Privilege from the inside. Part 2 of a multi-part series.

Part 2

In which Darrin is told that everything that is wrong with the world is his fault and how he reacts.

I was 17 when I first learned that all the problems in the world, or at least in the US, were my fault. This was something of a shock to me since, like most people, I had always thought that I was a pretty decent guy. Sure, I'm a little grouchy, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad person, right?

I went to a very small, very liberal, Liberal Arts college and during my first year there I started hearing "Oh wow, you grew up a white guy in America. It must have been so awesomely easy being you."
Now please note that I said I started hearing that, I did not say that anyone was actually saying that. In fact looking back I'm fairly sure that no one ever said anything even remotely resembling that. In retrospect I think what people were actually saying was more along the lines of

The socio-economic structure of this country strongly favors white people and men and belonging to both demographics you were the beneficiary of advantages you probably weren’t even aware of.

No, my fellow 17-22(ish) year old students were probably not being that delicate or phrasing it that carefully. But I also don’t think most (if any) of them were saying “Everything you have comes from the sweat and blood of slaves and the oppression of women and that blood is on your hands.”

30+ years is a long time to try to think back and reconstruct months of cafeteria, classroom and dorm room conversations so it’s hard for me to remember the exact words that translated that way in my mind. I know that as a 17 year old I felt like I was being blamed for things I was pretty sure I hadn’t done. I know that I was very aware of the presence on campus of support or interest groups for almost every minority demographic imaginable. (Again this is a perception thing. I didn’t have much imagination and I’m sure there were many demographics not represented).

Even now, more than 30 years later, I’m still trying to understand why this stood out so strongly to me. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted a place or a group that was exclusive to my race, gender, sexual identity, religion, eye color or shoe size. It also wasn’t that I particularly wanted to be allowed to join any of the specific organizations on campus. I just didn’t understand why these groups felt the need to say “this group of people is OK and can be part of us and no one else can.” I think in my mind I translated this as “Everyone needs and deserves support except you.”

I should also be clear that not all of the support and interest groups were necessarily on good terms with each other. There was a certain amount of disagreement about who was the most oppressed or the most marginalized or the most under-served. There were also support groups who felt that their demographic had been treated poorly by other minority groups. The thing they all agreed on was that the primary source of their oppression was the white male hierarchy. As such no straight white men, no matter how well intentioned they might consider themselves, were to be trusted or included. 

Generally speaking Antioch was not the kind of place that attracted people who were outspokenly racist, misogynist or homophobic. I think most of the men there at the time would have considered themselves to be open minded, and supportive of people of all races, genders and gender identities. I certainly believed that I was fair minded and that my background in theater and close interaction with the LGBTQ community before coming to school entitled me to at least the benefit of the doubt that I might not be one of the bad guys.

As I learned over time that type of credibility and trust has to be re-earned every time you encounter new people who have no reason to trust you and every reason to mistrust you. I certainly didn’t understand or appreciate the irony of feeling like it wasn’t fair that I had to overcome stereotypes and assumptions made about me because of how I looked or who my ancestors were.
“You don’t know me. You don’t know where I come from. You don’t know what I’ve had to overcome.”
Sound familiar? How about this?
“I may be white, but that doesn’t mean my family was rich. I’ll compare ‘we was so broke’ stories with anyone.”

I had grown up believing that slavery was one of the greatest evils in the history of our country, but I was not a slave owner. I was not descended from slave owners. Most of my family had not even come to this country pre-civil war. How then could it possibly be my fault? (Teaser: This will be answered in a future post)
I understood that there were men who were disrespectful or abusive of women, but I did not feel like I deserved to be counted among them. For any given period in my life I had personally known women who were better than me at pretty much everything I had ever done and I respected them for it. (It was only much later that I learned that my exposure to strong female role models growing up was itself a privilege.)
You can’t imagine my disgust realizing that the things I was saying then sound a whole lot like the excuses coming out of the old, white guys in congress now. There are limits to what young and stupid excuses.

All I knew then was that hearing (or believing I was hearing) that white men were responsible for all the ills in the world and that I as a white man shared that responsibility left me feeling defensive, confused and more than a little bit hurt.

To Be Continued...

privilege

[priv-uh-lij, priv-lij]

noun

1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most:
2. a special right, immunity, or exemption granted to persons in authority or office to free them from certain obligations or liabilities:
3. a grant to an individual, corporation, etc., of a special right or immunity, under certain conditions.
4. the principle or condition of enjoying special rights or immunities.