Audre

I used to think that the imperative "check your privilege" was cute and edgy, like the self-identified/self-diagnosed marginalized kids who use it at Marginalized Underprivileged Self-Esteem Summer Camp.  I totally would have used it in college.

Six years after I heard it for the first time, that gets right up my nose, it does. 

It scares me.  This is a rallying bully cry that comes from the legitimately-bullied.  Repeating the patterns of marginalization by attempting to create spaces where the privileged are de-privileged only turns the tables; no new tables are created and, most importantly, no one else is invited to the newly-turned tables.

So.  New king, same as the old king.

For me, the foundational texts for examining privilege come from Audre Lorde, as do all of my political loves.  Her ideas are a bit dated, a bit exclusionary, but I still believe that she made two major prophecies:

1.  The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.  I particularly like her rhetorical questions.

"What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of at same patriarchy?  It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable."

2.  Checking privilege is independent of marginalization.  I extrapolated that one, but here is the gist of that from "Uses of Anger":

"What woman here is so enamoured of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman's face?  What woman's terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny?"

To me, "check your privilege" is a valid request, but it is one that must be made to self at the same time as it is made to others, a Taoist eradication of desire for inclusion into the "fold of the righteous," the fold of vengeance, the fold of pettiness, the fold of competitive underprivilege, the fold of blind validation.

If not, then we only use the master's tools to remake the master's house in our own image.  Not a good look.