The Glamorous Guide To Understanding Privilege

In today's internet age, one word keeps haunting the nightmares of everyone on the planet, privilege. This word seems to haunt some people more than others, and I am here to offer some insight into understanding this word. Hopefully at the end of this post you will be able to better understand privilege as well as educate your friends on this important word.

Google defines privilege as "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people." On the internet it is often determined that there are privileges that help you more than others, but in my opinion:

Everyone Has A Little Privilege

I know, that's insane to think right? Think about it though. There are certain privileges that various people have. There is the privileges like skin color, but there are also privileges in your gender, gender identity, sexual preference, age, able bodied-ness, wealth, etc. Each privilege carries a certain weight to it. So yes, not all white people have the privileges assigned to a rich, white, young, able bodied, straight cisgendered man but there is privilege in being white. There is also privilege in being straight, cisgendered, male, rich, young, able-bodied. Most people would have one or two of these privileges, but they don't always have all of them.

Today's Word Of The Day Is Intersectionality

I think an important word when we think of privilege and oppression is the word intersectionality. Each of these various oppressions or privileges compound upon each other. So being a black male and a black female carry different privileges and oppressions based on how gender and race interact and intersect with each other. 

So you have a better idea of what intersectionality means, Google defines it as, "the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage."

This is so important to understand because just as privilege builds, so does oppression. I feel like privilege and oppression are two sides of the same coin and that they both must be studied.

Stop Comparing

So, some oppressions may or may not be harder to live with. I am going to quote Patricia Hill Collins. Hill Collins is an amazing sociologist and the author of Black Feminist Thought. She states 

Adhering to a stance of comparing and ranking oppressions-the proverbial, "I'm more oppressed than you"-locks us all into a dangerous dance of competing for attention, resources, and theoretical supremacy.

This is a short quote from her piece Toward A New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories Of Analysis and Connection.

I feel that Hill Collins definitely has a point. Privilege and in turn the oppression has an affect on everyone. If we want long term change we have to stop trying to be the most oppressed and work together to create viable solutions for dealing with oppression.

Doing this won't be an easy tasks. We have to start actually working together despite our oppressions to get things done.

Want some extra resources? I adore this video by Franchesca Ramsey with MTV's Decoded:

Beware of the Expert

Often times as students we get so caught up in an article that we are reading that we forget to critically examine the content of the article. When I first started reading sociological articles I would often take what they say at face value because the articles have been peer reviewed. One lesson I learned this semester is that being critical is important--and most of all that is how the field of sociology grows.

Most Fields Of Study Have Been Around For A Long Time

One of the most important things to realize about any field is that most fields of study have been around for a very long time. Some of them include all sorts of biases like bias against certain races, classes, and genders. The article may be very valid, you may just have to dig through a little bit of racist rhetoric every once and a while. This is a sign of the mass amount of change we have over the years. It's crazy the sheer amount of amazing things we have done in just the last 100 years as far as bias is concerned.

Studies Are Peer-Reviewed, But Sometimes That's Not Enough

Just because a study is peer-reviewed, doesn't mean that bias won't rear it's ugly head within the articles you read for class! As I stated in point one, these fields of study have been around for a very long time. When the study was published, other people probably felt the same exact way as the author, and therefore didn't feel the need to point out these mistakes and biases. 

If You See Bias, Definitely Call It Out

Don't be a sheep when it comes to reading for any class. Critically examine the articles, figure out the implicit and explicit biases the authors may have. Even if they are well known in your field, you are more than likely correct about that bias. Fields of thought don't grow unless a new generation of leaders question the existing leaders. We can learn so much when new people give their perspectives to a discipline. Your voice counts.

The next time you read an article or book for your class I hope that you actually read between the lines. I have been doing way more critical thinking while reading articles. This semester I realized something important.

~I don't have to agree with the sociologists in my field!~

This has been such a freeing revelation. I mean, I always knew I didn't have to agree with every single thing I read. For instance, I am definitely more of a conflict theorist versus a functionalist theorist. For some reason though, I never actually questioned the validity of the statements from sociologists I adored or ones I didn't adore. I figured that the peer review process would take care of that. Honestly, it doesn't always do it though. Sometimes you need someone completely outside of that process to do the job. Don't be afraid to be that person for your field!