(dramatic music) - Welcome back. I happen to love the American dream score activity, as it puts things in perspective for all of us. Much like reflecting upon your gratitude list, you may discover that your score has more to do with things you were born into such as the circumstances of your parents or guardians and what they could expose you to or provide you with. Others may be related to the state of your past or current health, your current employment situation, and how much support you have overall. The higher your score, the more of an uphill climb you may have had in your life and perhaps less relative privilege or advantages. The lower your score, the more relative privilege or advantages. When I took the quiz, I received a 70 about which I was relatively surprised, because of all the advantages that I was born into. Nevertheless, my identity as a person of color, and those accompanying often negative experiences of my identity being marginalized, likely caused my relative privilege to diminish. So let's reflect a bit. Are you surprised at your score? Which characteristics do you think most effected your score? How many of those characteristics may be the result of unearned benefits, resources, or advantages due to someone else such as parents or family? How might some of these benefits, resources or advantages give you more privilege relative to others? Let's consider the cumulative effect of such advantages or privileges, which amount to social power. This is the use of social identity. Any of those identities we discussed in module one that are dimensions of diversity, to access resources and produce an effect. Typically, those who have access to resources can produce an effect for themselves, which can potentially have an impact on others, much like social power, positional power is the use of positionality, usually related to employment, rank, job title, or any other position that yields more agency, which we will discuss later in this module to potentially produce an effect. In a work or organizational setting, I often hear people say that they don't believe they can make change or an impact from the role or position they hold within an organization. This suggests that position power may be inextricably linked with agency or the ability to produce an effect, which is an organizational culture opportunity for improvement. We previously discussed oppression in module two, which is a system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based upon social identity or group memberships and operates intentionally and unintentionally at individual, institutional and cultural levels. Oppression relies on social and positional power upon which privilege and advantage is based. This system and the corresponding social or positional power results in either advantage or disadvantage based upon one's identity. Relative social and positional power can be internalize either as internalized domination for those who have advantages and internalized subordination for those who don't. But here's an important point to note. With privilege, also comes the opportunity for advocacy, because you can use it to help others. And it's important to note that all of us are likely privileged in one area for which we can be an advocate and less privileged in another. There's a formula used to describe identity based isms, sexism, heterosexism, rankism, ableism, and the like. Social power plus the privilege and advantage that comes with it can potentially produce these isms, particularly if we're not aware of our biases that can limit the opportunities for others. The matrix of oppression demonstrates this point. The matrix of oppression takes these dynamics into consideration along with the positionality of the core identities we discussed in module one. For each of the social identity categories, it identifies the social groups with relative identity-based privilege or advantage, which may accompany internalized domination as well as a choice to be an advocate. The matrix also identifies the border groups considered in-between. Typically, those are either a combination of those identities or in the middle, such as middle-class compared to upper-class or working class. The next column identifies those social groups targeted by systems of oppression, and potential internalized subordination on the opposite end of the privileged spectrum. Similarly, these are groups who can potentially benefit from the advocacy of those in the more privileged social groups. You'll notice that for each of the identities, there's a corresponding column of the potential isms that can occur when the power and privilege is misused, racism, sexism, transgender oppression, heterosexism, classism, ableism, religious oppression and ageism. This demonstrates why advocacy is so important, which we'll talk more about later. It directly addresses these isms and counters their effects. Now, I know this is a lot of information to process. Some of you may be saying to yourself, there is no way I have any privilege. I grew up poor or working class, or look at all the successful people of color, racial oppression and racism doesn't exist. Or maybe all of this talk of privilege makes you ambivalent, because you believe it nullifies all of the hard work you've put in to get to where you are today. Here's the one thing about privilege that you can typically count on. It's often invisible to those who have it, because they don't have to think about it. I call that the privilege of oblivion. You're oblivious to your advantages, because it's really just not something you think about on a daily basis. Conversely, however, those who don't have privilege often think about the areas they don't have it quite often. For example, I enjoy middle-class privilege and quite frankly, I don't think about it. However, it became painfully obvious to me in a conversation with a working-class family member that I have the privilege of middle-class oblivion, because