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Sigh. I should have known….
From my online course, in the first “Discussion forum” section. Slightly edited to protect the privacy of the teacher. (I deleted her sample answers)
This will be the only discussion in which you will not be graded on how well you back up your opinions with information from our readings. Therefore, there are no right answers here. What you will be graded on is how thoroughly you try to engage, and how respectfully you respond to others. Importantly, this introduction post is optional for 1% extra credit. This will be the only extra credit opportunity offered throughout the semester and I do not bump up grades that are close to the cut off because I offer this opportunity. I would strongly advise taking advantage of this early extra credit opportunity in case you need it later to move from a 79% to a 80%, for example.
First, I’d like to start off with introductions. So please introduce yourself to the class! Some points you may want to discuss include:
- Where you are from
- Your preferred name
- Your year attending [COLLEGE]
- Your major
- Why you are taking this course
- Fun facts
Next, I’d like you to talk a little bit about privilege, and what your areas of privilege are. This is also in the interest of getting to know a little about the context of our class. We all have areas of privilege (e.g., white privilege, male privilege, able-bodied privilege, etc.) It is important that we are aware of our own sources of privilege, and how they affect the way we interact with the world. For example, in the context of this class, I have educational privilege. That means, in this situation, that the material we read is familiar to me, and the academic style of writing is fairly easy to understand. I don’t have the added burden of trying to get used to a new format of the way information is presented in order to understand that information. Me being aware of my educational privilege helps me to engage with others in a more useful way, instead of assuming that my experiences are the same as everyone else’s, and therefore our reactions to our experiences should be, too.
Why is this important, and what does it have to do with developmental psychology? Let me be clear: the purpose of this is NOT to make us all feel guilty about our privilege; that wouldn’t be useful. Rather, the purpose is that we start each conversation from a place of awareness, which breeds understanding and compassion. We are going to be debating some potentially heated topics in this course. It is REQUIRED that we ALL engage with one another respectfully. I will ask each of you to try and see others’ perspectives, while arguing for your own (in other words, it’s not an “either/or” type of scenario; refusing to look objectively at the other side does not show strength in your argument).
So I have a few options here.
- I can skip the optional post and the opportunity for extra credit. Probably the wisest option.
- Post some vague word-salad about advantages in life that I am grateful for, and that others might not have (Which is I think what the question is really getting at, albeit in a very “Woke” manner.)
- Post about my philosophy of “Privilege.” Not that I have a fully fleshed out philosophy there, but I can at least say that I am a sinful human, who, from my state of depravity, is likely to treat those who are different from her negatively.
- Drop the class and find another online course. (Inconvenient, if not quite difficult, at this point.)
The assignment is due at midnight on Monday.
Published in General
Perhaps you could say you have the incredible privilege of having been born in the United States of America, the greatest nation the world has ever known. That would probably trigger a lot of the class but it’s very true. A lot of the rest of the world wish they had that. I recall realizing how lucky I was to have that privilege as early as the age of 9, but then this was in 1959, a whole different era. And I don’t think I associated it with the term “privilege.”
This matches up well with my thoughts on civil disobedience. Don’t “Cry wolf” and civilly disobey whenever you feel you can get away with it. Instead, wait until things get unacceptable and then push back as swiftly and strongly as possible.
I had no idea that legal definition existed! Thank you!
True!
Good point!
I read Cycle magazine back in the 70’s. Their position on helmets was that they were against helmet laws but that anyone who didn’t wear one didn’t have a brain to protect anyway.
I wish she hadn’t used privilege; my defenses go up reflexively when I hear it and you are right to be annoyed by it. I was just noting that other than the use of that word, what she was trying to achieve was quite reasonable. The real test is whether she truly wants open debate. If you do take the class, let us know.
I shall keep you updated.
What is your purpose in taking this course?
The instructor and other students will have some points of view that you agree with, and some that you disagree with.
