Princeton Essay on "Check Your Privilege" Raises Legitimate Gripes
My freshman year in high school, the administration's diversity czars lined my whole class across the gym and read a series of statements, each accompanied by a command to step forward or backward. “If you are white, take two steps forward.” “If your parents went to college, take one step forward.” “If you are gay, take two steps back.” Before long, we were sorted according to our supposed privilege—and I'm pretty sure all of us, from the children of real estate moguls up front to the mostly black financial aid students in the rear, felt awful about where we stood.
That was almost nine years ago, and the incident upset many students and parents. Today, the phrase “check your privilege”—that is, to acknowledge your relative advantage—is commonplace, as is the tallying of privilege. A recent Buzzfeed "How Privileged Are You?" quiz asks readers to check off a hundred statements—from "I am white" to "I consider myself to be physically attractive"—and spits out a score between 0 (“under-privileged”) and 100 (“the most privileged”). Last year, Gawker created "The Privilege Tournament," a March Madness–like bracket that included "race" and "gender" regions but also "allergies."
All this has prompted something of an anti-anti-privilege backlash. You'll find no better example of that than Princeton freshman Tal Fortgang's diatribe in The Princeton Tory last month, "Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege."
The essay, which caught The New York Times's attention last week, was Fortgang’s response to comments that he should check his privilege because he is a white man. “I actually went and checked the origins of my privileged existence, to empathize with those whose underdog stories I can’t possibly comprehend,” Fortgang writes. He then recounts his grandparents' persecution during the Holocaust and their hard work in America. People who tell him to check his privilege, he says, are to be blamed for “diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of white maleness who places it out for me before I even arrive.”
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117665/princeton-essay-check-your-privilege-raises-legitimate-gripes
= new reply since forum marked as read
And I realize a lot of these facts are going to hard to swallow for certain elements on here but they need to be pointed out. Some of the best points she made, I will quote directly(my emphasis in bold):
The real problem with the phrase "check your privilege"—aside from the fact that it reduces people to the sum of their characteristics—is that it has become a handicapping device. White male? Then what could you possibly know about racism or sexism? Calling out privilege often isn't intended to make someone consider his advantages in life so much as to dismiss his perspective......But I want to be able to discuss sexism or feminism with men, and I think their opinions are no less worthy or relevant for the fact that they are male. Similarly, anyone should be able to participate in a conversation about racism without being discounted or silenced on account of race.
Told to check your privilege, it’s pretty easy to feel shut out of conversation; an advantage in life might be turned into a disadvantage in debate. “Check your privilege” can come across as an expectation that a person be repentant for sins he has not committed. In its most generous usage, of course, “check your privilege” isn’t meant to make anyone feel guilty—only to make them recognize their privileged position. But it has the effect of invoking guilt, in large part because the phrase is so often used ungenerously, as a weapon rather than a gentle reminder. This is partly what outraged Fortgang, who refers to the phrase as a reprimand that "threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them."
This disconnect stems from confusion about what "check your privilege" really means, which results in accusations and defensiveness rather than a reasonable debate about—well, whatever subject the debate was originally about. Who can remember? But the problem isn't just the phrase “check your privilege,” or even the concept of privilege. It’s rooted in a basic disagreement over the weight of identity in determining a person’s role in social discourse. And that’s why Fortgang’s opponents and supporters will continue to talk past each other.
All too true. All too true. Thanks for posting this, name not needed. People on both sides here on DU could really learn a thing or two from this.
However, I'll start to feel sorry for privileged people being told to check it when they stop saying things about less-privileged groups that show they know nothing of the experience.
Fortgang's piece is ridiculous. He makes a wacky emotional appeal about the struggles of his grandparents, which were horrifyingly real, and somehow that means HE'S not privileged?
His grandparents experience is irrelevant. What was HIS experience? What has HE accomplished? Other than being an outstanding high school student that is now a FRESHMAN at Princeton? What did he OVERCOME to achieve that?
Give me a break.
This is just another case of it being "class warfare" only when the lower classes bite back. (And in this case, just with a pithy phrase - wow! How incredibly hurtful! I don't know how they've survived, poor babies!!!)
Much more reasonable question/statement and, imo, actually says a lot more without trying to directly (whether intentional or not) silence the other person. It also helps remove a bit of that pesky 'hierarchy' junk.
But from the OP of this thread which is about the article Fortgang wrote:
“I actually went and checked the origins of my privileged existence, to empathize with those whose underdog stories I can’t possibly comprehend,”
It's been a number of hours since I read the original article, but if I'm recalling it correctly, he certainly makes it sound as if his grandparents' story was new and surprising to him.
Possibly they died before he was born and his parents never bothered to tell him until he asked?
(I'm assuming his research would have started with them).
on edit: grammar
Just like you, I have a mixture of advantages and disadvantages as well.
Which is why just spouting "check your privilege" is not a good way to forward a thoughtful discussion.
31!
So we're *almost* the same on the privilege scale.
