Tag Archives: privilege

When Some Are More Equal Than Others….

Contemporary American society reminds me a lot of Orwell’s Animal Farm, where everyone was equal, but some were more equal than others…

The last few years have ushered in a long-overdue recognition of the concept of privilege: we are at least beginning to discuss what we mean by white privilege and male privilege, and the ways in which unconscious cultural biases operate to disadvantage non-white, non-male citizens. Those conversations are important, and we need to continue them, but I want to suggest that it is also time–indeed, well past time–to address religious privilege.

It’s getting out of hand.

Just last week, a legislative committee in Tennessee approved a bill that would make the “Holy Bible” the “official book” of Tennessee.

In Mississippi, the legislature passed a bill that “gives protection to those in the state who cannot in a good conscience provide services for a same-sex marriage.”

North Carolina recently “protected” good Christian folks from having to share restrooms with citizens of whom they disapprove, among other things.

Other states–notably Indiana–have passed measures clearly intended to cater to the religious beliefs of some (certainly not all) Christians about abortion, despite the fact that those measures demonstrably harm women.

Meanwhile, scientists continually fight efforts to introduce creationism into science classrooms, and civil libertarians oppose ongoing attempts to introduce prayer and religious observances into the nation’s increasingly diverse public schools.

All of these efforts, even those that have been repeatedly struck down by the courts as inconsistent with our First Amendment liberties, are met with a degree of respect that we would not accord other illegal actions. For that matter, these self-proclaimed “Christians” expect–and receive–a level of deference not accorded to atheists, or even members of other, less privileged religions.

As I write this, the Supreme Court is considering whether religiously affiliated organizations that employ people of many faiths and none can refuse to allow those employees access to birth control through their health insurance policies. The government has already bent over backwards to accommodate religious objections: the employer need not pay for the birth control and needs only to inform the government of its objection; the insurer will then provide contraceptives directly to the employee. The organizations are arguing that requiring the act of notification“burdens” their religious liberty.

In an analysis of that case, The Nation recently asked a pertinent question: Can religious groups simply ignore all the laws they don’t like?

Given their constant insistence on privileging the pious, it might be well to reflect upon the performance of our sanctimonious “family values” politicians. Those of us who live in Indiana are painfully aware of the damage done by self-proclaimed Christians with little or no interest in actually governing, but it is worth noting that things are even worse in deep-red Alabama. H/T Steve Benen at Rachel Maddow’s blog, reporting on Governor Bentley’s deepening sex scandal:

The Birmingham News’ John Archibald published a brutal column today noting that Alabama’s state government is simply unraveling: the governor is mired in scandal; the lieutenant governor is widely seen as “unfit to serve”; the state House Speaker is currently awaiting trial on 23 felony counts; and the state Supreme Court’s chief justice is Roy Moore, whose crackpot views have already forced his ouster once, and who can hardly be counted on to adjudicate responsibly going forward.

But they all go to church. And hold prayer meetings. And quote the bible. And (like Indiana’s Governor) they clearly believe that those attributes–not compassion, not administrative competence, not constitutional scholarship, not personal probity– are the qualities that entitle them to use the power of the state to force the rest of us to behave as they see fit.

We really need to stop privileging people who want to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, whether those beliefs are ideological or religious in origin.

We definitely need to remind these self-righteous theocrats that in America, wrapping themselves in religious dogma does not make them more equal than anyone else.

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But One of My Best Friends is Black!

The online version of the New York Times has a series called “The Stone.” It’s part of their general “Opinionator” category. A recent post to that series caught my eye, although I hadn’t originally planned to post about it.

Then I participated in a recent discussion hosted by GIPC’S Race Relations Network.

The discussion was titled “The Social Construction of Race,” and focused upon the discomfort so many white people feel during discussions of race and racism. At a couple of points, there was real tension in the room, despite the fact that everyone in that room was demonstrably a person of good will where race relations are concerned (and the white participants probably had close black friends).

