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talking to my child about privilege

talking to my child about privilege

Last updated on: February 27, 2017 at 2:42 pm by Rebecca Bratten Weiss

talking to my child about privilege 2017-02-27T14:42:41-04:00 Rebecca Bratten Weiss

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I keep going back to the question of whether racism and sexism are learned – either overtly, from prejudiced elders, or subtly, from cultural cues – or whether they’re tied simply to original sin, as sure a sign of the blight on our collective soul as the pointless crying of infants cynically referenced by Augustine. It does seem to be the case that on a fundamental level, before culture teaches them prejudice, children are basically inclined to empathy – at least, when it doesn’t interfere with their pleasures, or threaten their little tribalisms. My children are always quick to recognize when an injustice has been done, and not only to themselves. Reading stories and siding with the oppressed (Cinderella scrubbing floors, Harry Potter in his tiny cupboard – the plight of slave children, orphans, and beggars) comes naturally to them.

Understanding privilege is a harder thing, though. Because latent in the idea of privilege is the nagging sense of guilt. It’s easy to see the poor or the disenfranchised or the less fortunate and know that charity and justice are owed to them. It’s harder when this becomes connected somehow with something in oneself one has to “check.”

Talking to my children about empathy and equality is always easy. But last week, with my son, the topic of privilege came up. He was invited to participate in an event that involved dressing up as Native Americans. Our schedule didn’t allow for him to participate, but I added: “I don’t really want you doing any activities that involve you dressing up as Native peoples.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It isn’t respectful,” I said.

“But they’re always really respectful about Native Americans. We’re always told to be respectful of their traditions.”

Here’s the other hard part of teaching this stuff: it easily comes across as criticism of groups or persons who are basically decent, even if not “woke.” I don’t want my son thinking I’m saying his friends who do this are bad guys. “I’m sure they mean to be respectful, and that’s great,” I said. “But think about it. Imagine if you belonged to a group of people who had lost almost everything you had, and been slaughtered, and herded up, and taken advantage of – and now these same people are dressing up as you.”

My son, usually very relaxed about conversations on topics of justice, rolled his eyes. “But mom, I didn’t do any of those things! I think it was awful that those things happened, but it was a long time ago, and it wasn’t me! So why are you saying I’m supposed to feel guilty about it.”

I’ve heard essentially this same complaint, similarly worded, from people twice and three and fourth times my son’s age. And it’s understandable. To us, the woes of others can seem so remote. Terrible, yes, even tear-worthy, but still just events in history books, or dramatized in movies. We know they were tragedies, but we don’t think they have anything to do with us, today, and the fun we look forward to having – harmless fun, dressing up in head-dresses, painting our faces. We forget that just as much of what we have was given, so similarly much of what others lack was taken.

I tried to come up with some way to make it tangible, and remembered the arrowhead he found once, turned up in the soil of my tomato garden. “Do you remember what you found on our land once?” I asked him.

I explained that the arrowhead meant that native peoples once had lived where we live today, hunted there, relied on this land for their food. No, we didn’t take it from them, and neither did the people we bought this land from, or the ones before them. But somewhere back there in the skein of time, the reason we have this land today hinged upon some white European pushing out or taking away from those who had been here first.

It’s not our fault.

But we only have what we have because of someone’s fault.

Because we are Jewish, I added: “what if there was some family in Germany that was stinking rich, because their grandparents stole lots of treasures from Jews they sent to concentration camps? Should they have that wealth?”

That’s a sharp, obvious instance of a case in which people have wealth precisely because of the sins of their fathers, and the wealth should, justly, be given up in reparation. The case of our family – descended from recent immigrants on one side, but from white European colonists on the other – and where we live – and the plight of Native peoples – may be more complicated. But the privilege, still, is clear.

“Personally, in this case,” I told my son. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. You, personally, did nothing wrong, and you shouldn’t feel guilty for being white, or whatever. What you do need to realize, though, is that you have a lot of good things that can only be yours because things were taken from others. So it’s important to be especially respectful towards the people whose ancestors lost so much. If they say they would rather not see people dressing up and pretending to be them, you need to take that seriously. It’s the least you can do. It’s not about guilt. It’s about responsibility.”

I wrote recently about the way we think about who we are, and so easily forget that much we have has nothing to do with our own choice. It’s given to us, the bad and the good. Thinking about privilege means thinking beyond simply “what I have” and considering, also “what was I given?” – and “was this giving a good thing?”

It’s easy to see that what we have been given is negative if we are given hereditary disease. But if what we have been given makes our lives easier (wealth, beauty, health) why would we want to question its goodness? This would seem nihilistic.

Recognizing privilege means looking beyond material things as “blessings.” If a material good has been “given” us, because of a prior injustice, can we really consider this a blessing? The early church fathers recognized this not only on a historical level, but on the level of the immediate responsibilities to the needs of the community:

The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you put into the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help but fail to help.
Basil of Caesarea

The rich are in possession of the goods of the poor, even if they have acquired them honestly or inherited them legally.
John Chrysostom

You are not making a gift of your possession to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his.
Ambrose of Milan

If this is true even about wealth honestly acquired, then how can we refuse to recognize that our privilege may exist due to loss or suffering on the part of another, even if we in no way intended or willed it – even if we truly recognize that what was done to the other was tragic, horrible, and unjust? Perhaps this is part of what is meant, by the statement that “blessed are the poor in spirit” – that to hoard up riches for ourselves, even honestly, can blind us to the greater, more enduring goods of justice, peace, and kindness, the true blessings God has promised us? That to be poor in spirit means detachment from thinking that material goods are “blessings” from God, given to us because of our just deserts? Material wealth, Jesus always tells, us, is dangerous.

What the church fathers propose is, quite honestly, terrifying to me. I may be only barely above the poverty line by American standards, but I am rich by global standards. And insofar as I benefit mindlessly from being American I am “part of the problem” – the problem of global depletion of resources, the problem of poverty in the developing world, the problem of refugees displaced from their homes, the problem of the disenfranchisement of native peoples.

Compared with what the saints and fathers of the church are telling us, simply admitting “I have privilege” and “I owe something back” and “I probably can’t understand how much harder it is for others” and “maybe I need to change my life” doesn’t seem so extreme, after all. It’s just basic human decency.

image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1940_govt_photo_minnesota_farming_scene_chippewa_baby_teething_on_magazine_indians_at_work.jpg

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