Have You Checked Your Privilege Yet?

[qwlauren35]

Take the quiz. It's short and simple. There are 12 scenarios. See how many apply to you. Just hold up your fingers, and drop a finger for each experience you've had.

While you're taking the quiz, check the reactions of some of the people taking the quiz. Some people are very surprised. Some people are not surprised at all. When you see the people who are not surprised, realize that they have accepted this reality and learned how to cope with it. If you have most of your fingers up, think how many scenarios would royally piss you off, have you talking to the manager, getting somebody fired.... and then think again about the people who are not surprised, and realize that for them, it has happened so many times that it seems impossible to fight.

BTW: Since this is a YOuTube video, it's very easy to share. Consider showing it to someone who doesn't understand privilege. This simple quiz can be very eye-opening.

[Ms. Toad]

1. Pretty sure this exercise also, more subtly, points out white male privilege.

I am astounded at how few white men put a finger down to these two questions:

Put a finger down if you have never had someone cross the street to avoid passing you
Put a finger down if you have ever had someone step off an elevator to avoid riding with you

That, to me, demonstrates being oblivous - rather than privilege. As a woman there are times when I do both as prudent steps to make myelf safer. The race of the male in these situations is completely irrelevant to me. I don't think I'm alone - so what that suggests to me is that some/many white men are so self-absorbed/confident in their place in the world that they are not even aware when these two things happen.

The freedom to be unaware of such things is, in itself, privilge.

(The other possibility, of course, is that they are giving the politically correct answer when they film themselves . . . I'm not sure how to characterize that.)

[qwlauren35]

2. Keep in mind

The black women are also losing a finger when a white woman clutches her purse, and black women are also losing a finger when a white woman crosses the street.

White women have evidently been taught to fear black people, regardless of gender.

[Ms. Toad]

13. Not necessarily a woman.

The question about purse-clutching and crossing the street are not gender-specific. The purse-clutcher and the street crosser could have been male. (And also could have been black, for that matter)

But there is almost certainly merit to the point you were trying to make.

[Kaleva]

11. Where did you get your info that very few white men put a finger down to two questions?

"I am astounded at how few white men put a finger down to these two questions:

Put a finger down if you have never had someone cross the street to avoid passing you
Put a finger down if you have ever had someone step off an elevator to avoid riding with you"

I'm a white male and that's happened to me and it was done by white women. I don't recall any instances where it was done by a black woman.

[Ms. Toad]

12. By watching lots of the videos made in response to the exercise.

There are tons of responses out there, including several compilations which include multiple responses packaged together.

Out of the dozen or so I've watched that incuded white men, only one put a finger down on the elevator question, none on the crossing the street question.

I'm not surprised it has happened to you - which is why I am surprised that fingers are not going down in the videos

[Kaleva]

14. I have only watched on such video. How many white women put a finger down?

Particularity in regards to crossing the street, not sharing an elevator ride or clutching a purse?

[Ms. Toad]

15. To those two questions?

I don't believe any did. (A majority of Black women put fingers down in response to both)

A few years ago a story that circulated a few years ago about a black man identified race as the reason a white woman refused to tell him her elevator floor. My immediate reaction was - no, it is at least as much gender as it is race. So after I heard the questions I watched the videos focusing primarily on white men, expecting a significant number of white men to put down a finger on those questions - although more to the elevator sharing than the purse clutching.

[Kaleva]

17. The videos show that white women are the most privileged then?

Are there any videos that direct the same question to Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, and so on?

[Ms. Toad]

18. White women and white men are roughly equally privileged.

As I said - I saw one white man put down a finger in response to the crossing the street question.

Beyond that they largely put no fingers down - unless they were in a mixed race couple and had children (in which case usually both put down a finger to the question about teaching their child to be safe).

Most white people put didn't put any fingers down at all. I was at 3 or 4 (I don't recall now), and I am also surprised that more white people haven't been called "honky," for example. One out of around the 2 dozen incluing white people put a finger down for being called a racial slur. I'm also surprised more haven't been accused of being unable to purchase an expensive item. I've got enough money to purchase expensive items, but I don't dress up for shopping - so I don't necessarily look like I can afford the items I intend to buy. I have, on more than one occasion, been directed to items more in my presumed price range.

The videos come from anyone who wants to create one (so it isn't specifically targeting whites and blacks). I've seen at least one asian person, but don't recall any I could identify as hispanic or native american.

[Kaleva]

19. This would be interesting if it was done scientifically.

Not just direct the questions to members of various races but consider appearance. For example, Are attractive people more privileged then ugly people?

[Ms. Toad]

20. It would be.

I know almost nothing about tiktok (my daughter occasionally sends a few to me), and several friends have posted the compiled tiktoks on checking your privilege.

I just went to the site to see what I could see without signing up, and to see if I could find other minorities. I didn't see a way to search for a specific phrase - and I don't know that I want to sign up just yet.

[Kaleva]

3. White guy with 5 fingers left. Oddly, it's white women who've clutched their purse...

crossed the street, didn't get on an elevator with me and so on.

[qwlauren35]

4. I think

the police questions are the telling ones.

[Blue_true]

6. I was one for three on the police questions.

I got stopped once by a state trooper that seemed upset that the force was under a mandatory integration order from the new governor.

I have always been nervous when stopped by police. So I don't know about that one.

I have been let off with no citation as many times as I have been ticketed. I got let go and ticketed for speeding, and I got let go and ticketed once for an expired registration.

[qwlauren35]

7. Hmmm...

I'm not sure you actually lost any fingers.

If you have EVER been let off, you can't drop a finger.

If you were not thinking that you would be in physical, life threatening danger from a cop (like George Floyd, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, etc.), you can't drop a finger.

If, when you were stopped by the cop, you hadn't done anything wrong, you can't drop a finger.


However, if you don't think that it is telling that the black people in the video, for the most part, lost EVERY finger, while you only lost a few, then you have missed the point of the exercise.

Repeatedly, there were white people who lost no fingers, and black people who lost ALL fingers. If you're somewhere in the middle, you're still doing better than the black people.

[Blue_true]

9. The thing is, I am Black.

Cops just have always made me nervous, even at social events, maybe it is the gun.

But a lot of the other questions just have not happened to me.

[Blue_true]

5. I am Black and I have never had White people cross

the street, clutch a purse or not ride in an elevator with me. In fact I have risen many floors alone with White women and men in elevators with no issues, some were even chatty, which is not something that I feel comfortable with from a stranger.

[qwlauren35]

8. FYI

I am so fair that I could pass. I lost one finger. Somebody called me a Nig*** once.

It's possible that there is an aspect of geography.

But if you have not experienced those things, that is WONDERFUL. It means that you have not had it reinforced that people automatically think you are someone to be feared, or a criminal or rapist.

I don't think anyone should be made to feel that way based on the color of their skin.

[Blue_true]

10. Unfortunately a person's looks DO have a lot to do with it.

I have had a delicate face all of my life, it just doesn't look threatening. That is likely the case with you, along with your light skin. What I have noticed from the way Whites react, there unfortunately is a hierarchy, light skin and straight noses seem to lower their guard, dark skin and wide-flared noses seem to put them into some other zone.

In my case, I just think it is my soft face, but my nose is straight because of things in my ancestry.

[Ms. Toad]

16. That's also relative privilege -

Think about how black parents have to train their boys (especially) to behave to survive - largely it is training on how act as if you "know your place." Although it is targeted mostly at black boys, I expect it also permates what black girls learn - and offending a white male by getting off of the elevator, clutching their purse, or crossing the street might trigger anger.