I’ve been in several similar situations, and I’ve noticed that where discussions about race tend to break down is in the definition of racism. The post from the Times is instructive:

To understand well the realities of American racism, one must adopt an analytical perspective focused on the what, why and who of the systemic white racism that is central and foundational to this society. Most mainstream social scientists dealing with racism issues have relied heavily on inadequate analytical concepts like prejudice, bias, stereotyping and intolerance. Such concepts are often useful, but were long ago crafted by white social scientists focusing on individual racial and ethnic issues, not on society’s systemic racism. To fully understand racism in the United States, one has to go to the centuries-old counter-system tradition of African-American analysts and other analysts of color who have done the most sustained and penetrating analyses of institutional and systemic racism.

Prejudice is much less than half the story. Because prejudice is only one part of the larger white racial frame that is central to rationalizing and maintaining systemic racism, one can be less racially prejudiced and still operate out of many other aspects of that dominant frame. That white racial frame includes not only racist prejudices and stereotypes of conventional analyses, but also racist ideologies, narratives, images and emotions, as well as individual and group inclinations to discriminate shaped by the other features. Additionally, all whites, no matter what their racial prejudices and other racial framings entail, benefit from many racial privileges routinely granted by this country’s major institutions to whites.

This last sentence seems inarguable to me. It is what is meant by “white privilege,” and all of us white folks–inescapably–benefit from it. The underlying point is that systems matter more than individual bias, and that even the least prejudiced, most pro-equality, non-racist white person is treated differently in numerous contexts because of the way those systems have been constructed over time.

White folks who get offended by these discussions need to realize that simply pointing out the reality of institutionalized racism is not an accusation of complicity. It’s a recognition that we can’t change deeply-embedded structures unless we recognize that they exist and understand how they operate.

Ultimately, individual bias isn’t the problem. Social systems that reinforce and perpetuate inequality–that treat similarly-situated people differently based upon the color of their skin– are the problem.

If you don’t believe me, ask a black friend.

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Tradition! Tradition!

No, I’m not about to break into a musical rendition from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Instead, I’m commenting on a recent post from Juanita Jean at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc. where the topic was a recent rant by Bill O’Reilly, accusing the White House of “spitting on traditional Americans” by bathing the facade in rainbow lights after the Court ruled in Obergefell.

As Juanita Jean reminds us

Traditional Americans? As opposed to Untraditional Americans? Well, I’ll be damned, against all odds O’Reilly did in fact find another way to divide this country.

Just think, if this country had traditional people running it we would still have child labor,women without the vote, slavery, poll tax, and a helluva lot of muskets.

Exactly.

In that “traditional” America, women couldn’t enter into contracts or get credit without the consent of their fathers or husbands. Birth control was outlawed under “obscenity” statutes. Abortion for any reason was illegal. Women had no protection from sexual harassment in the workplace, and were routinely paid less than men. Gays were in firmly closed closets. Blacks “knew their place.”

It’s the passing of that “traditional” world, and the loss of those “traditional” family values that (old, white, heterosexual) men are bemoaning when they proclaim that they “want their country back.”

The next time Justice Scalia (“Get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!) goes into a tirade about the need to protect even those “traditions” that most of us now consider fundamentally unfair–“traditions” that violate important Constitutional principles of equality and autonomy–let’s think about the many ways those sacred traditions operated to cement the privileges enjoyed by un-self-aware, self-important (white, male) curmudgeons like Bill Riley and Antonin Scalia.

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It’s Who You Know

There’s an old saying to the effect that it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know. There’s a lot of truth to that, and it’s why cities are so important.

The other day, I read one of those pious rants from a privileged old white guy–it may have been Charles Koch–about how the minimum wage is bad for poor people because it makes them dependent. It’s easy enough to mock people who see no connection between the government goodies they enjoy–the business subsidies and tax breaks and the like–and government rules that benefit poorer folks–but these lectures betray another aspect of their cluelessness. I’d be willing to bet that Charles Koch and his ilk don’t really know any poor people.

