"Don't get me wrong I love having a 401k but there are times I dream of being in a less privileged class. "
--- You can't be serious. Which less privileged class, exactly? What income bracket? How low would you be willing to go?
" And yet perhaps that is just my privilege showing? "
--- It is.
"So many of the "privileged" treat their siblings like cousins while the less fortunate treat their cousins like siblings. "
--- This is romanticization, exotification, idealization. It's like poverty porn.
Are you in a position to sponsor and mentor someone from a lower class than yourself? Like pay for a working class woman's phone bill for the next 6 months to a year, for example, or something practical? If so, please do.
I'm fascinated by several things in this article but most importantly I had a thought that just because other people are miserable, doesnt mean I have to be. (This was unrelated to politics).
In a group text I said that after seeing Civil War, I was in my end times feels (I quite liked the movie) and someone responded that since they watch the news, they're always in their end times feels and I was angry/irritated when I saw that. Like, stop watching the news then?!?
I'm fascinated by your rejection of the racial construct of brown; I've never referred to people as "brown" since I find it as a way to racialize people who are white (latinos) or include people in a racial discourse that strikes me as being fundamentally about Black and white people. I also feel that the concept of "brown" props up anti Blackness from Asians in particular (but from non Blacks in general) as different groups of people fight about who experiences what kinds of racial violence (hence the new found fixation on Japaness internment - it has nothing to do with Asians, it's just proof of whites eternal racism that whites feel performatively bad about).
Also, I think antagonism towards whites is most prolific for Black people than others in large part due to ongoing white racism but also the insular nature of being Black (we are the least likely group to date outside our race, there are Black women whom dont want to date white men. Issa Rae made that comedy about dating an Indian guy I think in response to Black women on Twitter wanting to be depicted dating Asians, instead of white people, though this pairing is only nominally visible in romance fiction. And it's funny because in that movie they're in the process of breaking up, so there's no physical intimacy. But in her love drama film, her interest was Black).
Anyway, sorry to leave an essay. I'm just trying to understand how much racial politic is created by college educated Black people that is then co-opted by others vs pushed by Black people in response to our dislike/distrust of white people and how that's influenced other groups who want to "support" upper middle class/college educated Black people online.
"the insular nature of being Black, we are the least likely group to date outside our race"
Aren't Black MEN the most likely in the United States to date outside their race, while Black WOMEN, the least likely? At any rate, Black men have certainly been much, much, much more likely to date outside their race than Black women have been, but that gap is quickly closing according to the latest surveys as reported by The Pink Pill C. Karazin; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBrwSFhmA5o
Thank you for sharing this; I've been behind on responding. I wanted to write something longer for this.
"just because other people are miserable, doesnt mean I have to be"
I think woke women in particular want everyone to be miserable, and that's women of all backgrounds. Indians, black women, white women, and the thing I think they share is class status.
I've long thought that the race problem is between black and white people and we're all caught up in it, even though immigrants and their kids don't fit into that paradigm (Kang's book is good reading for this). I think, however, that East and South Asians play up their victimhood to get attention from white institutions. It's performative trauma by the Asian PMC.
I hear you about anti-blackness, but I don't think anything can be done to change the minds of immigrants. I do think their kids are doing better, and we should encourage each other to change.
Indians are similarly insular and value endogamy. I've gotten crap from Indian Americans and black folks about being with a white guy, which I chafe at. I've been attracted to men of all backgrounds, and even if I wasn't, it's possible women find men attractive with whom they share interests, and it has nothing to do with race. My interests just happen to be overrepresented among white men, which should be ok. I have an essay brewing on interracial relationships and how we seem to be conservative about them again, in that we are suspicious of people's motivations for being in them, which is problematic. I had not heard the thing about black women and asians, which is fascinating because black women are over sexualized and asian men are considered the least sexual, but it makes sense as a subversion. But these things shouldn't factor into who we end up with. Social justice doesn't have to determine everything about our lives, especially partners.
I think also the black middle class who are creatives advance white liberal ideas and it strikes me as kind of ridiculous. They pretend that black people haven't done better and that there isn't a black middle class. I think, perhaps controversially, that police killings should not be the thing we focus on so heavily; it takes attention away from economic inequality and the relative lack of purchasing power held by blacks. But curious what you think. I'm willing to be wrong.
"Not much discussed is the fact that one must have disposable income even to access psychiatry and therapy, so even mental health care is only available to the well-off. In this vein, I’d have to say that I’m privileged for accessing the care even though it’s a right."
