I am not your Teacher: Why Disadvantaged Groups are not Responsible for Deconstructing Privilege

     So there is a lot of buzz around discussions of privilege and its implications in social settings. In more capable areas the discussion is occurring smoothly with people working cohesively to use privilege responsibly to shape a world where there are no underprivileged groups. In other areas the responses have been violent. One only has to look at the University of Texas where students launched balloons filled with bleach at students of color on several, separate, occasions. 

      The University also has received sharp criticism for the Greek organizations race themed parties with the article citing "The local chapters of Tri Delta and Zeta Tau Alpha have recently apologized for a fiesta-themed party where two party attendees wore shirts that read 'Illegal' and 'Border Patrol.'" But the University of Texas is not the only college homes to these travesties. Colleges and Universities across the nation are dealing with these problems from Tufts University to my own Allegheny College. The common response from people in these organizations to accusations of racism or apathy in the face of racism has been, "Please don't dismiss everybody because there are people out there who care and that want to help," as Mandy Stein from the article pointed out. At Allegheny College where a forum was called to address Greek life there was a lot of this apathy in the face of racism and defensiveness in the face of blatant, and repeated incidences of Black face and cultural appropriation of Native American culture and symbols. Some students stated that they felt attacked by minority students calling them out on their actions, saying things along the lines, "well I didn't mean it like that" or "I'm not racist" with the latter eerily reflecting tweets that appeared during the 2012 Presidential Election. 

     This pattern poises a question for us, whose duty is it to deconstruct privilege? Is it, as the trends show, the responsibility of minority groups (who are already tasked with preserving their cultural heritage) to educate larger society about the pitfalls of their actions, or is it the responsibility of the privileged to educate themselves and see the dangers of privileged attitudes and blatantly racist attitudes?


The answer lies in the following passage in Stigma; Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identities by Erving Goffman, that I have bulleted and italicized for added flair, on what the assumption that minorities be the teachers of privilege means to the privileged:

• the pain and unfairness of having to carry a stigma will never be presented to them;

• they will never have to admit how limited their tactfulness and tolerance is;

• they can maintain uncontaminated by intimate contact with the stigmatized
and;

• they can remain unthreatened in their identity beliefs.

The view that it is the responsibility of minority groups to teach the privileged groups is a method of protecting privileged classes in various ways from being shocked or their views being seriously challenged. In its base this view already devalues not only the teacher but also the lesson that is being taught so that it can dismissed without any serious form of consideration. 

A New Look at Cultural Group Identity

While looking around the internet for resources for my research on rights consciousness within the abled differently community in the United States and abroad I wandered upon a marvelous site called Exactitudes®.

Link to the site Here. 

Now before I say anything more, I want to preface this by saying that this site works to identifying various social groups that seek to set themselves apart from their conglomerate cultures. 

Below are some excerpts from their shows:

Museum of Photography, The Hague

"Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 19 years.... Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element."

21_21 DESIGNSIGHT TOKYO

"Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek classify random people whom they see in cities around the world according to particular characteristics of their appearances and attitudes. They create categories which comprise of people who share the same attributes, and give each catagory unique names. This is the artwork they developed together for more than 15 years. We always belong to some sort of groups. But when we are classified into a certain "tribe' by a third party, ignoring that reality, most of us shall be surprised to find out how different other people see us from the way we see ourselves, thinking "so this is me in other people's eyes". This gives us an opportunity to realize again how we are perceived in other eyes, irrespective of our will or intention, or reality.
What's more interesting is that despite the fact that our real selves are left behind, we find other people very satisfied with their classification, which was based on the appearance and attitude we have not necessarily been aware of before."

However, what I am interested in is how various groups are seen by cultures. Namely what are the characteristics that societies seek in order to distinguish these groups and how they shape group and personal identity. I am interested in the conceptualization of group identities as an objection of conglomerate culture that seems to be central to this project because many subcultures are the foundations of the cultures they oppose.
As seen within the United States, disadvantage cultures are often the fodder for entertainment, clothing, and other cultural aspects. One only needs to step into any clothing store to see the gross cultural appropriation of African, First Nation, and Latino cultures (with the first two being some of the biggest) within the American project. Along side these, though to a lesser problematic degree, is the adoption and appropriation of other subgroup cultures into the American project. Examples such as counter-culture movements like hippies, anarchists, environmentalists, and the Queer community have all become normalized, corporatized and absorbed back into the culture they were ostracized from (voluntarily or not) even as their core values and identities are still considered deviant. This photo collection highlights parts of this process, where group values are separated from their consumable culture, and serves as a good foundation for cultural study.