They may have servants who are poor, of course. But that’s a lot different than living in a economically diverse neighborhood, or riding public transportation with an assortment of city dwellers, or having your kids go to school with children from varied backgrounds.

Even in cities, of course, we see increasing economic segregation. But there was a lot of truth to that wonderful old rant The Urban Archipelago —

Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We’re for that. We’re for pluralism of thought, race, and identity.

The real virtue of urban diversity is that it bestows a larger framework for understanding the world and the variety of people who populate it. If your only contact with “poor people” is on television or through the writing of ideologically compatible pundits–if you view “them”only from the comfort and distance of your gated community,or through the window of your air-conditioned Mercedes– it’s easy to make assumptions about their lives and habits.

Many years ago, when my sons were in high school (Tech, in downtown Indianapolis), a girl began calling my middle son every night at dinner time. After the fifth or sixth time, annoyed, I indulged a sexist stereotype and snapped “Tell her to stop calling you, that boys call girls; girls don’t call boys!” To which he replied, “But mom, I can’t call her. Her family doesn’t have a phone.”

I don’t think I’d ever known anyone who didn’t have a telephone. But my sons’ lives and moral imaginations have been immeasurably enlarged because they did.

Stereotyping of all kinds depends on ignorance. That’s true of racial and religious stereotyping, and it’s equally true of economic stereotyping. The virtue of cities is that “smashing together” of real human beings–a smashing that makes it harder (not impossible, but harder) to substitute assumptions about other people for actual knowledge of them.

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The Legislative Process

Yesterday, the Indianapolis Star ran the second part of Matt Tully’s series on ethics at the Indiana General Assembly, or how a bill really becomes a law.

What struck me most was the irony–the amounts of money spent by vocal proponents of free enterprise and the market economy in pursuit of legislation privileging their positions in that market and/or protecting them against competition. Sunday liquor sales, gaming operations, banking rules, collective bargaining…for a state that  celebrates capitalism, our lawmakers spend an inordinate amount of time picking winners and losers.

Want an example?

Also appearing in yesterday’s paper was a report on a hearing held by the House Utility Committee on the boondoggle known as the Rockport Coal-Gasification plant.

As readers of this blog will recall from previous posts, then-Governor Mitch Daniels entered into a thirty-year deal with Leucadia National Corporation, represented in Indiana by long-time Republican operative and Daniels friend, Mark Lubbers. (If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Mark Lubbers’ wife Teresa was appointed by Daniels to head up the state’s Commission on Higher Education.) The terms of the deal obligated the state to buy the company’s synthetic gas and resell it on the open market. Indiana ratepayers would get discounts or increases on their bills, depending upon whether the synthetic gas was more or less expensive than gas available on the open market. Seventeen percent of ratepayers’ bills would be tied to the Rockport plant’s rate.

State Senator Doug Eckerty, who opposes the deal, has sponsored a bill that would send the agreement back to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission for a full review.

In the committee hearing, Eckerty pointed out that gas prices have plummeted since the plant was first proposed, and that the manufacture of synthetic gas is no longer economically feasible. Coal gasification projects in other states have been abandoned. As he noted, if private sources will not finance these projects, why should taxpayers?

When natural gas prices were high, there was at least a thin justification for a deal that used Indiana ratepayers to guarantee the profits of a private company. Now even that pretense of a public purpose is gone. Mark Lubbers testified that gas prices are volatile, so the plant would protect ratepayers if and when the prices spiked again.

The problem is, whether gas prices rise again is irrelevant. The state should not be picking private-sector winners and losers. I hate to use a sports analogy, but government’s role in the economy is best compared to that of the umpire or referee in a game. When government abandons that role–when it suits up and plays with one of the teams–it is improper. It violates the rules, undermines the sport, and makes cynics of the onlookers.

It’s no different when the game is the free market.

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