“Asians in the Library”, Privilege, Misogyny, and the Banality of Prejudice

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

The full article that inspired this post is here at Sociological Images

The author of this response, Beau Sia, has posted an excellent performance piece on the basic concepts of privilege and prejudice, in the voice of Alexandra Wallace of UCLA, without mocking her for being female, or for having large breasts. It is very refreshing to see a response that doesn’t rely on misogyny.  Watch the whole piece.

His piece does not only apply to Asians in the library, but to young Black men at the grocery store, or women at the construction site, or Muslims at the high school.  This is a fundamental bit of education, done in an entertaining fashion, that applies to the concept of privilege more broadly than the original prompt.  Beau Sia’s YouTube bio lists him as an Oklahoman who currently lives in New York City and is a slam poet, whose parents are Chinese immigrants from the Philippines.

This also goes back to the series that Chally at Feministe is doing about origins, titled Where Are You From (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), and who really belongs someplace.  I am a Caucasian American, and most places I’ve been, I felt like I belonged, with one exception.  In the deep south, when visiting, I was clearly a Yankee, and it was made clear to me that if I lived the rest of my life there, I would never belong.

Beau Sia makes a poignant case (as does the Feministe series) that many, many Americans never have the experience that I have, that I am automatically accepted as belonging.  In some cases, as in the ever increasing hysteria on the Right regarding Hispanic Immigrants and Muslims, the ‘not belonging’ of it all is vicious hostility.

This has been perennially an issue for African Americans and women, two groups (among others) that wake up every day with the sure knowledge (conscious or unconscious) that the world they live in wasn’t built for them and doesn’t reflect their values.

Unconscious privilege is an insidious trap, and it is easy to get caught in it.  This makes Daniel Jose Older’s piece “Beyond Manning Up”, in Racialicious all the more astounding.  As an EMT, Older describes the process he went through as he realized, slowly and gradually, how normal violence against women is in our society, how utterly banal.

He compares the stages of understanding privilege to the stages of grief, and it is an apt description.  When you have been raised to believe in a “level playing field”, which is a truly wonderful ideal, to allow yourself to stop believing that it exists is a deep loss. He rightfully concludes, however, that getting to the final stage, understanding, is only the beginning.

I can only hope that Miss Alexandra Wallace at UCLA learns a similar lesson, and that the rest of us can take something from her example, the fine response of Beau Sia, the series by Chally at Feministe, and the excellent article by Daniel Jose Older.

 

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