--- Mental health care is a right?!
" This confessional, self-effacing posture is a classed norm to which women particularly are expected to adhere."
--- I don't agree women are "particularly" expected to adhere to this. How do you figure? Where exactly? In which places and circles are men exempted from acknowledging their privelege?
As far as the desi demographic as white adjacent thing, here in USA they are. We don't have the large populations of working class Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants that the UK has. USA immigration law simply doesn't allow for that.
Don't get me started on anti-black racism in the desi community.
"Imagine speaking to a working-class woman and acknowledging your privilege of not having to worry about paying bills. People from different economic classes don’t interact much, but if they did, your interlocutor would think you downright cruel for so blatantly stating that you can live without worry while she works multiple jobs. "
--- Why stop at acknowledging? Why not offer to pay the working class woman's phone bill or better yet, rent, for the next 6 months?
I see acknowledging privilge as really expressing gratitude. After a quick acknowledgement though, something needs to be done, like actually putting money in the hands of those who need it.
I also see gratitude as a more useful form of privilege. It touches on something I wrote about last week: complaining about the rich often comes from a place of resentment and status envy whereas people focused on helping the poor are mindful of their relative privilege compared to those who have less.
I suppose if complaining about a specific rich person that one knows personally can possibly sometimes come from a place of resentment and status envy, particularly if one is status conscious (disgusting), however most of the "complaints" are not about particular individuals known personally but rather about an economic system that allows for billionaires on the same planet as deprived children (also disgusting).
I wanted to but this essay was too unwieldy to add it to, already almost max length. I have something half written arguing for that, specifically deconstructing the way desis classify ourselves in the west and the diff between those of us raised here and not. I plan to weave together Jay Kaspian Kang’s book on Asians in America and Coleman Hughes’s book. Any other things I should explore on this topic?
Someone brought chicken nuggets to a party!? That's dope. I want that person to be my friend.
There is much here, once again, that I relate to. Especially: [They] "might realize that race politics is a veneer for the managerial class’s efforts to transfer wealth ever upward to benefit the top echelon whom they hope to one day join."
It's so hard to know someone's true motives. When I think about my former colleagues, I think they (like me) truly wanted more equal outcomes among racial groups (while acknowledging that race is a construct) and also wanted the status and repetitional benefits that come with racial justice signaling.
I suppose I'm conflicted about whether it's good or bad that virtue signaling for justice/equality confers status. Don't we want a positive incentive for equality and addressing past harms? But like you, I bristle when the signaling seems mostly cosmetic for their own self-advancement.
Finally, I'm curious about the audience you had in mind when you wrote this. My guess is that it was a cathartic open letter to colleagues in the professional class who wear their wokeness on their sleeves but do little to address exploitation in real life. Whoever your intended audience, how are you hoping that they change after reading this?
Thanks for asking these questions. First, the audience thing. Part of it is for my own release; it is the healthiest outlet I have for the anger I still hold about all the self-censorship and broken friendships as a result of unhealthy disagreement. The actual audience I think I'm addressing is those people who keep their mouths shut. I want to help arm people with arguments, and I think my having been an insider, as it were, gives me some perspective that, say, a white man who was never an insider might have. But mostly, I want to encourage people who avoid the fight to have it. I want women's assumptions, especially, questioned, because everyone is too afraid to do it. I am fairly certain no one who should be reading the actual arguments to reconsider their position would read my writing. Having been one of them, it takes a catalyzing event to go digging for counterarguments to your ardently held beliefs, like it would be for any religious person who was a member of a cult. I don't exaggerate, because I grew up in one, too.
As for signaling commitment to justice. I suppose I'm being rather strict about my idea of virtue, because if you're doing it for social status accrual, it can't be virtuous at all. Such an action would have to be undertaken because it's the right thing to do. Not quite the categorical imperative, but that there is a dharma to follow in all our social roles. One applicable to all is to do the right action without attachment to its fruits.
I think your colleagues can be both well-intentioned and blind to how they're contributing to perpetuating the problems they want to solve. In reading Meditations, I learned to remind myself that no one does the evil thing purposely, they're merely ignorant, so why get angry? I intellectually understand this but I still find it difficult to accept. So, I think you're right about not knowing motives, and they do matter. I wouldn't even care if all they did was feel good about themselves. But it's that they're imposing their will on others like evangelists do.
I’d be interested in reading your experience growing up in a cult. There is now so much cult-like behavior — even just in internet fandom and conspiratorial thinking.
