Posted on 05/05/2014 3:10:03 PM PDT by Scoutmaster
There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. “Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung. “Check your privilege,” they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world.
I do not accuse those who “check” me and my perspective of overt racism, although the phrase, which assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it, toes that line. But I do condemn them for diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of white maleness who places it out for me before I even arrive. Furthermore, I condemn them for casting the equal protection clause, indeed the very idea of a meritocracy, as a myth, and for declaring that we are all governed by invisible forces (some would call them “stigmas” or “societal norms”), that our nation runs on racist and sexist conspiracies. Forget “you didn’t build that;” check your privilege and realize that nothing you have accomplished is real.Talinside
But they can’t be telling me that everything I’ve done with my life can be credited to the racist patriarchy holding my hand throughout my years of education and eventually guiding me into Princeton. Even that is too extreme. So to find out what they are saying, I decided to take their advice. I actually went and checked the origins of my privileged existence, to empathize with those whose underdog stories I can’t possibly comprehend. I have unearthed some examples of the privilege with which my family was blessed, and now I think I better understand those who assure me that skin color allowed my family and I to flourish today.
Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded Poland, leaving their mother and five younger siblings behind, running and running until they reached a Displaced Persons camp in Siberia, where they would do years of hard labor in the bitter cold until World War II ended. Maybe it was the privilege my grandfather had of taking on the local Rabbi’s work in that DP camp, telling him that the spiritual leader shouldn’t do hard work, but should save his energy to pass Jewish tradition along to those who might survive. Perhaps it was the privilege my great-grandmother and those five great-aunts and uncles I never knew had of being shot into an open grave outside their hometown. Maybe that’s my privilege.
Or maybe it’s the privilege my grandmother had of spending weeks upon weeks on a death march through Polish forests in subzero temperatures, one of just a handful to survive, only to be put in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she would have died but for the Allied forces who liberated her and helped her regain her health when her weight dwindled to barely 80 pounds.
Perhaps my privilege is that those two resilient individuals came to America with no money and no English, obtained citizenship, learned the language and met each other; that my grandfather started a humble wicker basket business with nothing but long hours, an idea, and an iron will—to paraphrase the man I never met: “I escaped Hitler. Some business troubles are going to ruin me?” Maybe my privilege is that they worked hard enough to raise four children, and to send them to Jewish day school and eventually City College.
Perhaps it was my privilege that my own father worked hard enough in City College to earn a spot at a top graduate school, got a good job, and for 25 years got up well before the crack of dawn, sacrificing precious time he wanted to spend with those he valued most—his wife and kids—to earn that living. I can say with certainty there was no legacy involved in any of his accomplishments. The wicker business just isn’t that influential. Now would you say that we’ve been really privileged? That our success has been gift-wrapped?
That’s the problem with calling someone out for the “privilege” which you assume has defined their narrative. You don’t know what their struggles have been, what they may have gone through to be where they are. Assuming they’ve benefitted from “power systems” or other conspiratorial imaginary institutions denies them credit for all they’ve done, things of which you may not even conceive. You don’t know whose father died defending your freedom. You don’t know whose mother escaped oppression. You don’t know who conquered their demons, or may still conquering them now.
The truth is, though, that I have been exceptionally privileged in my life, albeit not in the way any detractors would have it.
It has been my distinct privilege that my grandparents came to America. First, that there was a place at all that would take them from the ruins of Europe. And second, that such a place was one where they could legally enter, learn the language, and acclimate to a society that ultimately allowed them to flourish.
It was their privilege to come to a country that grants equal protection under the law to its citizens, that cares not about religion or race, but the content of your character.
It was my privilege that my grandfather was blessed with resolve and an entrepreneurial spirit, and that he was lucky enough to come to the place where he could realize the dream of giving his children a better life than he had.
