Mr. and Mrs. Thomas

I saw Mr. and Mrs. Thomas today. They didn't see me. I was in my car, and they were at their van, loading and unloading Mr. Thomas's scooter and wheelchair, then getting in and driving away. I knew it was her because I had crossed paths with her a few years ago at the YMCA pool and we spoke briefly. Mrs. Thomas was my 10th grade math teacher. Mr. Thomas had been the school sports team photographer who remembered the name of everyone he'd ever met even once, including mine. As I watched them from a distance, they were all smiles and ease with eachother, just like I remembered them from high school.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were the first black/white interracial couple I knew. I met them individually before realizing that they were married. (The photo of their teenage son on Mrs. Thomas's desk led to the ah-ha moment.) I knew nothing of the state of their marriage, of course, but they seemed happy when I saw them at school, and once when I ran into them at the mall when I was still in high school. In college, I thought of them when I started to date Firmin, and then later when a fellow student informed me (with that smug tone that girls half in love with their professors adopt) that Professor So-and-So didn't believe interracial marriages could work in the United States. Of course Professor So-and-So was a black man divorced from a white woman who apparently found it easier to be a psudo-victim than simply a failure at marriage. But I was only 20 then, and his pronouncement gave me pause. The memory of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas gave me hope.

When I met Mrs. Thomas at the pool a couple years ago, I wondered about her husband. It had been so many years -- enough for even a once-happy marriage to have bottomed out or for death to change everything. For fear of causing pain or embarrassment, I didn't ask. So today, when I saw her with the man on the scooter, I leaned forward and squinted. He was in shadow that made his skin color hard to discern and I didn't have a good view of his face. Plus, I saw Mr. Thomas less frequently than his wife when I was a teenager. She stood in front of me daily for a year, while he took my cheer leading photos a few times and said "Hi, Stephanie!" like he was really, truly glad to see me on the rare occasions we crossed paths. I couldn't swear in a courtroom that the man I saw today was Mr. Thomas, but when the spring sunlight caught his brown skin, his salt and pepper hair, and his warm smile, I was as sure as I needed to be. Most of all, the two of them together just looked like Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. They exuded the same easy camaraderie and affection, the same friendliness and sense of stability. I was so happy to see them. They still give me hope.

Privilege vs. Freedom

I've been mulling over the meaning of the word “privilege” lately. I've been seeing this word tossed around rather carelessly, often with good intentions, but sometimes as a kind of verbal weapon, and sometimes in a confusing way. I've been thinking that it would be helpful (for me, and perhaps for others) to be more clear about what privilege is and what it is not.

What is Privilege?

Privilege, to me, connotes a special treatment or ability that is not available to everyone, and could not be available to everyone, due to resource, time or space limitations, or issues of practicality or good social order.

Some privileges are granted, based on merit, wealth, social status, charm, or just luck. Getting to sit next to the CEO at the company dinner, being let "off the hook" for a rule violation because you are cute and flirty, getting a second interview because someone recommended you for the job, and boarding a plane first because you have children with you, or because you bought a first-class ticket are all examples of privileges that are granted to some people. These may be seen as reasonable or unreasonable, fair or unfair, but they are all situations where only some people can get special treatment. Decisions must be made regarding who will get the special treatment, if anyone.

Other privileges are simply claimed or taken by force by people who have the power or wealth to do so. Insisting on special treatment at a retail store (and getting it), eating only the choicest cuts of meat at the finest restaurants, using more than one's fair share of fossil fuels, and owning the latest technology gadget are all privileges that are claimed or forced. Some of these are relatively harmless, and may even have some societal benefit – someone has to eat at the finest restaurants regularly if they are to be there for the middle and working classes to sample only once or twice on very special occasions. Many, however, involve an over-use of resources or space or time which results in a deficit for others. (Some granted privileges are problematic in this way as well.) Using more than my fair share of fossil fuels, as I am doing right this minute, means either that someone else does not have access to as much power as they would like, and/or that environmentally harmful fossil fuel extraction becomes more necessary and profitable.

These “real” privileges should be closely examined by those who strive for a peaceful world. In what ways do our privileges – granted or claimed – deprive others of health, well-being, resources, or control over life choices? Can we mitigate those deprivations in some way? Where and when should we decline to be privileged? When is it OK to accept a privilege as a gift or as an earned reward? Are there times when we should insist on being privileged, or on others being privileged above ourselves?

