to be cognizant of the privileges afforded to them by their political identity.
Because privilege presupposes ignorance of itself, liberals are unaware of the passive benefits they possess through liberal academia and media, privileges that parody the very things they call attention to in those that possess white privilege. Individuals fortunate enough to of a liberal heritage will find it easy to find themselves in the company of those that share their ideological commitments and easy to avoid those that contradict them. They can voice their opinions without fear of ridicule or fear of being labeled a bigot in one form or another for simply holding such a political opinion. They need not fear their political affiliation being discovered and compromising their job opportunities or academic positions. They can more easily find academic resources to support their ideology and fund their campaigns or guest speakers. A liberal can display their political commitments without fear of vandalism and can criticize government actions without being automatically perceived as a dangerous radical. Liberals are privileged with being able find their ideology widely confirmed in the literature they read, the lectures they attend and the television they watch, be it news or entertainment. I want to be emphatic that the symmetry between liberal privilege and white (or male, or class, or heterosexual, etc) privilege makes an equivalence between them. As much as conservative pundits may bemoan that they are the victims of racism, sexism or classism from the left, no such equivalence is warranted and to attempt to do so is insulting.
Not everyone is so privileged to arrive at a university with a thoroughly grounded commitment or comprehension of liberal values, having inherited the conservative culture of their parents. Lacking a proper education in the ideology of the left and faced with sooner being called bigots than being called to join the struggle against it, it is inevitable that conservatives would feel marginalized, if not oppressed, however banal that oppression may be. Such unfortunates will quickly find the university to be an environment unforgiving of their lack of understanding. I arrived at my university with a naïve commitment to the left, lacking in a comprehension of its more esoteric doctrines. I was not well-versed in the vocabulary of social justice politics and found such alternative vocabulary vexing in the absent of patient educators. Thus my education has been an unnecessarily slow and conflicted, albeit rewarding, process. If the left is to endure and prosper it must be communicable, and such communication depends upon its pedagogy being patient and tolerant, especially to those encumbered by conservative values. If privilege and ignorance are complicit, then the privilege of a liberal identity at the university entails a measure of ignorance about itself and it is this ignorance which undermines the liberal education as a means of combating oppression. Not all discourse is admirable, for it can serve to normalize oppression as much as it can oppose it; there is no legitimacy to engaging in conversation with someone who refuses to listen, but there is equally no benefit in refusing to engage simply because we are unwilling to listen to thought different than us. For so much of current leftist rhetoric to focus on the invisible abuses of privilege, it is all the more necessary that we on the left be responsible and ensure that we ourselves are not perpetuating alternative insidious forms of ignorance and abuses of power, however slight.
When the terms of privilege checking and white privilege serve to disable discourse rather than enable it, when we utilize such language to establish or own power rather than destabilize that which already exists, we do not honor the struggle of the truly oppressed towards their vision of equality. Although this critique details the privilege liberals have over conservatives in academia and media, the purpose of such a critique is not to disqualify liberalism and take pity on conservatism but to expose the limitations of liberal rhetoric to maintain its coherency and potency. It is a fallacy of conservatism reflection that the occasional hypocrisy of leftists is taken to invalidate their liberalism; hypocrisy is only important when the ideal being contradicted is worthy of being upheld. Just as checking one’s white privilege does not necessitate feeling guilty or shameful about being white, but merely the acknowledgement that one is in a position of privilege and accountable for it, so too does is the acknowledgement of liberal privilege free of the taint of narcissistic and debilitating remorse. It only requires that one be aware of it, to not abuse it, and to listen to those that lack it and are worthy of it. The rhetoric of privilege checking and white privilege and other social justice vocabulary is worthy of being upheld indeed, but it must be recognized that the means by which this language is communicated must not contradict the ends it serves. It is the perpetual tragedy and irony of people that they are capable of comprehending the powers of oppression and then revising new forms oppression on others even as they speak against it. If academia and media are to remain bastions of liberal communication and education, then they must do so without being colonized by this hideous contradiction.
In principle, I am grateful to reminded of my privileges, and not in a way demeaning to those that lack them. I am sincerely appreciative of those who remind me that there is more to comprehend beyond the intellectual horizon of my race, gender, and class. It humbles me and keeps me focused on the ideals of patience, tolerance, and education to which I subscribe and I hope, makes me more a more respectful and charitable ally of those less privileged. But in practice, I feel like this is rarely the way that privilege checking is utilized, and hence in contradiction to the liberal tradition that gave rise to it. Too often I have noticed that when one is accused of white privilege (or any privilege for that matter) and reminded to check said privilege, it is not used as an opportunity for education, but for condemnation. It is not an invitation to a meditation on one’s complicity in a system of oppression, but is an oppressive accusation meant to silence perceived opponents. The accused are not educated to recognize the systems of racism, sexism, and classism in which they are complicit but are simply shamed into silence by being labeled racist, sexist or classist. Such rhetoric is thoroughly impatient, intolerant, and ignorant and utterly opposed to liberal thought. It only serves to perpetuate the oppression that conservatives may engender, and only reinforces their perception of liberals as oppressors themselves.