But far more important for me than his attributes was the legacy he sought to pass along, which forms the basis of what detractors call my “privilege,” but which actually should be praised as one of altruism and self-sacrifice. Those who came before us suffered for the sake of giving us a better life. When we similarly sacrifice for our descendents by caring for the planet, it’s called “environmentalism,” and is applauded. But when we do it by passing along property and a set of values, it’s called “privilege.” (And when we do it by raising questions about our crippling national debt, we’re called Tea Party radicals.) Such sacrifice of any form shouldn’t be scorned, but admired.
My exploration did yield some results. I recognize that it was my parents’ privilege and now my own that there is such a thing as an American dream which is attainable even for a penniless Jewish immigrant.
I am privileged that values like faith and education were passed along to me. My grandparents played an active role in my parents’ education, and some of my earliest memories included learning the Hebrew alphabet with my Dad. It’s been made clear to me that education begins in the home, and the importance of parents’ involvement with their kids’ education—from mathematics to morality—cannot be overstated. It’s not a matter of white or black, male or female or any other division which we seek, but a matter of the values we pass along, the legacy we leave, that perpetuates “privilege.” And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Behind every success, large or small, there is a story, and it isn’t always told by sex or skin color. My appearance certainly doesn’t tell the whole story, and to assume that it does and that I should apologize for it is insulting. While I haven’t done everything for myself up to this point in my life, someone sacrificed themselves so that I can lead a better life. But that is a legacy I am proud of.
I have checked my privilege. And I apologize for nothing.
Mr. Fortgang didn't write this essay anonymously. Thanks to Chickensoup, I've since learned that the site I found erred in attributing this to "anonymous."
Mr. Fortgang's initial essay - written under his name - appeared in The Princeton Tory, "[a] journal of conservative and moderate thought."
The overwhelming majority of comments at that site essentially tell him to shut his white-privileged mouth, and that his family story doesn't matter because he's white-privileged because he's white.
One comment points out that Mr. Fortang's family story of a few generations of inconvenience (okay, I made up the 'inconvenience' part) doesn't compare with the 300 years of oppression that blacks have suffered in America. I think to myself "300 years. Hmmm. Gee, I can't think of any oppression that Jewish individuals have ever suffered throughout history (tongue firmly planted in cheek)."
It's well worth reading ten or fifteen comments, if just to get an idea about how Mr. Fortang will be treated at Princeton after publication of this essay.
A great read.
Among my favorite parts:
The point of Mr. Fortgang’s essay — the part that drives the Left to rage — is that such advantages as this particular young man from suburban Westchester County enjoys are much more the product of the sort of family he comes from, and the opportunities that they enjoyed in the United States, than they are of ethnic and sexual features. Mr. Fortgang’s grandfather is a standing rebuke to the entire concept of white-male privilege: Imagine the sort of moral illiteracy it takes to behold a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who has arrived with no money or connections on foreign shores to live among people who did not, let us remember, universally welcome the Jewish influx, and before the Siberian frost has even been brushed off his shoulders, to point at him and cry: “Lucky you!”
Give me a second and I'll channel the 'privilege' finger pointers.
You have male privilege.
You have white privilege.
You may have U.S. citizenship privilege.
You have two-parents privilege.
You have working parents privilege.
You may have height privilege.
You may have 'not-disabled' privilege.
You have "you-didn't-build-that-but-claim-to-'own'-private-business" privilege.
You have native-English-speaking privilege.
You probably had books-in-the-childhood-home privilege.
You clearly have Internet privilege.
You probably even have privilege privilege.
Now, then, aren't you ashamed?
Yeah, Except for the height privilege (I’m only 5’7”, too short for basketball) I’m overwhelmed with guilt for all my privileges.
Oh. Now I have to worry about I-have-a-bed privilege.
Oh. Now I have to worry about I-have-a-bed privilege.
Proper response: "Go get bent."
If you truly believe me to be of a “privileged” group,
you should be hesitant to criticize me out of fear of reprisal.
Now, I know it’s not minorities that live in such fear, but some other group that does...
No problem with that, until you realize Jews are only 2% of the population.
I doubt I have any disagreement with this student or his no doubt well-earned presence at Princeton.