I don’t see disagreement as a deal breaker in most cases, but you seem to be assuming that it’s going to inevitably come to that for you in this class. Must it?
I’d begin by crossing out every instance of the word privilege and substituting the word blessing. Then I’d proceed in this manner:
I am blessed to have been born and raised in a country that prizes freedom and draws its values from the judeo-christian tradition;
I am blessed to have been raised in a traditional family, with both a mother and a father;
I am blessed that my parents choose to stay off of drugs and out of jail;
I am blessed that my parents chose to marry before starting a family;
I am blessed that my father chose to show up to work every day to support his family;
I am blessed that my mother chose to be a stay-at-home mom;
And so on..
The problem I have is the word “privilege.” It’s a stupid word. For one thing, it doesn’t carry with it the implication of responsibility. Were you and I walking down the street together, Zafar, and some menacing person came along, your “male privilege” would swiftly translate into a responsibility to protect me.
Having said that, I agree that this is framed by the professor in a way that makes it a reasonable exercise, especially in a course aimed at those interested in working directly with human beings and their problems (in an engineering course, it would be a mere waste of time). When doing such work, it is, indeed, important to be aware of your own “stuff,” so as to either harness it to the goal of helping or getting it out of the way.
I could, for example, say that having been widowed suddenly at a young age grants me at least some insight and credibility when it comes to sudden loss, an “advantage” in my job, but hardly a “privilege.” But I had to learn how, if and when to use it. I’d say the same is true of my other advantages. There are certainly times in my life when it is useful to be a white, well-educated woman with a large vocabulary…unfortunately, these are not as common as I might wish ( that “every problem is a nail” thing has arisen more times than I care to admit).
The “educational privilege” the instructor speaks of is not unearned—I assume she would say she worked hard to be where she is and to know what she knows. What she is really describing is a power differential, one of the many quotidian, inevitable, necessary and almost always benign imbalances in power that we all dance through every day. The educated teacher’s power over the ignorant pupil, like the healthy doctor’s power over the sick patient, the mechanic’s power over the owner of a broken car, or the non-bereaved chaplain over the frantic parent of a missing child, could serve to illustrate the legitimate use of power. The teacher will deploy the sum total of her blessings, earned advantages and “privileges” if any and experience on behalf of those who don’t (yet) have it. By the end of the semester, she will presumably have transferred at least some of her “privilege” to the students.
Yes! Exactly!
“Count your blessings” also encourages one to be a blessing to other people. “Check your privilege” just means “shut up.” One is creative and expansive, the other is a destructive pinch.
Then we’d both be in trouble, but I would do my best for you GD, I promise. And yes, I agree that meaningful privilege comes (should come) linked with meaningful responsibility. (So I think privilege does have that implication. Noblesse oblige etc.)
Re: Dill’s issue – I guess I’m really coming at it from the point of view that a young person is going into a course, and framing it as a political argument before the course has even begun doesn’t seem like the best approach to take for her to achieve the educational outcomes she might wish for. Everything doesn’t have to be an argument, does it? Sometimes it’s better to be generous hearted in how we deal with people.
A better word than “privilege” for her “educational privilege” example would be “experience” – in the “I’ve already been exposed to it” sense, not in the <race/sex/life-lived” sense.
If she means it, then you have nothing to worry about when you reply with your option #3.
If she doesn’t mean it, better to find out early while you can still exercise your option #4.
Excellent.
It seems a benign discussion as long as the professor does not edict that only the SJW categories of ‘privilege’…white race, male gender, etc…may be used. It might even be useful for members of groups which the SJWs consider as ‘oppressed’ to think about the ‘privileges’ that they do in fact have (although I agree that the term ‘blessings’ would be better than ‘privileges’)
Agreed. The word “privilege” is loaded (as is the word “fragile” as in “white fragility”). But, the instructor may be trying to navigate within the confines of the current academic mindset. Her explanation does sound as if she’s trying to take to edge off the term as best she can.
