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Much adrift in American social discourse is the word privilege, with all of its connotations
attached. Often now, white precedes
it. Joined together, white privilege
implies bad, and means bad because the benefit of privilege is out of balance
or — worse — the system for bestowing it prevents opportunities for those not
white. As such, the word privilege
becomes nearly impossible to use in any manner except as a pejorative.
At one time earning privilege was considered worthwhile, but
the opportunity for gain is often limited by racial distinction, sometimes
economic, sometimes because of sexual orientation or gender itself, sometimes
even regional. Frustration is built into its systems. The history of privilege is
ancient, pre-dating well the foundation of this country, and the explosions within it resulting from frustration have been plenty
Within the money class and therefore “ruling” class, a man
may marry down without disruption to the privileges of his status, but a woman
removes herself from them. A man marrying up
might be labelled a social climber ineligible from some privileges, but the
class from which he climbed will call him a lucky dog. A woman marrying up may
be frozen out of the society into which she has been “lifted,” but if she has
other attributes, such as great new wealth, a pleasing and deferential manner, or a
political nature, she might well gain acceptance.
Such positioning is not limited to money classes. Among
African Americans, the lightness of skin still differentiates. Famously, in the
South they had applied something called the brown paper sack test. If you were
lighter than a paper sack, you were among the privileged allowed indoors. Any
darker, you were considered only field worthy. Among Native Americans, tribal
associations rank a person. The Pierce Nez consider the Navajo little better
than dogs, and among the Pierce Nez a Navajo might have at least the privilege
of being allowed safe passage out of their territory.
Any word overused will eventually suffer misuse,
misapplication and potential devaluation. In the late Fifties, when Madison
Avenue ascended as the cultural definers in America, copywriters succeeded by
altering perception through switching out clear and understood words for those
with less familiar denotations. A simple alteration to the cancer-causing downside
of cigarettes came in a memorable anagram for Lucky Strikes: LS/MFT: Lucky Strike means Fine Tobacco. Just
what is Fine Tobacco? It’s like calling Uranium A Really Good Element.
When
MadMen turned Tricksters, during the 1960s the American populace began distrusting
their manipulations. The word manipulation
became the pejorative of the day. (I recall
intellectuals recoiling at the word with no less revulsion than if camel poop
had been daubed under their nostrils.)
As manufacturers turned to a less expensive and flimsier —
though effective — material for construction, the word Plastic became something used to ridicule. Hardly used today, plastic people were zomboids to be
avoided by anyone with a lick of self worth. (Self-worth, in those days of mild revolution, was actually determined
by the degree of higher education gained. Between 1965 to 1979, increasing
knowledge through study was a worthwhile venture. Then came the Reagan
Revolution when the only Good American was an Average American. We have yet to
recover.)
So it goes. Some pejoratives drop from fashion, some become definitions.
Shyster lives. Sawbones not so much. Shrink
lingers, but Preppie is now Hipster, which used to be metrosexual, which used to be Gen-Xer, which used to be Yuppie…
Regarding Privilege,
what has occurred to render it a pejorative? Its use as a slur is new, so its
users must have only recently emerged. In all likelihood, and easily
determined, those who use privilege
thus are the emerging powerhouses of enlarging minorities. It may be why it
rarely appears without the adjoining White.
In a curious way, its use is the front edge of a new effort to disenfranchise.
Its use, to people who feel themselves white, feels oppressive. And of course
they not only don’t like it, they feel it is undeserved. (It is deserved.)
The coalition of Asian, Native American, Hispanic, African
American and recently Muslim populations are rising as the new American
Majority, though only as a coalition. Its singularity can only be defined by
its opposition to what is referred to as White
Privilege. The new massiveness of conjoined minorities has generated
something like a closing fist of whites rejecting en mass whatever seeks to
threaten that privilege. The single most consolidated clash of the two may have
been what occurred in the recent Presidential election. The enmity between
those two is palpable, and made more obvious by Donald Trump’s reliance on
fomenting discord to get elected.
Of course this opposition cannot abide. The worst aspect of
it is our suffering what we know well, that a house divided against itself
cannot stand. The real worry of whites and minorities alike is not so much the
loss of privilege but the fear of being dis-unified at a time when we are under
threat of assault. Divided, we all lose. The real fear of whites and minorities
alike is that we now have a ruling body of people who, in order to assert their
privileges, will destroy the very thing that holds us together. That which
holds us bond is a fervent belief that our lives, our children’s lives, and the
prosperity of our nation, depends on remaining unified. But how does one unify
behind the very thing that seeks to break us?
There are going to be numerous and even weird attempts at
holding together. The defense of the water rights in North Dakota may be the
most recent, but there will be others. I for one became heartened when military
veterans joined the fray against the pipeline, and not because they were, for
the most part, among those privileged whites, but because they saw themselves
as continually in defense of an American Way we want to remain: the right to
dignity, the valuation of an individual under onslaught by corporate powers,
and the oppressive habits of a misused armed force acting less in the interests
of the people than at the behest of the polity.
Once codified by the Oath of Office, Donald Trump will have
our permission to govern. I hope, and sincerely fear, that he — along with his
coterie of advisers — will not see the moment as the right to rule. If he and
they do elect to rule rather than govern, it’s not God help us, or Heaven help
us, but rather We help us. In any other hands than our own, under such a
circumstances, we shall stay divided.
