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Difference, Power and Privilege

Difference, Power and Privilege. Diversity Literacy Week 1 / Lecture 1. The Diversity Wheel. Work B ackground. Income. Marital Status. Age. Sexual / affectional orientation. Race. Parental Status. Education. Physical abilities / qualities. Ethnicity. Gender. African

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Difference, Power and Privilege

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  1. Difference, Power and Privilege Diversity Literacy Week 1 / Lecture 1 Prepared by Claire Kelly

  2. The Diversity Wheel Work Background Income Marital Status Age Sexual / affectional orientation Race Parental Status Education Physical abilities / qualities Ethnicity Gender African Traditions Geographic Location Adapted from Loden & Rosener’s Diversity Wheel cited in Johnson, A. G. (2001). Privilege, power and difference(Chapters 3 & 8).Boston: McGraw-Hill. (p. 15-41 & 96-116) Religious Beliefs Prepared by Claire Kelly

  3. The Diversity Wheel Prepared by Claire Kelly Doesn’t say much about you as an individual but says volumes about social reality i.e. your positioning. Not all difference is created equal: inner and outer circle. What is the difference between the inner and outer circle?

  4. Difference & Power Prepared by Claire Kelly The problem is not difference, the problem is that our world is organized to use difference to exclude, oppress, devalue, discredit Different positioning confers different opportunitiesi.e. difference access to resources Why and how such patterns come about, why are they maintained?

  5. Difference as Social Construct Prepared by Claire Kelly • Social structuring is a social process: what we experience as real is a cultural creation • Differences only become significant if we live in a culture that recognizes them as such • Differences change over time but are generally long lasting • Rarely, if ever, experienced as such - just the way things are • “Difference maintained by a normative order that supports those who accept the division and constrains those who seek to alter it.” (Payne, p. 242)

  6. Unsettling the normative order…. Prepared by Claire Kelly Insert: Picture of Piet Dlamini who is an African man (black) and also an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB)supporter , which is awhite supremacist organization. http://roganward.blogspot.com/2010/04/awb-man.html http://www.google.co.za/search?q=Piet+Dlamini+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-ZA:official&client=firefox-a

  7. Unsettling the normative order…. Prepared by Claire Kelly Insert: Picture of Thomas Beatie, who is the “man who fell pregnant.” Beatie is a transgender male. http://www.thomasbeatie.com/ www.youtube.com/watch?v=jho1UCPDqXg

  8. Privilege Prepared by Claire Kelly Insert: Picture of a cartoon demonstrating white privilege. You can choose any “white privilege” image that you think your audience will understand. http://thefreshxpress.com/2011/03/white-aint-right-or-is-it/ http://cosmologyofwhiteness.blogspot.com/2011/04/whiteness-and-white-privilege-paradigm.html

  9. Privilege Prepared by Claire Kelly “When one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to” (McIntosh) You don’t have to do anything for it Privilege is structural: “The path of least resistance” Social position versus subjective experience: The power of privilege is that it rarely experienced as such.

  10. Privilege / Normativity Prepared by Claire Kelly Insert: ThembinkosiGoniwe, “Untitled” . Picture of a black man and a white man, both with white plasters on their faces. The plaster appears very obvious that it was made for white skin. http://www.artthrob.co.za/01nov/images/goniwe01a.jpg

  11. Privilege / Normativity Prepared by Claire Kelly Insert: A picture normalizing and privileging maleness. The picture used for the class is an image of stick figures, and the one says to the other “women suck at maths.” http://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/gender-difference-in-math-ability-variability-driven-by-social-inequality-study/

  12. How Privilege Works Prepared by Claire Kelly • Three characteristics of systems of privilege: • dominated by: positions of power, power looks “natural”, entitlement • identified with: standard, the norm • centred: path of least resistance is to focus on them

  13. Divisions, privilege and us Prepared by Claire Kelly Individuals positioned and constrained but we are not wholly given… “path of least resistance” not the only path Thomas Beattie & Piet Dlamini To follow the “path of least resistance”, however, is to sanction the power relations that plots the route of the path – it’s like standing still on a moving train (Howard Zinn)

  14. Extra References Prepared by Claire Kelly Zinn, H. (1995) You can't be neutral on a moving train: A personal history of our times. Boston: Beacon Press

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