I’m working on that one right now. Starting with the Hare Krishnas. I didn’t realize it until I started writing but it’s been from Hare Krishnas to academia to social justice…nothing but a series of cults :-D
Thank you for writing this. I currently live in a very progressive US city and am part of an online mums group where privilege needs to be mentioned before a lot of posts about . .well really anything. One person posted a Content Warning about privilege because she liked her wealthy cousin's expensive coffee machine and wanted to make no one was offended by it. When this trend first started several years ago, I went along with it because I don't like to make waves and at the time it sort of seemed to make sense (I am not American - moved here in my 20's). But in the past 18 months it has become pervasive in everyday interactions to the point that I need to write and re-edit anything I post as I am worried it will be somehow wrong.
I read your previous essay about "Why Read The Musings of A Former Critical Social Justice Adherent" and I wanted to jump in the air and shout, Huzzah! because everything you wrote about there I can very much relate to and yet cannot discuss with many people. I have felt very weird about a lot of these issues for awhile and appreciate you putting that into words.
Thank you so much for reading this very long essay! I am honestly shocked that it's so intense but I guess i shouldn't be. I don't understand the thing about the coffee machine, but I guess if the goal is to always protect against offending anyone, then we might as well say nothing. Honestly part of the reason I write is to give people like you fodder to actually push back, and would encourage you to. We can't change the culture if we self-censor, though I also did the same for a very long time. Self-censorship means people think the opinion is in x place when it's really in y place if people who disagreed spoke up. I'm so glad you could relate to my reasons :). If you have any ideas for the future, glad to take them.
The thing that I find the most “triggering” about privilege checking is that included in what we are calling privilege are things which we want for all people. Equal protection under the law, access to healthcare, access to education, a clean environment for our children …etc. Calling these privileges makes them seem like frivolities…like a rich person who only wants the highest quality of pastries! We who are lucky enough to have the things that all mankind need should count our blessings, try to do what we can to help extend access to others, but also be happy to the extent we can. It doesn’t make someone living in hardship any better off to know that if good fortune should come their way that then they would be obligated to live in guilt fueled misery.
"Don't get me wrong I love having a 401k but there are times I dream of being in a less privileged class. "
--- You can't be serious. Which less privileged class, exactly? What income bracket? How low would you be willing to go?
" And yet perhaps that is just my privilege showing? "
--- It is.
"So many of the "privileged" treat their siblings like cousins while the less fortunate treat their cousins like siblings. "
--- This is romanticization, exotification, idealization. It's like poverty porn.
Are you in a position to sponsor and mentor someone from a lower class than yourself? Like pay for a working class woman's phone bill for the next 6 months to a year, for example, or something practical? If so, please do.
I'm fascinated by several things in this article but most importantly I had a thought that just because other people are miserable, doesnt mean I have to be. (This was unrelated to politics).
In a group text I said that after seeing Civil War, I was in my end times feels (I quite liked the movie) and someone responded that since they watch the news, they're always in their end times feels and I was angry/irritated when I saw that. Like, stop watching the news then?!?
I'm fascinated by your rejection of the racial construct of brown; I've never referred to people as "brown" since I find it as a way to racialize people who are white (latinos) or include people in a racial discourse that strikes me as being fundamentally about Black and white people. I also feel that the concept of "brown" props up anti Blackness from Asians in particular (but from non Blacks in general) as different groups of people fight about who experiences what kinds of racial violence (hence the new found fixation on Japaness internment - it has nothing to do with Asians, it's just proof of whites eternal racism that whites feel performatively bad about).
Also, I think antagonism towards whites is most prolific for Black people than others in large part due to ongoing white racism but also the insular nature of being Black (we are the least likely group to date outside our race, there are Black women whom dont want to date white men. Issa Rae made that comedy about dating an Indian guy I think in response to Black women on Twitter wanting to be depicted dating Asians, instead of white people, though this pairing is only nominally visible in romance fiction. And it's funny because in that movie they're in the process of breaking up, so there's no physical intimacy. But in her love drama film, her interest was Black).
Anyway, sorry to leave an essay. I'm just trying to understand how much racial politic is created by college educated Black people that is then co-opted by others vs pushed by Black people in response to our dislike/distrust of white people and how that's influenced other groups who want to "support" upper middle class/college educated Black people online.