The understanding of privilege checking and white privilege was conceived within the confines of liberal academia and the rhetorical use of them is most explicit in student activism on university campuses. Privilege checking is not intended to cause shame, guilt, or dismissal of one’s individual struggles. It is not about the individual at all, but about the system of implicit advantages they possess simply by occupying a particular identity in society. It is ironic that professors and students who are disciplined in the critical recognition and subversion of privilege and power, perpetuate it so ignorantly. Then again, that is exactly how power and privilege function according to their ideas. According to Peggy McIntosh who first popularized the term “white privilege,” white people are indoctrinated to be unaware of the privileges they benefit from and the power they possess. Liberal students are told to think critically but are in fact reinforced to regurgitate the ideology of their authoritative professors; thus they may verbally be educated in tolerance but are behaviorally being indoctrinated in intolerance. Such a system protects the privileged against hostility while directing hostility itself upon those lacking its privilege. I see the same oppressive pattern repeated in the protestations of liberals against conservatives. Such rhetorical violence only reinforces conservative misunderstanding of authentic liberal principles and divides liberals against one another in a paralysis of contradictory accusations of privilege and abuses of power.
Ideologically-driven leftist academia and media insulates liberals into the delusion that they are necessarily morally and intellectually superior to those of a conservative ideology. Conservatives are rationalized as immoral and ignorant and often prejudicially accused of being racist, sexist and classist against people of color, women, and the poor, among other minorities. While I find it impossible to deny that these tendencies exist within conservative politics, and may even dominate the agendas of conservative party leaders, I also find it necessary to admit of the possibility that there exists a state of mind between moral purity and depravity. To deny such a possibility is to subscribe to that monstrously inauthentic moral binary of good and evil which deludes so much of conservative thought. My family is thoroughly conservative, and though I am compelled to disagree with them on most societal issues, I cannot accuse them of villainy, be they family or not. They are simply ignorant and misunderstand the opponent they perceive liberal thought to be. And I find it hard to blame them and other conservatives when faced with the condescencion coming from the pseudo-intellectuals that dominate so much discourse from the left. Just as it is essential for white allies of people of color to check their white privilege in discourse, so too is it necessary for liberal proponents of privilege checking to be cognizant of the privileges afforded to them by their political identity.
Because privilege presupposes ignorance of itself, liberals are unaware of the passive benefits they possess through liberal academia and media, privileges that parody the very things they call attention to in those that possess white privilege. Individuals fortunate enough to of a liberal heritage will find it easy to find themselves in the company of those that share their ideological commitments and easy to avoid those that contradict them. They can voice their opinions without fear of ridicule or fear of being labeled a bigot in one form or another for simply holding such a political opinion. They need not fear their political affiliation being discovered and compromising their job opportunities or academic positions. They can more easily find academic resources to support their ideology and fund their campaigns or guest speakers. A liberal can display their political commitments without fear of vandalism and can criticize government actions without being automatically perceived as a dangerous radical. Liberals are privileged with being able find their ideology widely confirmed in the literature they read, the lectures they attend and the television they watch, be it news or entertainment. I want to be emphatic that the symmetry between liberal privilege and white (or male, or class, or heterosexual, etc) privilege makes an equivalence between them. As much as conservative pundits may bemoan that they are the victims of racism, sexism or classism from the left, no such equivalence is warranted and to attempt to do so is insulting.
Not everyone is so privileged to arrive at a university with a thoroughly grounded commitment or comprehension of liberal values, having inherited the conservative culture of their parents. Lacking a proper education in the ideology of the left and faced with sooner being called bigots than being called to join the struggle against it, it is inevitable that conservatives would feel marginalized, if not oppressed, however banal that oppression may be. Such unfortunates will quickly find the university to be an environment unforgiving of their lack of understanding. I arrived at my university with a naïve commitment to the left, lacking in a comprehension of its more esoteric doctrines. I was not well-versed in the vocabulary of social justice politics and found such alternative vocabulary vexing in the absent of patient educators. Thus my education has been an unnecessarily slow and conflicted, albeit rewarding, process. If the left is to endure and prosper it must be communicable, and such communication depends upon its pedagogy being patient and tolerant, especially to those encumbered by conservative values. If privilege and ignorance are complicit, then the privilege of a liberal identity at the university entails a measure of ignorance about itself and it is this ignorance which undermines the liberal education as a means of combating oppression. Not all discourse is admirable, for it can serve to normalize oppression as much as it can oppose it; there is no legitimacy to engaging in conversation with someone who refuses to listen, but there is equally no benefit in refusing to engage simply because we are unwilling to listen to thought different than us. For so much of current leftist rhetoric to focus on the invisible abuses of privilege, it is all the more necessary that we on the left be responsible and ensure that we ourselves are not perpetuating alternative insidious forms of ignorance and abuses of power, however slight.
When the terms of privilege checking and white privilege serve to disable discourse rather than enable it, when we utilize such language to establish or own power rather than destabilize that which already exists, we do not honor the struggle of the truly oppressed towards their vision of equality. Although this critique details the privilege liberals have over conservatives in academia and media, the purpose of such a critique is not to disqualify liberalism and take pity on conservatism but to expose the limitations of liberal rhetoric to maintain its coherency and potency. It is a fallacy of conservatism reflection that the occasional hypocrisy of leftists is taken to invalidate their liberalism; hypocrisy is only important when the ideal being contradicted is worthy of being upheld. Just as checking one’s white privilege does not necessitate feeling guilty or shameful about being white, but merely the acknowledgement that one is in a position of privilege and accountable for it, so too does is the acknowledgement of liberal privilege free of the taint of narcissistic and debilitating remorse. It only requires that one be aware of it, to not abuse it, and to listen to those that lack it and are worthy of it. The rhetoric of privilege checking and white privilege and other social justice vocabulary is worthy of being upheld indeed, but it must be recognized that the means by which this language is communicated must not contradict the ends it serves. It is the perpetual tragedy and irony of people that they are capable of comprehending the powers of oppression and then revising new forms oppression on others even as they speak against it. If academia and media are to remain bastions of liberal communication and education, then they must do so without being colonized by this hideous contradiction.
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