Here are a couple of Wikipedia links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country
I went through the exercise of combining both lists into a single spreadsheet (if anyone would like a copy, send me a private message). It turns out that the median household income for every American ethnicity is higher than the median household income in that ethnicity’s home country. For some countries, the gain is modest. For others its astronomical.
Yes, the use of the word “privilege” is what would make this course problematic for me, and the presumptions behind the use and misuse of the word. They say that driving a car is a privilege. Rights you are born with but a privilege is granted by an authority. But being born physically healthy is a privilege? Being able to walk and lift fifty pounds is a privilege? Who granted this privilege? Being born male is a privilege?! Okay, I’ll give you that one.
Remember: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” (T.S. Eliot)
From my experience you should:
Drop the class and find another online course.
Giving a Teacher the benefit of the doubt and hoping for the best after such a clear if subdued political demarcation in the course description never works out. The teacher will punish viciously for your even slight deviation from her opinion.
College is a credential mill where your GPA counts more than your acquired wisdom and knowledge. Boost your GPA at the cost of your learning.
Two thoughts:
How tiresome. Is this struggle session on offer from a college or a psychiatric ward?
I know you would, Zafar. And I’d back you up!
It would be so much fun if 99% of the students in this class wrote a big X across the paper (or a digital crossing out of all the words) and then added:
“Why should you offer us any assignments at all!
“We are sick of your teacher privilege! And it scares us when you use authority granted by your teacher privilege to have the gall to offer us 1% extra credit or to even think of grading us.
“Also we are forming a committee to look into ways that your salary, which comes to you via your teacher privilege, could stop coming to you. Instead the salary monies could be distributed equally among the students you teach. That way we can spend all our time engaged in peaceful protests, rather than wasting our lives dealing with know-it-alls like you!”
While #1 is wisest it sounds like this won’t be the only test of your analytical approach and its likely conflict with the instructor, so you may need any point you can get. Taking “no right answers” at face value would be foolish. Word salad is dangerous unless you know the instructor’s own preferred set of word salad and probable arguments to support it if challenged. Reframing “privilege” to your own thinking and away from “woke” is the most intellectually honest and insightful, and would be the right answer if “no rights answers” was truly an honest statement. But with the “woke” that is a perilous course. Dropping is the best strategy if you aren’t just substituting one “woke” trap for another.
One strategy for discussing your own philosophy of privilege is to attack it as a query. That is, something like “Privilege is an important but confusing concept. Is…privilege? Is … privilege? Can someone who does not … be privileged? Is privilege simply a way of …?” Outlining important analytical issues for defining privilege and applying it to human interaction demonstrates thought and perception. If you outline honest concerns about how the phenomena is to be described and applied to policies in employment, education, and interpersonal relationships, you could be accepted at face value as a “seeker” whom the instructor can instruct. That does not put you in opposition to the instructor and make him/her defensive. Yes, its a metrosexual move but it might be the best strategy if you need the extra credit and dropping the class doesn’t just leave you with better options.
Despite how benign this instructor’s parameters sound, I’d take her up on the opportunity to skip the assignment, or maybe just do the exercise honestly with yourself for the value that reflection might possibly have.
I’d avoid posting, though. Posting just presents a target to be aimed at by others, whose diatribes against the least woke respondents will be for them like “counting coup” in their never-ending struggle against normal people.
My two cents.
The whole “privilege” narrative is poisonous in that it implies that certain demographics are inherently bad at stuff. For example, “male privilege” implies that men are better than women, and so any woman who believes it in, must also believe that women are inherently inferior.
So to turn this on your accusers, you may innocently ask why they believe they are lesser people, while you believe they have equal value and worth. You, it turns out, believe in equality, whereas they believe that some races and sexes are better than others.
I think composing a gratitude-based introduction would be a positive way of getting (what I think is) your message across.