The blind spots in our society
When we say, “It’s my privilege”, what do we mean? When I say, “It’s my privilege to live in the Hauraki rohe”, what am I saying? When naming white privilege causes conniptions for some people, what is going on? I reckon the word “privilege” deserves a deep dive into the murky water, the easily triggered soup of powerful reactions right here in this place.
The word has so many dimensions. I felt it the other day when we drove up the coast from Thames to Te Moehau, the privilege of a road that is open, the privilege of life on a glorious Peninsula day, and the privilege of living here in a place which is not my ancient ancestral place. That kind of humbling, uncomfortable but grateful realisation, that sense of the more I know about Hauraki the less I can take anything for granted.
One definition of privilege is not having to be aware of some realities. Privileged in some way that means you don’t even know it. Privilege as a buffer. It’s a true thing when life doesn’t include no money left on the card, no petrol left in the car, black mould in the kids’ bedroom, toothache that cannot be fixed. Privileged to be able to walk into any building without basic accessibility issues, when your hearing is perfect, when no one stares at you for looking different.
Life without those pressures is a breeze we barely feel fanning our cheeks. It can lead to all kinds of assumptions and judgements to justify our position; “I worked hard for this” is right at the top of the list.
So did the cleaner on the minimum wage, but they didn’t get the rewards I received for my work. Nothing like it. This is a system that privileges some types of work, some people.
Another invisible privilege is not being the subject of racist slurs, jokes, insults or attacks. These expressions of white supremacy in this country are a daily event for people and others literally do not see it or hear. “ It doesn’t happen to me, therefore it’s not happening.”
Many of us were raised in white privilege, absorbing messages about western superiority and normality. Racism is not an individual personality flaw, it’s a deep-rooted system that came here with the colonial ships.
I know it’s happening because I work in this space. It reminds me how protected I am from assumptions and judgements because I am a straight, white middle class able-bodied person. Of course as a woman I live in a society dedicated to putting us in the madonna slut box – but no one is marching around on what was my land banging on about “Māori elites”.
Everyone has hidden suffering and we can never see it all, but collective privilege is visible and creates walls that some of us cannot see and cannot feel, unless we decide to. The Thames Vibe project debate was a classic of its kind whereby the closed-off street was set up as a town centre but it was eventually rejected by many people in town. One rejection was the loss of 8 whole car parks and associated business, but the more disturbing rejection comments were about “the wrong people” using the space. The privileged don’t want to see or hear “the wrong people” in public, let alone share space with them. And that says it all to me, eyes wide shut in the paradise of the privileged.
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