Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Baseline vs. Privilege

This essay neatly pinpoints something that has always bothered me: "white privilege" isn't about privilege.  It's about a baseline.  Being white means that most of the time, people treat you decently and don't go out of their way to ruin your life.  That isn't an extra-special perk; it's the way everyone should be treated.  The fact that many people are discriminated against doesn't change that, it just means society unreasonably lowers its standards of treatment for some people. 

Conversely, consider all the allegations that queer people want "special privileges."  No, they don't.  They just want access to the baseline: ordinary things like getting married, adopting a child, being able to visit someone in the hospital, filing a joint tax return.  Now if they said, "Queer people should get first choice of  children available for adoption, THAT would be a privilege.

A healthy society has a pretty smooth functionality most of the time.  Its members are able to carry out ordinary activities without interference.  Following the rules will lead to success for most people, and it's an option open to everyone.  Failing out of a healthy society requires a lot of dedicated screwing up and refusing the helpful options available; you can still do it, but not many people do.  And because most people's needs are pretty well met, there is a lot less incentive to stomp down other people in attempt to prop yourself up.

America doesn't have a healthy society.  Our baseline is ... fishnet.  If you're a straight white educated employed Christian man, you can generally get through life without people trying to screw you over because they find some aspect of your life displeasing.  If you're queer, a person of color, don't have a college degree, can't get a job, follow some other (or no) religion, are other than male, are very young or old, are unconventional in some way -- then society frequently considers it okay to deprive you of basic courtesies, interfere with your happiness and/or survival, infringe on your rights, ruin your life, and then blame you for the mess that results.  That's stupid and destructive and it needs to stop.  It's not just about this group or that group.  It's not about privileges or special snowflakes.

It is about treating every human being with respect and providing everyone a chance to make meaningful contributions in exchange for getting their basic needs (and preferably some of their desires) met.  That's the baseline.  Be decent to each other.  Get the job done.   
Tags: community, discussion, ethnic studies
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  • 32 comments
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ysabetwordsmith

Well...

ysabetwordsmith

July 29 2010, 18:03:49 UTC 10 years ago

Historically, there have been. Some tribal cultures are quite healthy, though not all of them are or have been, and nothing is perfect. The group is small enough for the social bonds to be tight, and the divergence between more and less privileged members tends to be narrower. A village can work similarly for similar reasons. It's when we start building cities that we run into trouble; we've only been doing that for a few thousand years and we haven't really figured out how to manage the tension on that many lines all at once. Nations are even more of a challenge. Some of the larger entities are closer to being healthy than others, so we have some idea what works and what doesn't. But yeah, we're a long way from combining the knowledge and volition to make a fully healthy society on a large scale.

I'm very fond of the description in Teller -- "a place where it's easy to live a happy life."
houseboatonstyx

Re: Well...

houseboatonstyx

August 1 2010, 05:52:10 UTC 10 years ago

Istr hearing about some third world immigrants who were living legally in the US -- and were shocked to find homeless people here. In their societies, everything was primitive by US standards, but no one was left homeless, abandoned by society.