I don't have to be as cost conscious as someone on a more restricted budget. From a different perspective because of my lived experiences, I am conscious of my race and the race of my children wherever I go. There are still some places I won't go, because of the color of my skin, and perhaps my own assumptions. I think about this all the time, because of my lived experiences, which have made it clear that being black isn't a good thing to some people. But here's an additional point which actually took me a while to get to. I also know that the phenomenon of colorism exists, which benefits those people of color who are lighter skinned. As a relatively lighter skin black person, I know I have more relative privilege than those who are darker skins. The reason it took me into adulthood to accept this is because compared to much lighter skin people in my family, I didn't recognize that privilege existed for me. It took others who were darker skin than me to point it out and really helped me to come to terms with my relative lighter skin privilege. And it's an advantage that I don't ever think about. However, darker skin people have told me it's something they think about all the time. Because of some of these characteristics of privilege, its existence is often denied by those who have it, because it's invisible. Sometimes resented by those who don't have it, misunderstood by many who haven't explored it. And often feared of being lost, whether consciously or unconsciously by those who have it. Typically, the more and adverse reaction to the idea of privilege, the more fearful one is of losing it as that is the snap judgment response, much like we talked about with biases in module two. Now, let's give you another opportunity for reflection on this point with an activity called privilege perspectives. Consider the matrix of oppression and the multiple identities and dimensions of diversity you have. First, choose one for which you are a member of the privileged group according to the matrix and consider, how often do you think about the advantages that come with this group membership. In what contexts may these advantages be relevant. If you don't think about them, why not? What might disadvantage look like for the targeted social group in this category? Welcome back. For the second part of this activity, choose an identity from the matrix for which you are a member of a border or targeted group. How often do you think about the privileges or advantages you don't have? And what contexts are they relevant? What does advantage look like for the privileged social group in this category? Have you witnessed or experienced any of the accompanying isms for that group? Welcome back. Now that you've considered these perspectives, what did you notice about the advantages that you have. Were they relevant, obvious or salient to you as the disadvantages? Why is that? And perhaps why hadn't you thought about it before? The answer, my friends is that privilege is designed to be invisible to those that have it, which is why it's often denied. Let's consider the Seminole work of Doctor Peggy McIntosh, longtime educator and author of the groundbreaking essay titled, White Privilege, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. At the end of the last century, Doctor McIntosh stumbled upon her racial privilege while working to address gender based male privilege in her university curriculum. She had the same difficulty addressing denial of privilege stating quote, denials which amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages, which men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended, unquote. As she realized this dichotomy of gender privilege, she came to discover white privilege realizing quote, as a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had not been taught to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me an advantage, unquote. She goes on to say famously, I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not an invisible systems conferring dominance on my group. Her essay, White Privilege, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack created in 1988 with several examples of her racial privilege. Interestingly, these are still relevant for many today. She's even added additional items since initially writing the essay. That includes a list of 50 items. Consider from her list. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time. When I'm told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is. I'm never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have. I can choose to ignore developments in minority, or as we say more recently, minoritized writing an activist programs or disparage them or learn from them. But in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices. Doctor McIntosh refers to advantages such as these being carried as quote, an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. Let's reflect on this. What do you think of this particular perspective of identity-based privilege, which can similarly be applied to privilege for any of the other social identities? Why are privileges invisible? Why are those of us with privilege meant to have the privilege of oblivion. To further consider this question, let's turn to another expert, Doctor Brian Lowery, professor of organizational behavior and associate dean at Stanford University who studies the psychology of racial privilege in the US. In your course materials as a link to a podcast from the American Psychological Association called, the Invisibility of White Privilege with Brian Lowery, PhD. Please listen to the podcast or read the transcript and consider the following reflection questions. What do you think of the concept of deny, distance and dismantle? Why is it difficult for those to accept that this type of privilege exists? How might the societal hiding of privilege affect you? And finally, what are we supposed to do with all of this. (dramatic music)
