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The Blindness of Privilege
By Jeff Fecke | April 25, 2008
Privilege is inextricably woven with a blindness to one’s privilege. To be privileged is to be blissfully unaware of the many ways in which privilege helps one to advance through society. When those who are privileged learn to listen to those who are not, they are often shocked at what those who are not privileged have to put up with. And they often respond in a very human way: to deny that they see the ways they are privileged. To minimize the complaints of the non-privileged. To try to explain away the evidence of privilege. And to ignore when those issues come to the fore.
This is not just the error of conservatives, sexists, racists, and homophobes. It takes work to see evidence of oppression when one is not the one being oppressed. It is far easier to simply ignore it, even when one knows one shouldn’t. I have been guilty of this, and I’d suspect everyone reading this has been guilty of this as well.
I’ve had Amanda Marcotte’s new book, It’s a Jungle Out There, sitting on my desk for a few weeks now. I was going to write a review of it at one point, but some things changed with regard to who I was writing for. And in the midst of that change, I’ve been more focused on getting resumés together, finding new employment (which I’ve done, thanks for asking), and generally figuring out how to make life work than reading a book I’ve been wanting to read.
In a way, I’m glad I haven’t read it yet, because in reading it now, I will see what I may have otherwise chosen not to see: that someone made an indefensibly racist decision in its selection of artwork for the book.
Quite frankly, there’s no excuse for the image at right (image credit to Wolfa via Dear White Feminists); it’s racist, full stop. As are other images used to illustrate the book, images of a white woman attacking indigenous people who are portrayed as savages. There is no defense for those illustrations. None.
The illustrations, from the old comic Lorna the Jungle Girl, were probably not chosen for their racism, though. Doubtless, they were chosen by some editor at Seal Press who found the images of a woman fighting in the jungle, and who thought they would make nice, cheap, and kitschy images for a feminist book with the word jungle in the title — images that were an improvement over the original cover, which featured a gorilla carrying a woman, an image that was not just racist, but seemed to accept violence against women as a given. I misdoubt those who cleared the images never thought about the racism inherent in the images, because they didn’t have to. It’s easy to ignore racism if one is white in America. I’m sure that the folks at Seal thought the images were really just showing an attack on patriarchal oppression. If the thought crossed anyone’s mind, doubtless they were able to easily rationalize it: the savages were men, after all, so it’s just an image of a woman attacking men. Race doesn’t enter into it, they would argue.
But one can’t separate the two. One can’t attack the patriarchy with racism, any more than one can undo racial oppression with sexism. (Quick aside: some Obama and Clinton supporters should tattoo that onto their foreheads.) And one can’t simply ignore the bad part of an image to look to the good part. That’s privilege in a nutshell, because frankly, it is a white person’s privilege to ignore the racism inherent in these images. It’s not an attack on us.
I don’t particularly enjoy calling Amanda out on this, because I like and respect Amanda. She’s one of the two people who I most credit with helping me see my own male privilege. (Melissa is the other.) She’s a fantastic writer, sharp-tongued, acerbic, and witty. And I would state flatly that I hope that the good parts of her book and her message can be salvaged.
But we can’t ignore the bad parts of a good message, and the imagery used in the book is deeply troubling. It is racist. And it detracts from the message of the book. It should be called out for what it is, and it should be removed from all future editions of the book. And while I know enough of how publishing works to know that Amanda likely did not have much to do with the selection of these images, she still owes the broader community an apology and an explanation for their inclusion. We cannot as a movement achieve equality for women without achieving equality for women of color. We cannot get to a more egalitarian society by marginalizing groups. And we must work assiduously to hold allies to a higher standard. It isn’t always fun to be held to a higher standard — I know this well, having been called out for ignoring my own privilege during the coverage of the election — but it is necessary. We cannot grow unless we see our own flaws.
See also: Maia at Alas, a Blog; Holly at Feministe; Jeff at Feminist Allies; Ampersand; Ann at Feministing; Karnythia at Angry Black Woman.
UPDATE: Amanda apologizes:
I’m sorry. Plain and simple. I didn’t pick the offensive imagery in my book, but I should have caught it sooner than now. I didn’t and there’s no excuse. It was my first book, I was excited and happy, but I needed to have a more critical eye. I would do anything to remove racist images from the first printing of the book if I could, and I am relieved and happy to say that they will be removed from future printings. Seal Press has their note of apology up too, and they accept full responsibility for these mistakes. I really recommend reading it.
