This makes sense, though I’d never heard the term the bamboo ceiling before. In general, the higher up the corporate ladder you go, the whiter, maler (that’s not a word, I know… still) it is.
I do wonder if getting women and people of color into positions of power helps or only brings those individuals into the complicity of the system. In other words, do you need to embrace the mind set of the power structure to succeed within the power structure? Or does bringing in those outside the power structure help to change the structure itself? I don’t know the answer to this, actually.
Baldwin is right there, and I can see it now. But prior to having the experience of living abroad (China) for a while and being brought face-to-face first with the Han Chinese in the PRC with their unthinking acceptance of their culture and the way it disregards others —and then realising that I did the same— I would have been utterly confused by that unqualified statement alone.
I don’t know off the top of my head, but it bears some possible research (especially since its an idea that tangentially impacts on my research, in terms of the production of culture). I guess Foucault argues that there is no outside, only small acts of resistance.
I agree with this as representing a significant part of the problem, and having reached a similar conclusion has been what motivates me to address the problem of Statism first. Getting rid of nation states does seem difficult, but hardly impossible.
There is IMO no real power to change this from within the system, only from making new systems.
I find it distasteful that you use this quote as a reply to me. I do not self-identify as “white”, and I have no control over how I am classified by others.
This piece was written last year after a particularly egregious racist outburst that went viral, and it speaks to the structural racism that permeates Australian culture. I think might play a part in Silicon Valley hiring practices - even on an unconcious level.
Even if an applicant doesn’t put their race on the application, they could still be “overlooked” based on their name:
Like the racism revealed by an Australian National University study, which found you’re significantly less likely to get a job interview if you have a non-European name. The researchers sent fake CVs in response to job advertisements, changing only the name of the applicant. It turns out that if you’re surname is Chinese, you have to apply for 68 per cent more jobs to get the same number of interviews as a Anglo-Australian. If you’re Middle Eastern, it’s 64 per cent. If you’re indigenous, 35 per cent.
I do think we need to recognize that nationalism has been both a problem and a negative. Even Marx argued that the modern economic system wiped away the ancien regime of class based monarchy, and that the changes of the bourgeoisie economy were the most radical and far reaching in history (we can certainly argue about whether he’s right). The question is if nationalism has always been bad, or if people have used it for positive ends - that’s a debatable point. It has been used successfully to resist imperialism, historically. And getting rid of the nation-state would be incredibly destructive and violent - we are seeing some of that right now in the middle east. The core question might be if we can find a way forward without such violence.
And I get your point about new systems, but we all seem to be having a tough time thinking outside the box, other than maybe on an individual level.
Right, but how OTHERS classify you does impact your life in this world. You may not perceive yourself as white, and on some level being able to do so is itself evidence of privilege, but others may do so and act accordingly. Privilege adheres to real or perceived classes of people, not individuals. And @milliefink is correct when she says that people who are white receive privileges, and its not always because we expect or demand it. It just happens. If you recognize and accept that, it’s a good step in trying to deal with the structures in our society. I think it was Ta-Nehisi Coates who said that racism isn’t a problem of black people, but of white people, even as it’s a problem for black people.
The US/Israeli military, anti-abortion groups, the KKK. These are all examples of terrorist groups who want to maintain power and suppress opposition to their world views. They believe what they want and want what they believe. It is called fundamentalism.
some times i feel like the answer to these set of questions are similar to 42–you can know the question or the answer but not both. i wish i had any novel insight, but as a short term goal making positions of power less white and less male is a direction i advocate until we collectively figure out a better answer.
I think this use of the word “privilege” is horribly misapplied. I think of privilege as something explicitly granted by a person in a “superior” position. In this case, the so-called privileges appear to vague and implicit, as does any hierarchal superiority. If we are discussing race as privilege, then wouldn’t a privilege for being white be granted only by other white people? Am I granted a white privilege by black people also? It seems to all depend upon who you are dealing with. What I think people are seeing here is really just a pressure for conformity with whatever group identity they may be confronted with, because many people are conditioned to accept that coercing people to conform to vague norms should be accepted.
