Chapter 2: Your privilege is showing; synonymous with "shut up!"

Let's review where we're at. I consider myself to be politically progressive. I'm an ally of movements that seek to level the playing field for traditionally disadvantaged groups. As the father of daughters, I consider myself a feminist. As the product of a blue collar industrial town, I consider myself a unionist (virtually 100% of my working life was as a union member). I'm an immigrant; I abhor racist and xenophobic attitudes to immigrants and refugees.

I think of myself as an ally of progressive movements. Unfortunately, I sense these movements don't want my support. Unfortunately, the left is, once again, devouring its own. It seems, unfortunately, being an ally is not enough. It seems, walking picket lines as a unionist no longer counts as a bona fide criterion for the self-styled guardians of leftist purity. It seems "privilege" gets in the way and, apparently, disqualifies me - and thousands like me - from speaking on progressive issues.

Let's be clear: as the immigrant son of a blue collar worker from an industrial town, I invented reverse discrimination. As a young man I spotted and called out the privilege of the management types in town. I spotted their kids and was suspicious of them. I'm not new to calling out privilege.

Privilege exists. But privilege does not mean stupid. Privilege very clearly can prejudice one's view of issues. But, privilege should not prohibit one from discussing those issues.

In the previous chapter, I discussed the Yale University and Evergreen State issues. In both cases, progressive, sympathetic allies of the left were called out for their "privilege". Apparently, their privilege prohibited them from comprehending the "injustices" felt by the students at the center of these controversies.

But, why would these progressive allies not understand these injustices? What do we really know about the allies? What is the measure of privilege? Must we establish a scale, some kind of ranking of privilege, to determine who is, or is not, entitled to venture an opinion? Does male, person of colour, trump female, white single parent in terms of privilege? How about a gay, person of colour? You get the idea. The notion is absurd!

So long as "your privilege is showing" becomes a bad debating tactic that simply stands for "shut up!" we ought to simply abandon the idea of calling out privilege.