The immediate leap to discredit the success of others through assertion of privilege seems like it would discourage doing well.
A better solution imho would be to celebrate success but to also encourage the successful to share their insights with others so as to spread the fortune - much as the author of this post has done.
You even see in this thread how people within tech but unable to pull FAANG salaries see this story as impossible. It's one viewpoint to think that it's possible for everyone to become skilled enough to work at a FAANG-like job (including passing the interview); probably correct so some degree. It's another (less rational) to think that every software engineer can work at FAANG-like jobs simultaneously; there just aren't enough positions.
This gets even more dire outside of tech. What job are you going to switch to every 3 years that nets you a 30% salary increase? If that kind of opportunity was wide-spread, there would be a lot less income inequality (or at least more social mobility).
laughing my ass off ... I expect the successful first and formost to share their success through actually paying taxes - then we can talk about their advice which won't be useful for the majority anyway b/c success in monetary terms is always defined by being focused on a minority.
Ideally yes. Though IME often the advice isn't applicable, so beyond a few fundamentals they break down. For example I cannot un-have kids, and getting a master's or doing a startup on the side would basically require neglecting them for too long. (Or quiting my day job and burning through our savings.) Lifestyle advice like modest living or moving far away also requires buy in from an SO or a painful break up/divorce. It's also a risk since they may change their mind early in the plan. Or they may decide the outcome wasn't worth the sacrifice and want to (or you to) return to the grind.
Also LOL @ "insights"
The only difference between myself and my other friends (who also have advanced degrees from top universities in the bay area) is that I abandoned my field of study and jumped into tech.
After 10 years, we have vastly different financial outcomes now.
A lot of hard working, well educated, dedicated people struggle financially around here, because they happened to not choose tech.
Add in the teachers and other under-appreciated careers, I do feel guilty that I should have so much, and they so little.
It took me a long time to accept this as I was wedded to the idea that hard work and skill alone should be well compensated. But that hard work and skill needs to be pointed in a good direction in the first place.
The job market is not an efficient market. It doesn’t respond to offer and demand signals.
Nurses have been in short supply in most of the developed world for the past three decades yet are still paid peanuts. It’s all about your proximity to the handling of money and historical trend. That’s why even people doing menial jobs in banking are well compensated while people working in heavy industries are paid relatively little compared to the complexity of their jobs.
If you had an advanced degree in math or physics, hedge funds in NYC was always an option to maximize your talent in exchange for money. But one also had an option to choose something different and still make an upper middle class living.
It seems these days, only the finance/tech offer such living. NOT choosing tech is choosing barely middle class living, and everyone else is delegated to hand-to-mouth living.
Besides Fed Gov, Tech/finance are the probably the only sectors left with large work forces, great margins, a culture of rewarding talent (vs health care for example), AND rooted in the USA (vs manufacturing and heavy industry). These factors combine to create a super class of tech/finance labor.
I got a fantastic education at two of the best public universities in the US, mostly funded by public money. Do I feel guilty about it? No. But I acknowledge that it was only possible because of policy choices made by Americans who came before me.
"Good" education alone is not a meaningful predictor of anything, in Europe at least.
So the guilt is about receiving the correct credentials to be granted further access to jobs and opportunities. It seems in UK/USA, "good education" is used as a euphemism for "received privilege".
It's the pretense of the credentialing organizations to have a monopoly on education.
I feel guilty for neither, and acknowledging that particular privilege takes nothing away from how hard I worked anyway. The son of two very poor Russian Jewish immigrants, I worked extremely hard to get to where I am. I also feel privileged for growing up in a loving and non-abusive family.
Lots of people don’t have those things, and I’m thankful I did. That’s not guilt.
This is one of those fundamental misunderstandings I see when discussing things with folks of a particular political persuasion. It's the same folks that belueve we shouldn't consider outcomes when evaluating processes. There's just something different about the way they think, I guess.
When someone says "check your privilege", they're saying that you've done something wrong and should feel guilty.
This shouldn't be downvoted. It's become a socially acceptable insult, in some circles (which basically means the receiver is less empathic / socially aware than thou) -- or at the very least, a thought-terminating cliché.