"the insular nature of being Black, we are the least likely group to date outside our race"
Aren't Black MEN the most likely in the United States to date outside their race, while Black WOMEN, the least likely? At any rate, Black men have certainly been much, much, much more likely to date outside their race than Black women have been, but that gap is quickly closing according to the latest surveys as reported by The Pink Pill C. Karazin; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBrwSFhmA5o
Thank you for sharing this; I've been behind on responding. I wanted to write something longer for this.
"just because other people are miserable, doesnt mean I have to be"
I think woke women in particular want everyone to be miserable, and that's women of all backgrounds. Indians, black women, white women, and the thing I think they share is class status.
I've long thought that the race problem is between black and white people and we're all caught up in it, even though immigrants and their kids don't fit into that paradigm (Kang's book is good reading for this). I think, however, that East and South Asians play up their victimhood to get attention from white institutions. It's performative trauma by the Asian PMC.
I hear you about anti-blackness, but I don't think anything can be done to change the minds of immigrants. I do think their kids are doing better, and we should encourage each other to change.
Indians are similarly insular and value endogamy. I've gotten crap from Indian Americans and black folks about being with a white guy, which I chafe at. I've been attracted to men of all backgrounds, and even if I wasn't, it's possible women find men attractive with whom they share interests, and it has nothing to do with race. My interests just happen to be overrepresented among white men, which should be ok. I have an essay brewing on interracial relationships and how we seem to be conservative about them again, in that we are suspicious of people's motivations for being in them, which is problematic. I had not heard the thing about black women and asians, which is fascinating because black women are over sexualized and asian men are considered the least sexual, but it makes sense as a subversion. But these things shouldn't factor into who we end up with. Social justice doesn't have to determine everything about our lives, especially partners.
I think also the black middle class who are creatives advance white liberal ideas and it strikes me as kind of ridiculous. They pretend that black people haven't done better and that there isn't a black middle class. I think, perhaps controversially, that police killings should not be the thing we focus on so heavily; it takes attention away from economic inequality and the relative lack of purchasing power held by blacks. But curious what you think. I'm willing to be wrong.
"Not much discussed is the fact that one must have disposable income even to access psychiatry and therapy, so even mental health care is only available to the well-off. In this vein, I’d have to say that I’m privileged for accessing the care even though it’s a right."
--- Mental health care is a right?!
" This confessional, self-effacing posture is a classed norm to which women particularly are expected to adhere."
--- I don't agree women are "particularly" expected to adhere to this. How do you figure? Where exactly? In which places and circles are men exempted from acknowledging their privelege?
As far as the desi demographic as white adjacent thing, here in USA they are. We don't have the large populations of working class Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants that the UK has. USA immigration law simply doesn't allow for that.
Don't get me started on anti-black racism in the desi community.
"Imagine speaking to a working-class woman and acknowledging your privilege of not having to worry about paying bills. People from different economic classes don’t interact much, but if they did, your interlocutor would think you downright cruel for so blatantly stating that you can live without worry while she works multiple jobs. "
--- Why stop at acknowledging? Why not offer to pay the working class woman's phone bill or better yet, rent, for the next 6 months?
I see acknowledging privilge as really expressing gratitude. After a quick acknowledgement though, something needs to be done, like actually putting money in the hands of those who need it.
I also see gratitude as a more useful form of privilege. It touches on something I wrote about last week: complaining about the rich often comes from a place of resentment and status envy whereas people focused on helping the poor are mindful of their relative privilege compared to those who have less.
I suppose if complaining about a specific rich person that one knows personally can possibly sometimes come from a place of resentment and status envy, particularly if one is status conscious (disgusting), however most of the "complaints" are not about particular individuals known personally but rather about an economic system that allows for billionaires on the same planet as deprived children (also disgusting).
Why aren't you arguing for color blindness?
I wanted to but this essay was too unwieldy to add it to, already almost max length. I have something half written arguing for that, specifically deconstructing the way desis classify ourselves in the west and the diff between those of us raised here and not. I plan to weave together Jay Kaspian Kang’s book on Asians in America and Coleman Hughes’s book. Any other things I should explore on this topic?
Coleman Hughes is good.
Privilege (as the word is currently used) is a muddled, incoherent, hypocritical concept. Great essay!
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/privilege-and-its-lack?r=1neg52
Someone brought chicken nuggets to a party!? That's dope. I want that person to be my friend.
There is much here, once again, that I relate to. Especially: [They] "might realize that race politics is a veneer for the managerial class’s efforts to transfer wealth ever upward to benefit the top echelon whom they hope to one day join."
