How to Check Your Privilege and Why

Let me start by telling you a story.

When I first heard the phrase "cultural appropriation", my knee-jerk reaction was to roll my eyes hard enough to give them a hernia. Firstly, that sounds like something a cultural relativist would say, and cultural relativists are of course the most horrible people on the face of the Earth, and secondly, looting one another for ideas is one of only two ways that cultures interact, the other one being trying to kill each other; having a healthy relationship with another culture just means you're looting each other in equal measure: Americans get tattoos in kanji while Japanese wear clothes featuring random English word salad, that sort of thing. (For the record: I treat culture with the same reverence and respect that Bill Mahar treats religion, and for much the same reason. Every truly horrible thing we've ever done as a species, from the holocaust to slavery to the rape of the New World, has been because of culture. I simply don't respect it.)

And in the privacy of my own home, I did roll my eyes, but I did not call "bullshit" on it on the message boards it came up in. Because, as I said, I had literally just heard the phrase right then, and I did not want to find out later that in my ignorance I was, Idunno, supporting Nazism or something. Luckily, though, it turns out that there's this thing called "Google" that exists, and if you ask it "what is cultural appropriation?" it tries to answer you.

I found this article on the first page of results. If I'm reading that correctly, it basically just means that "if people from the culture you're treating like a costume find it offensive that you're doing so, it's offensive," which makes sense. I mean, they're the ones who would know, you know?

And that's the story of how, by taking five minutes out of my busy life to do the bare bones-iest of fact-checking, I managed to avoid making a complete and total ass of myself! Why...just, why doesn't everyone do this? I mean, one would think that not accidentally being an asshole would be pretty high on people's list of concerns (if I'm an asshole to someone, I want it to be on purpose). I mean, ignoring all personal politics and whatnot, shouldn't you at least want to recognize your biases and strive against the temptation to be lazy about fact-checking ideas that fall in line with them, even if for no better reason than being better at being an insufferable know-it-all? It's a small price to pay for avoiding turning into Donald Trump, isn't it?

My bringing up Trump was neither coincidental nor hyperbole. Donald Trump is Donald Trump because he's surrounded by yes-men, and therefore has no one in his life to tell him what an arrogant, self-centered asshole he's being. Oprah had the same problem when she compared Trayvon Martin to Emmet Till.

(It's not that I have anything against Martin, you understand, he was probably a decent enough kid--it's just that Till is a goddamn martyr. Whatever happened the night of Martin's death, he wasn't using his last breath to literally spit in the face of racism, knowing the consequences would be fatal. Very few things are comparable to that. But let's not get off-topic.)

If you don't check your privilege and you're surrounded by people like you who also don't check their privilege, it's functionally the same thing as being surrounded by yes-men who are too afraid to tell you what a giant asshole you're being. Basically, no one tells you what a giant asshole you're being. (One of) Trump's privilege(s) is his wealth. My privilege is that I'm a member of the dominant race, sex, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation of the world's most culturally, economically, and militarily preeminent nation, which I also happen to be a natural-born citizen of.

I bet it never even occurred to many of you that being American was itself a privilege, but even the (save homelessness) worst off of us has access to running water and at least theoretical protection under the law. Every conversation I've ever heard about privilege assumes all parties are American, or at least belong to Western, White-dominated nations (not a perfect overlap either way; Russia is not Western, and Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are not White), and yet the simple fact that you happened to have been born in a geographical and temporal location where the concept of human rights is even a thing confers upon you uncountable advantages. You're not just permitted to get an education, but required and actively encouraged to do so. You have access to roads and other infrastructure. You are vaccinated against several of the world's deadliest diseases and geographically isolated from the several more. You are fluent in the dominant language of the global economy. And on and on and on.

I have just helped you check the one privilege I'm all but certain everyone reading this shares. And you're welcome.