I have a lot of problems with his ethnic/religious compatriots who have led the fight to have “white people” limited to no more than their percentage of the population (actually much less) at elite colleges, while allowing, indeed encouraging, Jews to exceed their percentage by 10x or 15x.
Well that was a petty observation to make on this thread.
Why?
The vast majority of Jews are liberals, and liberals constantly decry the under-representation of (certain) ethnic groups at (especially elite) colleges.
Why is it petty to point out that they don’t hold their own groups to the same standard they wish to impose on the rest of us? Which is to say, every group equally represented.
According to the Harvard website, their admitted students are presently 11% black, 20% Asian, 12% Hispanic and 3% Native American.
This adds up to 46% “minorities.” Leaving 54% presumably to be “white,” in which of course Jewish students are included.
I don’t believe Harvard releases actual statistics, but it is generally accepted that 1/4 to 1/3 of the students at Harvard identify as Jewish. Add this to the “minorities” admitted, and we’re down to somewhere between 21% and 29% of student slots available for white gentiles.
I would have no problem with any of this if all students were admitted purely on test scores or some other merit-based approach. But of course they are not, so in practice the primary result looks a lot like exclusion of white gentiles, whether that is what is intended or not.
Personally, I find these types of calculations distasteful. But since they are widely used by liberals, many of whose leaders are Jewish, to condemn America and white people for discrimination, why is it petty to point out what by their own standards (at least those they apply to others) is shocking racial and/or ethnic discrimination?
Bttt
What about the International Conspiracy to take over the world and fake the Holocaust to justify it? Doesn’t that make you privileged? Huh? Huh? Huh?
And that’s nothing compared to what the sons of former slaves suffered. Why, if it hadn’t been for slavery, they’d have been back in Africa, starving or getting raped and murdered by holy warriors, as Allah meant them to be./s
Thanks Scoutmaster.
Great post. It might be a duplicate but it doesn’t matter... it’s worth many reads...
From this Jewish conservative perspective, I am wholeheartedly opposed to any affirmative action and to any racial/ethnic/religious quotas in college admissions and favor a strict merit system. In schools which regrettably still employ college admissions affirmative action and/or racial/ethnic/religious quota practices, Jewish applicants are considered to be part of the "white people" group by the bean counters. If there is discrimination against Jewish applicants, it's precisely because all white applicants are discriminated against to make way for desired percentages (quotas) of African American and Hispanic students. Asian heritage students often have a fixed percentage set for them as well, but they are often discriminated against because they would outnumber their quota if a strict merit standard were used.
I don't care for Jewish leftists any more than other leftists, but I'm not exactly sure of who you refer to when you talk about "his ethnic/religious compatriots who have led the fight to have 'white people' limited to no more than their percentage of the population (actually much less) at elite colleges, while allowing, indeed encouraging, Jews to exceed their percentage by 10x or 15x." I'm unaware of even leftist Jews who advocate those policies. If anything, the Jewish left would have Jewish applicants sacrifice places in college admissions to get more (less qualified) black and Hispanic applicants admitted - a position which I staunchly oppose.
All the leftists see are groups.
And to them, all us Jews are "Jewish American Princesses" who have been spoiled rotten from working so hard and need to be knocked down a peg.
It's their Modus Operandi
If the collectivists had their way they’d do much more than that!
Beautiful.
My privilege is the same as his.
Too depressing for words. Assuming that a lot of these are Princeton students, the best and the brightest, we are in for a lot of merde.
They don’t agree with him nor do they see the point of just leaving people alone and not focusing on race or ethnicity.
They still want to call some people better than others,and their hierarchy has, inexplicably, at the top those with darker skins period. They are so blind I don’t see how they even find air to breathe.
For example, the lesbian who commented and railed that people say “it was that black/Asian man over there” and that they’d never say that about whites, what does she think people say in a black neighborhood? Of course to hell they do say “it was that white /Asian guy over there.” In an Asian neighborhood they would do exactly the same thing, not say “Asian guy, but they’d say black or white.” DUH. And they are all that smug and just plain stupid.
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