I know there's a bunch of nice and wholesome stuff it's supposed to mean (like the sibling commenter points out); but the way it's typically bandied about in modern discourse (as an STFU signal, more or less) -- it isn't what it really means.
See also:
It has nothing at all to do with guilt.
Yes, they are. "Check your privilege" is often used to say "you didn't do that."
Even if you assume that "privilege" is a big reason why you had an opportunity, there are almost always many people with the same "privilege" who didn't do said thing.
Moreover, it's almost always some skin color argument. There are many "don't look white" people who had privileges that I didn't have but I'm supposed to "check my privilege."
The trope of “he’s black and rich, and I’m white and poor” is irrelevant, as there are different kinds of privilege. In rural Alabama, being white and poor is going to lend you a much closer set of relationships than being black and rich. In SF, it may be the other way around - the point is everyone should simply be aware of how various privilege has helped them.
And again: this takes nothing away from hard work. It simply acknowledges that another person who worked just as hard but had a different set of lived experiences and privileges may not have the same result. That’s not bad; just fact.
And again: it has nothing to do with guilt. You shouldn’t feel guilty about it; ~everyone has some kind of privilege. But ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist is the exact opposite of the point, which is, at the end of the day, an exercise in empathy.
It's telling that you really want to say that no black person has privilege. You'd certainly never tell one to "check your privilege."
How much time have you actually spent in rural Alabama?
I say that because the most racist places in the US are urban, the NE and the coasts, not the south. Yes, there are racists everywhere, but the only places where blacks and whites interact productively at scale are in the south.
Firstly, I never implied or said that no black person has privilege.
Second, my entire point that you seem to be missing is that everyone should recognize what privilege they do have and have benefited from.
I’ve spent plenty of time in the South; I am not implying there is no way for a black person to interact productively with white people in the South. I am suggesting that, generally, in a lot of rural areas of the South, being white lends you more “immediate credit” than being black.
And, to your point, that was but one example. I could have said “inner cities,” and made the same point. That does not, in any way, change the point; it only serves to reinforce it.
And, you've yet to explain what good comes from said "recognition". What, exactly, do you want me to do differently because I benefitted from succeeding in a situation that actually was available to many? (I'm pretty sure that you won't be satisfied with me just saying "hey, I built on stuff that had happened before.")
Yes, there are lots of places where being white lends you more credit than being black. Similarly, there are lots of places where being black lends you more credit. So what?
My point is that the south tends has more successful interaction than the north. That's actually more true in the rural areas.
But, for what it’s worth, I’m certainly not trying to be any kind of “knight.” I’m just trying to have a calm and open discussion.
You've repeatedly said that "check your privilege" is used in ways that it isn't used and denied that it is used the way it is used. My "ground" is reality.
> The good that comes from recognition is being able to place yourself in someone else’s shoes and empathize better with their lived experiences, thus enabling you to better understand their situation.
That's all well and good. The reality is that it has nothing to do with how "check your privilege" actually works.
I note that you didn't both to come up with anything other than your opinion to support your interpretation. Meanwhile, I've provided cites showing that you're wrong, by proponents of "check your privilege".
There's also the Atlantic article.
Can you point to ANYONE who interprets "check your privilege" the way that you do? (In fact, even you don't, as your refusal to use it with POC demonstrates.)
Guilt is too strong of term. But it is very much used as a kind of penalty box, or way of distancing the receiver from the speaker. And as far as enlightening those who supposedly need uplifting to the higher, more evolved plane that the speaker inhabits -- it just doesn't do much.
But it’s misuse shouldn’t change the meaning of its intent. At least I hope it doesn’t, because I believe there is still value in empathy.
The use is the intent. And it's used as a weapon.
Notice when it's used, and when it isn't. (You'd never say it to a black or brown person. Did I have "privilege" when I lived in a labor camp?)
> At least I hope it doesn’t, because I believe there is still value in empathy.
There is value in empathy, but "check your privilege" isn't empathy.
You know nothing about my "privilege". You have no basis for telling me to "check my privilege" and saying that only proves that you not only have no empathy for me, you have no interest in me except to accomplish your political goals.