Inequality is worth considering for historical perspective, but I think there is a danger in teaching modern people that inequality is real. Equality seems to me to be innate, so the sentiment that “some people are more equal than others” reenforces the problem. Even the presupposition of the social hierarchies implicit in privilege function as a denial of direct, explicit relationships between people, which implies a more or less complete lack of autonomy or mutuality.
Keeping your dealings with people explicit seems likely to yield more civilized interactions. Deal with people as equals, and don’t assume anything!
There was actually quite a bit in the article about the perception of Asian immigrants, and the historical and legal circumstances that have fed the stereotype and the (limited and over-simplified) reality that Asians in the US are more apt and better prepared for tech jobs. It wasn’t the bulk of the article, but there was plenty of inb4 “Asians aren’t white” material.
I agree with you though, that the article lacked a bit of focus, and took a lot of connections between different social realities for granted, though.
I’d arguing that denying the very real structures that have indeed created inequality is very dangerous. Of course, engaging others as equals is how we should operate in this world and how I do operate in this world, but we need to acknowledge the structures that have created inequalities in our societies. Being able to ignore social inequallity is in itself its own kind of privilege.
Privilege describes how racism, sexism, and classism actually operate within our social structures. People have claimed status as white because it indeed does create certain privileges that have real consequences for people. I don’t think you can deny that there has been social structures which created inequality, historically and that in many ways continue to this day.
I am sure you can see how this is circular logic. Denying it is proof of it’s existence? I don’t ignore social inequality, I renounce it, but think it is crucial to know about for historical reasons.
I think it’s just a horribly inappropriate synonym for inequality. And it’s still relative to whoever you are dealing with. If inequality itself (as hierarchy) is implicit in the language used to understand and teach about inequality, then I doubt if people will conceptually or functionally free themselves from it.
Historically, yes. As for today, I think it depends what society you live in. If these historical social structures were not universal then, why should we assume that the results are universal now? There is a danger in granting primacy to social structures which one lacks direct involvement with. Your policies, and those of your associates, are far more significant.
You seem to be denying it exists. It’s not just historical, but at work today.
I’m in the US, in the south, in a large city. The reality of structural inequality is all around me, daily. I deal with young people who are impacted by this kind of inequality. I see it function in my life every single day. It doesn’t matter whether I grant them primacy - the primacy exists. I have an out in many ways, because of how society interpolates me - a white, middle class woman. I recognize that the options available to me are not the same options available to everyone I interact with on a daily basis.
if you live in a society, in a space, where inequality and privilege does not exist, that’s great. Not all of us do. Its far easier to drop out and not try to create social change on a larger scale, though. If that’s what interests you, fine, but to deny that these things are real in American culture and society at large is almost willfully blind.
I don’t create policies for a large number of people. My biggest “bully pulpit” is my classroom, where I seek to create a space where people can feel comfortable in discussing these things - the only “policies” I set there is how students are assessed in their work.
I do not set university policy in anyway but I am working to have graduate students here have a greater say in how the university sets policy that impacts us as a group… but that doesn’t address other groups on campus, including undergraduates. And we are privileged to be able to do so, actually.
Social change on a large scale is, I think, dropping out. Because it is, by it’s nature, a coercive process. Large groups of people are “imaginary community” and thus precisely what prohibit most people from creating social structures, or attaining the equality which exists as only an ideal in larger states.
I am not statist, so I do not identify with US culture. Also, I think of “society at large” as a tricky abstract which encourages people to universalize things. It does not seem accurate to conceive of society as being any sort of monolithic whole. Society seems to be an emergent property of “networking”. If you cannot accept that your own social structures are as real and as important as anybody else’s, then “social equality” might remain an elusive idea.
I would argue that nobody actually does - although there is often a pretense that they do. How about the policies you create with people? Your home, family, friends, etc? Shouldn’t these be at least as real to you as inheriting premade structures from people you don’t even know? This is where I find that people become frightened of the personal responsibility of social equality, trusting their own networks against outside institutions because it seems “inconvenient”. If people are so quick to deny their own agency/autonomy, I can’t imagine how/why they rationalize that some hierarchal groups of outsiders will help them to attain it.
