On Race, Privilege, and Medicine
  • oRPM
  • ...mini-blog...
  • Contact Me!
  • Didactics and Consulting

USSF: race and class privilege

6/29/2010

0 Comments

 
The second US Social Forum is in Detroit and I've been lucky enough to have had some half days off so I could catch a few workshops. Though all of the workshops are leftist, the topics vary greatly (everything from gender to environment and race to armament) and the attendees reflect this in their diversity. While walking around the conference, it certainly feels like a heterogenous jumble of progressives, but not surprisingly, as soon as you enter a workshop the crowd becomes more homogenous as it filters by interest. Thus while attending the workshop on class privilege and activism [organized by resourcegeneration.org], I found myself in a room full of white, deodorant-boycotting hippies. I couldn't help but feel like I had time warped back to my college co-op living days.

Because I had clinic in the morning, I wasn't able to get there until it was one hour into the two hour time-slot so I slipped into the back and listened. It seemed that the workshop was largely geared towards those who identified as having class privilege, how to recognize it, and how to how oneself accountable. By the time I arrived we were completing the final prewrite and small group sharing. The “report back to large group phase” turned into a mishmash of disparate ideas and guilty confessions that made only enough sense to imply that a significant amount of deliberation and emotion had sparked their existence. At some point one of the five people of color in the room raised her hand and remarked that she had come to this workshop not because she identified as having class privilege, but because she was trying to learn how to talk to well meaning folks who try to help but in their self-assured ignorance, only end up fucking shit up more.

Meanwhile, I was struggling with my own conflicted feelings. I had come to the workshop because I wanted to work on my own accountability to class privilege. However, upon being faced with a group of not just white folks, but young, hippy, white folks, I was having difficulty engaging with my own privilege due to an inability to identify, and my own lingering irritation, with the folks around me. I was tempted to allow my angry feelings to carry the day, but it occurred to me that doing that would only enable me to avoid the issue that brought me to this workshop to begin with, my privilege.

As I reflected on this I was finally able to verbalize something that I'd been worrying about, but too proud and scared to admit:
sometimes I use my minority status as a person of color to diminish my privilege as an educated member of the upper class. It's much more comfortable to focus on our oppressed-selves rather than our oppressor-selves. It's fucked up and it's painful to have to admit that I do it too.

Upon continued meditation, it occurs to me that this sort of behavior is problematic in other ways as well. Not only does it prevent me from acknowledging my own privilege, it actually disrespects the legitimate feelings I have about being a person of color. Both my anger over the state of race relations in this country/world and my pride as a person of color are important and justified; I must have the confidence to remember that being part of the upper class does not take away from its validity. More importantly, using race as a distracter every time I feel defensive or protective of my class privilege is not only irritating to others and a disservice to myself, but it also cheapens the movement of folks of color. And that's fucked up too.


PS: Check out resourcegeneration.org when you get a chance. They organize folks with class privilege and help direct resources responsibly.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    What I've been reading:

    The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past #2)
    ​
    by Liu Cixin

    Picture

    about this blog

    A place where I can write my thoughts on race, on privilege, on class, on being a doctor. Part of the endless struggle to become a little bit more enlightened and feel a little less alienated.

    Agree with me. Call me out. Pass it on.

    I post once or twice a month with smaller comments on mini-blog.

    about me

    My name is Jess. In the interest of full disclosure: I'm a 30-something-year-old Chinese American and believer that the quest for social justice and equity must be an intentional and active one. I'm a Family Medicine physician. I'm queer. I'm a radical. I grew up in a mostly white suburb and my parents are white-collar workers.  And I don't eat meat, but I miss it sometimes.

    categories

    All
    Conferences
    Film
    Food
    Interracial Relationships
    Labor
    Lessons From The Motherland
    Links
    Medical
    News
    Prattle
    Race
    Rainbow
    Reading Group
    Writings
    Yellow

    archives

    March 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2014
    June 2013
    December 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009


    Subscribe via email!
    (no lists ever sold)

    Picture
    a radical news collective

    Featured on BlogHer.com
Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Guh