I can understand why anyone would choose to boycott a book with these images, and I respect that choice. Hopefully, once they are removed, people will reconsider supporting the book if they like the content. I, for one, will be ripping the pages out of my copy but keeping them as a reminder to be alert. Thank you to everyone who’s engaged in a conversation that’s been tough for me but productive nonetheless.
Good. As I said, it’s not fun to get called out on privilege, but it’s important when one is to listen and learn from it. Hopefully, this incident can serve as a positive event, insofar as it forces white people to own up to our own racial privilege — and encourages us to listen to and value the voices and perspectives of people of color.
Topics: Feminism, Race | 7 Comments »
April 25th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Jeff, did it ever occur to you that Amanda is also being sexist — namely against men — by her inclusion of that image? Perhaps the ideological sisterhood you share with Amanda insulates you of charges of bigotry because your political views exempt you from that criticism. Liberals like you are privileged to avoid charges of sexism because liberalism is so politically correct. You get a pass, except not by me. Do you realize that your exception from such criticism — due to your left-leaning views — is a form of privilege? You have extended that privilege to Amanda by not calling her out on her sexism (and mitigating your critique to the racist imagery you pointed out).
Such privilege against charges of sexism are enjoyed daily by women and by liberals. It’s almost as if they are conditioned to think, “How dare you accuse me of sexism! I advocate against sexism, so how could I be guilty? And, of course, I’m a woman/liberal/advocate/whatever.”
Symbols of bigotry against men abound in our culture — except the blindness of privilege prevents the privileged from seeing them. Don’t believe me? Check out this critique of the movie Sleeping with the Enemy to get an idea of just how rife (and subtle) anti-male sexism really is.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Nice try, John….but right-wing flattery will get you nowhere.
Yes, Amanda Marcotte and Seal Press should be held accountable for selecting such racist images; and women of color bloggers are doing exactly that. But, how that translates into your general slam at “liberalism” for being so “politically correct” to bash men is simply ridiculous.
And your point about “left-leaning views” getting a “free pass” due to their supposed “privilege”: really??? Last time I checked, it wasn’t “left-leaning” or even “liberal” folks who had all the power and money and resources in this country; it was more like wealthy White men. That is, the very same constituency that you claim to be defending against “anti-male” bias. Liberals may on occasion go overboard in their critique of racism and sexism; but they never had the power to discriminate the way conservatives and Rightists always have. Projecting much, maybe??
Oh….and I happen to be someone who happens to be Black and very much to the Left of even most “moderate liberals”….and I was very much horrified by the images put forth in that book. So much for your theory that only conservatives like you get to be critical of bigotry.
BTW…both Amanda Marcotte and Seal Press have just issued public apologies and have announced that they will recall and remove those images from the book.
Try your poison somewhere else, please.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Jeff,
I think your points were very well-argued. Thanks for this post.
April 25th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Anthony Kennerson wrote:
The same kind of thinking dominated Europe for many years, except in that situation it was roundly agreed that the Jews possessed all the power. Well, they sure fixed that one, didn’t they? Seven million murders later, Europe now admits that maybe the Jews really weren’t so powerful after all, and in any case deserved better treatment anyway by virtue of the fact that they are human beings.
Men are human beings, and thus deserve not to be kicked upside the head like that picture depicted in Amanda’s book. This is my view no matter what men out there possess great power.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
John:
What does that have anything to do with this situation?
We’re not talking about the Holocaust here; this is about a book by an individual nominally liberal feminist blogger whose publisher decided to include some very racist images in her latest book….and her past history of dismissing the work and activism of women of color bloggers….many of them happen to be well to the left politically of even Marcotte. How that translates into an indictment of “liberalism” for allegedly hating men is a mystery only found in your own mind.
Men are indeed human beings….and so are women. And so are Black people, and Latina/Latino people, and so are Asian/Chinese/Oriental people, and so are White people, too. But reality will show who’s really being kicked in the head…and it isn’t just reduced to “liberals”, either.
Sprry for the threadjack, but right-wing trolls denying real sexism give me the hives.
Anthony
April 25th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
For your info, Anthony, I’m a libertarian (so you may call me right wing if you want), but I’m no troll. I’m a regular here, so long as Jeff doesn’t ban me.
The point of the article — hardly a distraction — was that privilege blinds the privileged. In this case, Jeff pointed out racial privilege blinding the privileged. I pointed out that sexism also extends from the privileged — anti-male sexism in this particular case, in this particular picture. You went ballistic with rage when that statement was made, but it is right on point.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Sprry for the threadjack, but right-wing trolls denying real sexism give me the hives.
I hear you.
You went ballistic with rage when that statement was made, but it is right on point.
No, it is not. But thanks for playing.