The Politics of Privilege-checking

Ironweaver

http://socialistworker.org/2014/11/18/the-politics-of-privilege-checking

"But if our aim is for the mass transformation of society, which requires building a mass movement, we can't realize it by calling out individual people or privilege-checking.

Calling out racism, sexism, homophobia and other reactionary attitudes is obviously a necessary part of fighting oppression in daily life--and apologies from the offending parties are surely welcome. But this is also a far cry from what is needed to end oppression. In reality, privilege-checking does little to challenge the class and social status quo--despite the fact that most activists who engage in privilege-checking believe that the status quo needs changing.

While there is no doubt that those who take part in privilege-checking are well-intentioned, I think that it ends up ultimately replacing politics with morality, which is always subjective and therefore backfires in a number of ways.

It can end up alienating the very people who could be won to a movement to end oppression because they don't already share the current language of the self-identified radical left. Let's be clear: The radical left is tiny in the U.S., and because of this, it can easily become very inward and insular in its outlook, creating an echo chamber instead of reaching outward.

If the point is to help the radical left to grow, we are better off not shaming and humiliating people who are not already acquainted with the currently accepted language within the radical left--which would be an impossibility given the current marginalization of the radical left from the mainstream of society. Instead of shaming people not already acquainted with radical language, we should aim to win them to our hopes of transforming society."

InsanityAddict

Largely agree.

I'd say it's not an either/or approach between combatting micro-attitudes on a personal scale and long-term campaigns that change concrete laws/policies/etcetera.

Also, the radical left needs to read up on emotional abuse to not fall prey to abusive personalities who thrive in the activist scene. 

Plus this: http://www.omi.wa.gov.au/resources/clearinghouse/antiracism_what_works.pdf

ninjaclown

It's also wrong to 1) assume automatically entire races have more privilege than others, like I've heard white people have all the privilege but I'm guessing they've never heard of the Irish or Armenians 2) think privilege is some sort of objectively provable thing in quantifiable terms (like African Americans have .0465 the privilege rate of Caucasians) and 3) attempts to rearrange the privilege so previously oppressed minorities now have more privilege and whites get almost none and should be treated as trash is not only insane, impossible to achieve, but also racism. Google search the progressive stack, it's hilarious and also cringe worthy at the same time.

What people are really fighting against is class inequality privilege, which is often associated with some races and ethnicities having more access to it through parts of human history so its mistaken for race privilege.

I rather people stop fighting over "he has more than I do, I want more than he does" and actually try to fight for actual causes for inequality.

lrdgck

While I won't say anything on what or not should be done, I've gotta say, the opening post turned out a lot more interesting than the thread's title seemed. You gotta admit that the Marxist-Leninists probably have the biggest experience when it comes to growing radical left from scratch.

Stormtroper

Stalinists can be quite thougthful about society's ill at times, the problem is that for all the talk about oppression, their main objective is to establish an oppressive dictatorship (of the proletariat).