It's so hard to know someone's true motives. When I think about my former colleagues, I think they (like me) truly wanted more equal outcomes among racial groups (while acknowledging that race is a construct) and also wanted the status and repetitional benefits that come with racial justice signaling.
I suppose I'm conflicted about whether it's good or bad that virtue signaling for justice/equality confers status. Don't we want a positive incentive for equality and addressing past harms? But like you, I bristle when the signaling seems mostly cosmetic for their own self-advancement.
Finally, I'm curious about the audience you had in mind when you wrote this. My guess is that it was a cathartic open letter to colleagues in the professional class who wear their wokeness on their sleeves but do little to address exploitation in real life. Whoever your intended audience, how are you hoping that they change after reading this?
Thanks for asking these questions. First, the audience thing. Part of it is for my own release; it is the healthiest outlet I have for the anger I still hold about all the self-censorship and broken friendships as a result of unhealthy disagreement. The actual audience I think I'm addressing is those people who keep their mouths shut. I want to help arm people with arguments, and I think my having been an insider, as it were, gives me some perspective that, say, a white man who was never an insider might have. But mostly, I want to encourage people who avoid the fight to have it. I want women's assumptions, especially, questioned, because everyone is too afraid to do it. I am fairly certain no one who should be reading the actual arguments to reconsider their position would read my writing. Having been one of them, it takes a catalyzing event to go digging for counterarguments to your ardently held beliefs, like it would be for any religious person who was a member of a cult. I don't exaggerate, because I grew up in one, too.
As for signaling commitment to justice. I suppose I'm being rather strict about my idea of virtue, because if you're doing it for social status accrual, it can't be virtuous at all. Such an action would have to be undertaken because it's the right thing to do. Not quite the categorical imperative, but that there is a dharma to follow in all our social roles. One applicable to all is to do the right action without attachment to its fruits.
I think your colleagues can be both well-intentioned and blind to how they're contributing to perpetuating the problems they want to solve. In reading Meditations, I learned to remind myself that no one does the evil thing purposely, they're merely ignorant, so why get angry? I intellectually understand this but I still find it difficult to accept. So, I think you're right about not knowing motives, and they do matter. I wouldn't even care if all they did was feel good about themselves. But it's that they're imposing their will on others like evangelists do.
I’d be interested in reading your experience growing up in a cult. There is now so much cult-like behavior — even just in internet fandom and conspiratorial thinking.
I’m working on that one right now. Starting with the Hare Krishnas. I didn’t realize it until I started writing but it’s been from Hare Krishnas to academia to social justice…nothing but a series of cults :-D
Thank you for writing this. I currently live in a very progressive US city and am part of an online mums group where privilege needs to be mentioned before a lot of posts about . .well really anything. One person posted a Content Warning about privilege because she liked her wealthy cousin's expensive coffee machine and wanted to make no one was offended by it. When this trend first started several years ago, I went along with it because I don't like to make waves and at the time it sort of seemed to make sense (I am not American - moved here in my 20's). But in the past 18 months it has become pervasive in everyday interactions to the point that I need to write and re-edit anything I post as I am worried it will be somehow wrong.
I read your previous essay about "Why Read The Musings of A Former Critical Social Justice Adherent" and I wanted to jump in the air and shout, Huzzah! because everything you wrote about there I can very much relate to and yet cannot discuss with many people. I have felt very weird about a lot of these issues for awhile and appreciate you putting that into words.
Thank you so much for reading this very long essay! I am honestly shocked that it's so intense but I guess i shouldn't be. I don't understand the thing about the coffee machine, but I guess if the goal is to always protect against offending anyone, then we might as well say nothing. Honestly part of the reason I write is to give people like you fodder to actually push back, and would encourage you to. We can't change the culture if we self-censor, though I also did the same for a very long time. Self-censorship means people think the opinion is in x place when it's really in y place if people who disagreed spoke up. I'm so glad you could relate to my reasons :). If you have any ideas for the future, glad to take them.
The thing that I find the most “triggering” about privilege checking is that included in what we are calling privilege are things which we want for all people. Equal protection under the law, access to healthcare, access to education, a clean environment for our children …etc. Calling these privileges makes them seem like frivolities…like a rich person who only wants the highest quality of pastries! We who are lucky enough to have the things that all mankind need should count our blessings, try to do what we can to help extend access to others, but also be happy to the extent we can. It doesn’t make someone living in hardship any better off to know that if good fortune should come their way that then they would be obligated to live in guilt fueled misery.