What Privilege is Not

I believe that if a form of treatment or access is, or could be, available to all, then that availability is properly understood as something other than privilege. (By “all”, I might mean all people in the world, or simply all the people in a geographical environment, depending on the context.) I don’t think there is a word that fits every example in this category, but I’m going to call them “freedoms”. Some are actually “rights”, while others might be closer to “courtesies”, but “freedoms” will do as a catch-all word for now. Some examples of freedoms that are not privileges (by my definition) would be: Being treated with friendliness and respect in a retail store; having decision-making power over one's own physical appearance; access to healthy, fresh food and water; the ability to move safely from one place to another; and being allowed to prove oneself worthy or unworthy of friendship, employment, etc. based on personality or performance rather than appearance or stereotype. Many people are routinely denied these freedoms and others, but not because of scarcity of resources. The only reason to deny these freedoms to people is human vice -- hatred, fear, greed, racism, abuse of power. (Even famine and drought are often caused or exacerbated by human vice.)

At this point, I want to bring in an example that first led me to consider a distinction between what I am calling privilege and freedom. The African American author Thandeka, in her book Learning to be White*, uses the following metaphor to describe in part the racial problem in the United States, but her example is also applicable to class, gender, and other inequalities. I will paraphrase, since I do not have the book in hand, and I want to be clear that I don't know if Thandeka would agree with my distinction between "privilege" and "freedom". This illustration makes me think she might, but I have not read all of her book -- yet! I am only using her illustration for my own purposes here; I don't want to be seen to put words in her mouth.

Thandeka imagines a society in which certain people have had their left hands maliciously cut off. As a result there is an inequality of ability between those who have lost a hand and those who still have both hands. This inequality is real and has real consequences in the society, perhaps including stigma associated with being among the group of people who had their hands cut off. Yet it's important to recognize that the norm, the ideal, is to have both hands. The situation is not that the two handed people have been unfairly advantaged, but rather that the one-handed people have been unfairly disadvantaged. The best remedy is for the society to seek ways for its one-handed citizens to function as normally and fully as possible and to work to eradicate any stigma associated with one-handedness, rather than to insist that its two-handed citizens tie one hand behind their back for the sake of "fairness".

I think this example provides an important insight into how we define privilege, as well as how we react to the denial of freedom. Often – though not always – what is termed racial or gender or class “privilege” is actually only the absence of oppression. Surely the cure for oppression is not more oppression! Yet when others are denied freedoms that we enjoy, or when we are denied freedoms that others enjoy, the inequality is bitterly felt and resentment is an understandable by-product. What are we to do? Can we enjoy freedoms that are not denied to us, while maintaining awareness that others are not free in the same way? In what ways can we use our access to freedoms to open those freedoms to more people? If we are denied a freedom, how can we work for or insist on change in a positive direction? When is it appropriate to temporarily decline a freedom for ourselves in order to bring awareness and change to an oppressive system or circumstance? When we do decline a freedom in protest, are we clear that we are working in a positive direction toward more freedom, rather than a negative direction of less freedom for all? How can those with broad freedom partner with those who are oppressed in some way?

A Word About Gray Areas

I am aware that there are many gray areas in this topic. One that jumps immediately to mind is the conundrum of access to quality, fresh food. Is my access to high quality, even organic food a privilege based on wealth, or a freedom that all should have? Probably a little of both. It’s a travesty that many communities with high poverty rates (and relatively low car ownership) have no easily accessible grocery store. Food deserts deny people the freedom to choose good quality food -- especially produce -- but the idea that someone should choose lower quality produce than they can afford simply because some people are unable to access it is silly. It’s also a good way to drive producers of high quality food out of business! That said, access to organic breakfast cereal is probably properly understood as a luxury. It gets trickier than that though: Does buying tropical fruit contribute to my taking of natural resources above and beyond my fair share, or am I participating in an important part of the global economy that provides important opportunities to developing countries? You can see how the thought process can go on and on. Just because all of the answers aren’t neat and tidy, however, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t think about the questions.

So What?

