ffj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 4:10 pm
Why does privilege matter in basic successful behaviors? And why would any group be incapable of replicating his simple strategies?
Example: An attractive white man speaking up with assertiveness in a group is generally admired and listened to under the bell curve of any given group in American society ("middle management written all over him."). An unattractive woman of color speaking up with assertiveness in a group is generally not admired and listened to due to unconscious bias. Same behavior, different result. Tailwind, headwind.
With some behaviors, the difference is qualitative:
Hustle, generally, will get anyone moving in the right direction. So a nonprivileged person might experience only a quantitative difference - their progress will generally be slower due to headwinds present in most (perhaps not all) arenas.
Behaviors like my example above might be qualitative. The white guy might get along well with assertiveness. A female POC might actually make negative progress with that tactic. She might need to employ a different set of tactics.
Personal observation: I've lost track of the number of meetings I've been in where I said something, echoing and reframing what someone lower down on the privilege ladder than I had literally just said, and I got the initial credit for it before I set the room straight.
I also imagine that there are arenas where privilege plays more or less a visible role. I have no idea, but I wonder if it applies less in firefighting because that's such a brass tacks sort of field. You can haul someone out of a burning building or you can't. You know how to set a [idk some EMT thing] or you don't. You hustle and are methodical or you're lazy and sloppy. etc.
From my experience, unconscious bias, being a subtle sort of thing, comes out rather clearly (for those paying attention) in subtle areas, like meetings, knowledge work, where evaluations of people's performance can be swayed by all sorts of subtle internal lenses and frameworks because it is fundamentally extremely difficult to actually know if anyone is good at anything.
Sort of an indictment of the structure of knowledge work, come to think of it...
eta: beyond what I wrote above, sort of the point may posters are making is that it generally is privilege that unlocks access to the basic successful behaviors.
e.g. One rung up the privilege ladder from me are people who were taught from birth that the way to succeed in the world is to network, schmooze, talk to people, climb the social ladder, etc. They'll have this behavior modeled from a very young age, by the time they get to the end of high school they're good at it. I was not taught this behavior, in fact it was totally off my radar (my parents are borderline hermits), and so I didn't begin accumulating any kind of social capital (in the way I mean it here) until my mid20's. And then I was very bad at it because I was literally trying to figure it out from books.
I *can* replicate this behavior, but I'm getting a late start and the likelihood of me making dumb errors (of the sort that real social climbers were figuring out in junior high school) that set me back are high. My headwind is high here.
One way to think of this kind privilege is 'training' that you received through no effort or decision of your own. I received training in hustle/work ethic, reading, nutrition, exercise, manners, standing up straight, dressing appropriately, control of my emotional state while in public, etc. (the other kind of privilege is the privilege to not be unconsciously biased against by the people who make decisions about my access to resources like jobs, raises, etc, based on how I look/who I am).
. Or mine for that matter of which I have plenty, haha. I think much more focus needs to applied to what is working however.