{"id":30480,"date":"2016-10-21T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T05:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=30480"},"modified":"2016-10-11T22:58:34","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T02:58:34","slug":"qotd-check-your-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/10\/21\/qotd-check-your-privilege\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Check your<\/em> privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m privileged. We are privileged beyond the dreams of kings and queens of past centuries.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately when they tell you to \u201ccheck your privilege\u201d that\u2019s not what they mean.<\/p>\n

This is a phrase increasingly deployed by people (usually women \u2013 rolls eyes) with an academic background and its meaning is \u2026 liberal squid ink. If you\u2019re telling them that Welfare was a disaster for black families (it was) and that affirmative action not only has been a disaster for many organizations, but corrodes the soul (you never know why you were hired. I have friends in that position) and institutes birth-privilege based on who your ancestors were (aka nobility) they will say \u201ccheck your privilege.\u201d This really doesn\u2019t mean a heck of a lot. It can\u2019t, because they have no idea who you are, or indeed if you have ever received any privilege growing up.<\/p>\n

What it is based on is the idea that our society is so inherently racist\/sexist\/homophobic that just by being straight, white and male someone receives better treatment than someone else who isn\u2019t one or more of those things.<\/p>\n

Like most lunatic ravings of the left, it has a point, except for the \u201cmale\u201d thing.<\/p>\n

Is there some sort of automatic boost you get for being a member of the majority (which women are, despite being accorded minority status.) Of course. You\u2019re a known quantity. Just by virtue of people having interacted with someone like you, you\u2019re going to get \u201chelpful\u201d treatment, even if you are supposedly a minority.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The reason so many academic liberals deploy it as a war cry, though, is because they are mostly academics from \u2013 da \u2013 privileged backgrounds. This sort of \u201cinsult\u201d is the worst they\u2019ve ever suffered. They\u2019ve never been low man on the totem pole with sh*t flowing downhill for things you couldn\u2019t even vaguely control.<\/p>\n

So they imagine these casual slights are the worst thing ever.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of like kids who always got all the candy they wanted, feeling crushed because you said \u201cno chocolate before breakfast.\u201d It\u2019s the worst thing ever, because it\u2019s the worst they\u2019ve ever experienced.<\/p>\n

They also find it useful to shut up opponents because well\u2026 if they say it, any normal rational people thinks of my opening to this post. They think \u201cWell, I am unusually blessed, maybe\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t. Just don\u2019t. Most of the people who use \u201ccheck your privilege\u201d could buy you and sell you outright. The real \u201cdowntrodden\u201d battling to get to the top will often have the same reaction YOU have.<\/p>\n

The point is, we\u2019re all equal under the law. Human discrimination is not something you can stop, but it\u2019s also not something that is triggered to the Marxist categories of race, orientation or even class. It\u2019s usually more subtle. I might discriminate against someone because something about him bothers me: accent, gestures, something. I might not even know why. It might be unjust.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just a result of humans not being perfect. No human society can get rid of it. Giving people the power to point and cry privilege to shut others up will just privilege a bunch of academics and bureaucrats who will use it to their advantage.<\/p>\n

When told to check your privilege, I suggest you answer \u201cit\u2019s fine, thank you. How about yours? A bit overlarge, no?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah A. Hoyt, “Squid Ink”, According to Hoyt<\/em><\/a>, 2015-02-10.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m privileged. We are privileged beyond the dreams of kings and queens of past centuries. Unfortunately when they tell you to \u201ccheck your privilege\u201d that\u2019s not what they mean. This is a phrase increasingly deployed by people (usually women \u2013 rolls eyes) with an academic background and its meaning is \u2026 liberal squid ink. If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,41,13],"tags":[987,99,303,997],"class_list":["post-30480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-feminism","tag-racism","tag-sexism","tag-socialjustice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7VC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30483,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30480\/revisions\/30483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}