Concerning the concept of "Check Your Privilege"

[passerine]

This is an outgrowth of a few recent conversations with various people. And I understand the metaphor I will be using is quite imperfect.

I want to get this out there, though, because it's come to my attention that some people have the instinct to equate "Check Your Privilege" with "OMG YOU SUCK!" And that's not it, not at all. Because, really, if I think "OMG YOU SUCK!" I wouldn't bother with the request.

So...suppose you're going about your day, and someone tells you that your jeans aren't zipped.

Do you assume that what the person who points this out means is "OMG you sick disgusting perv, stop exposing yourself!!!eleventyone!!!" and thus respond with "HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A CHILD MOLESTER????!!??"

Do you not even bother to glance down, and instead simply look the other person in the eye and say, "No, it's not! What, do you think I'm stupid? You want me to look down at my jeans so you can hit me in the head and knock me out and steal my kidney and I'll never see it coming! I know what You People are like!"

Do you smirk and say, "Yeah, baby, I was hoping someone would notice!" and follow this up with pulling your pants down entirely?

...I didn't think so. And yet, the equivalent responses to a privilege-check request are every-freakin'-where.

What sadly seems to be in short supply is the sensible response: Look down; realize that yeah, your fly's down; zip up your damn pants; and thank the person who pointed it out to you for saving you from further embarrassment!

I know it's not that simple. But damn it all, I wish that it could be.

Comments

[holyschist]

Those are some excellent metaphors!

[jaelle-n-gilla.myopenid.com]

Waaaaah! This is one of those posts that drive me crazy. Not for the content, mind you, but because this is when I realize I am not a native speaker and "metaphors" like that (especially when they are changing fast over time) are impossible to decipher.

for me "check your privileges" is a computer term related to Windows or Linux, where you need to check read-write privileges if you can't access a file. I've never read it elsewhere so far and I wouldn't have dreamed it could mean either "you may want to think twice about what you just said" or "you suck" or anything in between really.

I wish there was a dictionary for those fast changing idioms.

And like you, I wish people would simply say what they mean and not use harmless words for some kind of metaphor and confuse apparently not only the foreign-language speakers but natives just the same :-)

And then of course I know that the English language and culture is full of things that a direct German mind has problems wrapping itself around.

[arch]

"Check your privilege" is a phrase that people use to point out when someone says something that is offensive, usually in terms of racism, classism, and/or sexism. The idea is that people who carry privilege get to be blind to things that others have to live with on a daily basis. The best primer to catch up with what passerine is saying is an essay called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" (pdf).

I hope that helps with context! :)

[jaelle-n-gilla.myopenid.com]

Thank you, that helps quite a bit. I took a lot of the meaning from your post, but the specifics, like "what on earth is a person's privilege" is clearer now from your explanation. Will dig into the pdf later.

Privilege Check

[cesy]

I like this analogy.

[indywind]

I also like this analogy.

It reminds me of one FOAF's puckish sense of humor. He'd be just as likely to tell me my fly was down when it wasn't ("ha ha, made you look!") or not tell me if it was ("I can't believe you never noticed!").