I’m of two minds when it comes to this widely-disseminated and discussed piece by John Scalzi on teaching straight white men about privilege.
On the one hand, the piece is in many ways as good as advertised. It takes the crucial step in talking about privilege, which is to attempt to do something about it, rather than just using it as a way to assert righteousness. The metaphor is apt and clever, and I think that it could actually be put to productive use in teaching resistant men about how to think of their own advantages. Not many of them, I’m afraid; when it comes to demonstrating received privilege, we’re still on the “low-hanging fruit” stage. But progress is progress, and I think Scalzi has hit upon a genuinely illuminating thought process for achieving it.
At the same time, I wish that Scalzi had done more to look specifically at economic class. Because class is incredibly important, both theoretically and in practical terms of social mobility and equality. I understand that Scalzi embeds that discussion in his talk about different distributions for “attribute points” and such, and I largely agree with that metaphorical analysis. But by being so arch about class, he takes the risk that some readers will miss that point entirely– and they’re the ones who need to understand class the most. To me, the people who need educating are not just the aggressive, privileged straight white men who Scalzi is targeting. It’s also the educated white savvy set that is endlessly linking and tweeting his piece.
Because, look, this is just true: many educated white liberals absolutely suck at talking about white poverty. Follow enough blogs and Twitter feeds, and you’ll find that many simply lack any vocabulary at all for discussing these issues. For many, this is simply an artifact of a very understandable desire to combat racism and take the problems of racial minorities, LGBTQ people, and women seriously. In some cases, it’s a kind of proud, showy ignorance, a signaling mechanism to other liberals. In fact I wonder if that isn’t why Scalzi was so quiet on class in his piece. People are praising him for making his metaphor palatable for privileged straight white men, and he deserves that praise. But I worry that he was quieter on class in order to make the post palatable to the connected liberals who have shown it such regard. The metaphor is white male approved; the refusal to seriously consider white poverty is Twitterati-approved.