Because anti-oppression efforts cannot be effective unless we all have a shared understanding of what is being discussed, the current definition will be provided to deepen our practice healing and repair.
What is Privilege?
The definition of privilege, as used in critical race theory and anti-oppression work, was coined in 1988 by a women’s-studies scholar at Wellesley by the name of Peggy McIntosh.
McIntosh defined the term ‘privilege’ as:
unearned advantage (based upon race, class, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or ability) which can be observed both systemically and individually.
McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, Center for Research on Women, 1988. Print.
Although McIntosh originally used the term to describe implicit bias and advantages given on the basis of race and gender (particularly whiteness and maleness), systems of privilege exist across numerous demographic categories:
Image adapted from: Wenh-In Ng’s “A Tool for Everyone: Revelations from the “Power Flower.”
For example, income based privilege affords social, political, and economic advantages to those who have a higher income or concentration of wealth than it does to someone from a low-to-moderate income background. In fact, those living in poverty have higher rates of death and illness, are more likely to remain in poverty, and have poor access to social determinants of health like quality schools, jobs, food, transportation, neighborhood amentities, etc.
Why is it important to understand our privilege?
There are a lot of important answers to this question. For the purposes of this post, we’re going to use adaptations from Michelle Cassandra Johnson’s anti-oppression manual, “Skill in Action | Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World.”
“We live in a culture that affirms privilege, dominant culture, and supremacy. Most people in the privileged group have no awareness of their capacity to move in space freely because of how privilege operates in culture. Privilege is constructed for social and political reasons. It has changed over time based upon the goals of supremacy, divide and conquer. Privileged attributes give privileged people a pass.
A lack of awareness on the privileged person’s part about their privilege within a cultural context, allows for them to be willfully ignorant and to have the privilege of being resistant to the idea that they are in a system that erroneously teaches them that they are on a level playing field with those who aren’t afforded access to the same privileges.
Privilege derails work toward liberation and justice because people who experience privilege can stay in a space of being defensive while people without access to those advantages are struggling to survive and to respond toward a system that is designed to annihilate them.” ~ Michelle C. Johnson Paraphrased
Johnson’s work explicitly describes the role of ‘whiteness’ as a construct which strips communities of color of their capacity to:
- define their own reality (due to the influence of dominant narratives)
- play on a level playing field (as often groups without access to resources rarely start at the same place as someone born to advantages or even know/ have access to the rules of the game)
- encounter messages that don’t instill myths of inferiority or that they aren’t worthy of investment and care
- receive a fair opportunity to secure living wage jobs, bank loans, quality education, healthy housing and amenities, etc.
- visibility
- credibility
- perception of worth
But the concepts can apply to a myriad of other categories in which privilege has created individual and systemic harm.
Including faith tradition, biological sex, level of educational attainment, whether or not you have a disability, speak English as a first language, sexual orientation, age, gender identity, and citizenship status.
Johnson uses the topic of privilege in her book to deepen the discussion around healing and repairing historical harm to encourage us to mindfully consider which identities we possess and how we are either afforded privileges or may be targeted because of those identities.
Guided Activity
How does privilege or oppression show up?
For example:
Identities |
|
| Black | Targeted by historical trauma, past & current policies/ institutional practices that limit access to resources, implicit biases, etc. |
| Woman | Targeted by historical trauma, past & current policies/ institutional practices that limit access to reproductive rights, wage parity, etc. |
| College graduate | Experience privilege in form of access to better paying jobs and a livable wage than someone without a degree. |
To learn more about Johnson’s efforts to help those who have benefitted from and been harmed by privilege heal, check out her Insta:
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theneurotrust.wordpress.com 