I didn’t say anything about your privilege. Were I to, I would be asking. There is nothing here to be defensive about.
I have no political goals here. We’re having a non-political discussion.
"This is not a political discussion" when in fact it's about one of the most hot-button political topics ever devised?
I'm lost.
Use whatever phrasing you want, and it doesn’t have to be politicized. But when describing an experience, and particularly when trying to provide advice to others to do similarly, or when trying to glean information from your experiences that might be applicable to others… yes, check your privilege to see how said privilege may not apply to others’ lives.
That is all. What we’re discussing isn’t, at its core, a “hot-button political topic.” You are making it that.
The phrase was invented as a political tool. Disagree? Provide cites.
I'll start - https://checkyourprivilege.co/ , https://www.amazon.com/Check-Your-Privilege-Live-into/dp/099... , and https://www.amazon.com/Check-Your-Privilege-Lean-discomfort/... .
Actually we were specifically discussing the "check your ..." phrase in current usage, expressed as an imperative. Not privilege as a general concept.
And yes, the "phrasing of phrase" is the whole point of the phrase. Along with of course, who is saying it and to whom. Especially when the recipient most likely wasn't asking you to "provide advice" to them in the first place, now were they.
BTW here's what seems to be the definitive article on its origin:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/what-th...
You are making it that.
It wouldn't hurt you to check the button-pushy, "you're the problem" vibe on that statement. If you don't mind a bit of advice.
I teach people how to do things and "privilege" doesn't come into it. It is neither necessary nor sufficient.
There are always lots of folks with "privilege" yet the only thing that actually matters is whether you can do the work and actually do.
It is rare, extremely rare, to meet someone with absolutely no privilege, and that isn’t a place to aspire to.
This is what happens when there is a lack of religion and belief in God. In Islam, we know we're going to be asked about the blessings that were bestowed on us, no matter how small, so it's always in the back of our mind that we should be grateful to God, and to use those blessings in the ways of good, not evil.
* https://quran.com/102/8 (the worldly pleasures include: health, wealth, free time, food and drink, safety, housing, etc.)
Or we could notice that merit is still a useful concept, that good decisionmaking is a skill regardless of whether everyone is in a position to use it, and that the previous poster's parents made decisions that were highly beneficial to their child, above and beyond what other parents in comparable situations might have, and that the poster is quite right to be thankful for that. Which funnily enough is the only opinion they voiced, so it's rather a mystery what your needlessly nasty comment is replying to.
I think the point of privilege discourse is to undermine the notion of moral "desert," not to encourage guilt over something beyond your control.
I don't personally believe in reparations as commonly framed, but saying that reparations ought to be paid is also not the same thing as saying people should feel guilty for actions they didn't take.
> It’s important for progressives to acknowledge and counter the people who wave the progressive flag but espouse the opposite of progressive ideals.
I think this can be taken too far. Disavowal can be important at times, but I find there is often a trend among the Right to highlight random views held by an extremely small minority of people (ie. a single tweeting American among 315 million Americans) and demand a disavowal of that rhetoric. I think this is in bad faith.
This comment thread, in my view, is emblematic of this in that simply by using the word "privilege" we are now being asked to disavow something that some nebulous "lots of people" attach to that word, even though the word was clearly not being used in that context here.
> but I find there is often a trend among the Right to highlight random views held by an extremely small minority of people (ie. a single tweeting American among 315 million Americans) and demand a disavowal of that rhetoric. I think this is in bad faith.
Agreed. Where I disagree is that the left doesn’t do this exact same thing, or that these views are held by “a single tweet” and not, say, entire online communities.
For the record, I generally agree with you, but to the same extent that avowal can go too far, it is very easy to go too far in assuming all ridiculous positions on our side are strawmen. A lot of people do think that way. Nothing wrong with acknowledging privilege — but you don’t need to feel personally guilty over things out of your control like your inherited wealth or your skin color. I think we can all agree on that.
Except I don't see anyone in this comment thread actully expousing that belief. I _do_ however see a lot of people strawmanning it.