I believe this issue of privilege vs. freedom is more than an issue of semantics. I think the confusion of these terms makes public discussion of difficult topics like race and class more difficult. I notice that people who struggle with lack of power in their lives are likely to be hostile to the suggestion that their freedoms are in fact privileges. This is not surprising and not even objectionable when you employ the distinction I’m advocating. Many people in fact experience very little true privilege, and they are unwilling to give up their freedoms simply because someone else is denied them. Advocates of social change are more likely to win people to their side if the effort is seen as an expansion of freedom for *all* and a push-back against abused true privilege, rather than a re-shuffling of comforts in a zero-sum game. I’m hopeful that more careful use of the term “privilege” will result in more clear communication and understanding when we talk about equality and peace and human dignity.


*RCF Friends, we have this book in our Meeting library

Dogsleds, Stereotypes and Stories

Yesterday, I pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11 to buy a newspaper. I parked next to a police cruiser and a mid-size SUV with what I'm pretty sure was a dog sled lashed to the roof. (I don't think I'd ever before seen a dogsled except in photographs. They're big -- especially lashed to the roof of a vehicle!) These were the only vehicles in the parking lot besides my van.

The cop was easy to spot. He was hanging out by the counter. He didn't seem to be buying anything, which made me wonder if something was up, but whatever it was, it apparently wasn't an emergency. He was leaning on the counter, thumbing through a magazine. I went looking for my paper.

Since Ethan was with me, I didn't bolt right out of the store after paying for the paper, as I normally would have done. He decided to take a meandering walk around the store before leaving. That was when I noticed that there was no one in the store who might own the dog sled. Hmm. Maybe they left the SUV here temporarily, I thought. Odd place to leave it, as there isn't much else within a convenient walk, but who knows?

As we exited the store, we passed the police officer again, who was now chatting with a middle aged black woman whom I hadn't noticed earlier. She looked like someone's young-ish grandma: hair salon-set with highlights, stylish but not new black swing coat, leopard print scarf, black leather boots suitable for Michigan winters, but with a dash of flair. Middle class, middle age, average black woman. Period. When I went outside and saw no new vehicles in the lot, I idly wondered where her car was.

Ethan was still being pokey, so I had just finished buckling him into his car seat and was heading around to my door when the woman exited the store. By now, you've surely guessed that she got into the dog sled SUV, right? Right. I was so taken aback that when the thought entered my head to ask her about the dog sled, I shushed it. I think I even stared a little. Huh.

Don't worry, this isn't a post about "white guilt" over the fact that it didn't even remotely cross my mind that she might be Dog Sled Woman. Frankly, I suspect even black folks would have been surprised, and for the same (or substantially similar) reasons I was. Rather, I fascinating to notice how a mix of factors played together to thoroughly exclude from my mind the possibility that this middle-aged Black-woman-next-door might drive an SUV with a dog sled on top. So thoroughly was the possibility excluded, that I speculated on unlikely reasons why there was an owner-less SUV in the parking lot *and* a woman apparently without a vehicle! Why did I not at least entertain the more obvious conclusion that they belonged together? Curious.

It wasn't just her race, though that was a factor. When I think "musher", white people and people native to the Arctic come most readily to mind. That said, if she had been still black, but 25 and dressed in Patagonia pants and an anorak, I'm pretty sure I would have put her with the SUV right away. I would have been mildly surprised, given my pre-conceptions regarding the races of dog sled mushers, but not shocked, and certainly not oblivious to the possibilities.

Gender was another factor in so far as it inter-played with her manner of dress and her age. A man in his 50's, no matter how he was dressed, would have seemed a more likely candidate for dog sledding, I have to admit. A white woman in her 50's would probably have to be dressed in Patagonia pants and an anorak for me to catch on. You see how the permutations of race/age/dress/class could go on.

I took away a greater awareness of how we weave together subtle information to create meaning, context and story, even about people we are hardly noticing. (My friend Su writes eloquently about this subject as it relates to perceptions of her mixed-race family.) Sometimes this can be pernicious -- we have all slighted, marginalized, misunderstood, or discriminated against someone based on a set of characteristics we probably didn't even notice we were noticing. The tendency to create story and meaning from the barest threads is so ingrained in us, how could we not? Often, however, no harm is done. And every once in a while, we get a glimpse of the real story beyond our assumptions. If we are lucky, we find it is much more interesting than we could have imagined.