Some Thoughts on Privilege and “Overreacting”

Maybe it was John Derbyshire’s comment in the National Review that sexual harassment isn’t real. Maybe it’s all of the permanently jobbed, mostly wealthy individuals who keep telling the Occupy Wall Street crowd to “quit whining and get a job.” Maybe it was Richard Dawkins’ incredibly misguided response to elevatorgate.  Or maybe it’s just the endless echo of “You’re overreacting” that seems to accompany so many observations about racial / gender / age / class discrimination in the popular media.

Whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about privilege lately, and about what people really mean when they accuse someone of overreacting.

I can already feel hackles rising when I say the word “privilege,” because somewhere along the way, privilege became the realm of white dudes and white dudes alone. Any time you talk about privilege, it seems, one of the first reactions is to accuse the speaker of white dude-bashing.

But privilege, of course, is not limited to white dudes. Let’s look at what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say about it:

privilege, n. A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by an individual, corporation of individuals, etc., beyond the usual rights or advantages of others; spec. (a) an exemption from a normal duty, liability, etc.; (b) enjoyment of some benefit (as wealth, education, standard of living, etc.) above the average or that deemed usual or necessary for a particular group

It’s that second definition, the “exemption from a normal duty / liability” one, that interests me most. Because that can apply to lots and lots of people.

Where privilege seems to come into play most commonly these days is in situations like this, which I’ll try to illustrate in a mathematical way.

1. Person A, a member of X group, describes how Y situation made him / her uncomfortable or offended.

2. Person B, who is not a member of X group and has never been in Y situation, dismisses person A’s response as “overreacting,” “not having a sense of humor,” or “being too sensitive.”

Let’s apply that formula to a few different situations.

A black man says that being followed around by a security guard in a shopping mall was offensive to him. A white woman says he’s blowing the whole incident out of proportion.

A woman says she was uncomfortable when a workplace superior invited her to his apartment for a drink. A male coworker rolls his eyes and says she’s overreacting.

A man says it’s difficult to live on $20,000 a year. A woman / man (the gender really doesn’t matter here) who has never made less than $100,000 a year tells the man to quit whining.

I’d like to propose a radically simple mathematical solution to this problem: If a member of X group expresses frustration / discomfort / anger over an issue specifically related to X group, and YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER OF X GROUP, please don’t accuse that person of overreacting, being too sensitive, or not having a sense of humor. You might have reason to doubt their position. You might be offended by their assessment of the situation. But as a person who has never and will likely never experience the kind of marginalization / discrimination they are describing, you are still viewing their situation from a place of privilege, and you should not assess it as an insider or an expert. Disagree all you want, but don’t dismiss.

I’ve got plenty of privilege of my own. As a white woman living in Tokyo, the police leave me alone. Not so many of my male foreign friends, especially my non-white male friends, who report getting stopped by the police on a regular basis for no reason at all. Am I going to accuse them of whining? Fuck no.

I’ve also never been poor in my life. Sure, like a lot of grad students I refer to being broke or strapped for cash, but I have never lived in fear of eviction, never had to live in my car, never had to forgo medical treatment because I couldn’t afford it, never had to use food stamps. So when someone who IS using food stamps says that it’s really hard to live on them, I’m going to acknowledge that I don’t know shit about what it’s like to be in their shoes. I’m certainly not going to dismiss their complaints as overreacting.

Because really, what we mean when we say “You’re overreacting” is “Your feelings don’t matter” and “I understand this situation better than you do.” We’re negating the person’s experience, diminishing the person,  and dismissing their problem as trivial.

To sum up, then: maybe we should all think about our own privilege. In particular, think about whether you’re speaking from a place of privilege before you dismiss someone’s anger or discomfort. Really, just think before you say “You’re overreacting,” “You just don’t have a sense of humor,” and “You’re too sensitive”. It’s very, very hard to say those things and not sound like a dick.