Blessings and Privileges

I hate the phrase "Check Your Privilege." It's right up there with "Negative Nancy" on my list of phrases that should be eradicated from the English language. I've felt this way since I first saw it, probably on some social justice warrior's tumblr. (Have I mentioned that I really dislike some parts of the tumblrverse?) I think that "Check Your Privilege" is dismissive, divisive, and derisive. It makes people feel bad about being fortunate. Rather than open a conversation about privilege and society, it puts people on the defensive.

You know what I hate more than the phrase "Check Your Privilege?" This guy's whiny little editorial about how he hates when people tell him to check his privilege. Tal Fortgang is a Princeton freshman from a wealthy family in New Rochelle, NY, but he doesn't think he's privileged. I didn't go to Princeton, so I don't know if Princetonians are tossing the phrase around as casually and rudely as Mr. Fortgang says. What I do know is that Tal Fortgang, from everything I can tell about him, is incredibly privileged and is either unaware or in denial of it.

Here's the thing. I don't like the phrase, and I don't like the tone that it conveys, but I understand what it means. I grew up a straight, white boy in one of the most affluent counties in the country. Now I'm a straight, white man in a profession dominated by straight white men. I can't help that I'm straight, white, and male, but I can recognize that it has given me advantages in life and will continue to. I can recognize that the vast majority of people in the world, and even in this country, don't get all the advantages that I do. I can recognize that there are some groups that have advantages I don't (very few), and I don't have to resent them for it.

Mr. Fortgang makes a lot of what his ancestors went through to afford him the privilege he doesn't want to recognize. We all have stories about the hardships our forebears went through. My maternal grandfather once told me about how his mother didn't always have money to buy bread during the Great Depression, but he considered their family fortunate because my great-grandfather never lost the car he needed to support his carpentry business. My maternal grandmother was chased across fields by warplanes during World War II. My paternal grandfather started his career in banking as a messenger boy and worked his way up to management. On both sides of my family, my parents were the first to earn bachelor's degrees. The fact that my ancestors went through hard times and worked hard to give me the opportunities I have doesn't discount my personal standing in society. Because or in spite of their struggles, I grew up in a comfortably middle class town with an excellent school system. I got into several well-regarded private and public colleges, partly on the merits of my hard work and intelligence, but partly because my privileged adolescence allowed me the freedom to pursue education and personal betterment without the encumbrance of a difficult family situation, poverty, hunger, or street violence. I have a secure, well-paying job with good hours that requires little physical labor and has great benefits, and I got it in part because of the social network that my expensive private education provided me.

Where Mr. Fortgang misses the point is that privilege isn't about history. History created the society we live in today, but it's that present reality that determines privilege. No one is denying that the Fortgang clan had to walk a rough path to get where they are, but Tal Fortgang isn't walking that path. Tal Fortgang is living in a society that allows him (and me) to walk the streets at any time of night unharassed by law enforcement. If he experiments with illegal drugs, as many Ivy league college students do, he can expect probation at worst, rather than imprisonment. He is living in a society that allowed both of us to live comfortably through our early 20s without having to find employment (whether he chose to exploit that privilege or not, he wasn't going to starve to death). He is living in a society where he is unlikely to be sexually harassed walking down the street or sexually assaulted at a party. He is living in a society where he is statistically likely to be paid about 30% more than his female colleagues and won't be expected to sacrifice his career if he wants to raise a family. He will probably never have to learn or work in an environment that makes him feel unwelcome simply because he is the only white person, the only male, the only straight person in the room. He is living in a society where he has a louder political voice and better business opportunities than the average person simply because of the connections he is making at Princeton.

I'm not saying that Mr. Fortgang didn't work hard to get into Princeton, or for any other achievement he has earned in his life. He and I aren't so different. I've worked hard for the things I've achieved in life too, and I think that my objection to "Check Your Privilege" comes from the same feelings that inspired him to write his little screed. What he needs to understand is that his privilege, my privilege, is that hard work is enough for us. As hard as he worked to get where he is, it would have done him no good without the opportunities he already had. As hard as he will continue to work to achieve in life, he will always go further than someone less fortunate who works just as hard. There are women in my field (engineering) who will be held back by the boys' clubs in my industry. Some of them work as hard as I do; some of them work harder. There are a lot of people who work twice the hours I do for less money than I make because they can't get the job I have. A lot of them are intelligent, but couldn't go to college because they put family obligations above their own needs. A lot of them are intelligent, but didn't have a mother like mine to guide them through the process of applying to and choosing a college. These are hard workers who, with the same opportunities that Mr. Fortgang and I had, could be freshmen at Princeton or researchers with graduate degrees. For some people, hard work and intelligence aren't enough.

Long before "Check Your Privilege," we used another phrase to remind people how fortunate they are. Once upon a time, if someone was feeling put-upon or down-trodden or oppressed, you told them to count their blessings. Let's bring that back. Counting your blessings is a positive activity. It doesn't make anyone feel bad about being privileged, but it reminds them how lucky they are. If we all stop and count our blessings, maybe we'll do better at sympathizing with those less blessed, and maybe we'll do more to spread our blessings to everyone else. I'm a straight white male living in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Sometimes my life is hard, but I'm going to count my blessings.