Some Ivy League students starting this fall will be forced to check their privilege at the door, as Harvard’s Kennedy School begins teaching a mandatory class on privilege and power in American society.
Student activists spoke to New York Magazine about the importance of examining the power structures and privilege that helped them get into a top tier American university, which had been previously absent from the academic programs.
Though LSU isn’t an elite and exclusive academic institution, there was a lot of luck involved in many students’ application process. I am aware of the privilege that I have as a Louisiana resident which allowed me to qualify for TOPS and other financial aid. This privilege allows me to attend the university at virtually no extra cost.
In the four semesters that I have attended LSU, I have seen many out-of-state students forced to leave due to financial hardships. These financial hardships are troubles I will never have to face, due to my privilege as a Louisiana resident.
But the word privilege has a negative connotation for those who feel it is too critical. After all, privilege is mostly unearned. Why should we be made to feel bad for being born into a race, gender, sexual orientation or social class which has benefited us? We had no control over where we were born. That’s why checking your privilege isn’t about feeling guilty.
Imagine LSU as a video game in which the goal is to survive four years of school and receive a diploma. In video games, you start out on a beginning difficulty level. A beginning difficulty level in LSU would be a heterosexual, white, cisgendered, able bodied eighteen-year-old male from an upper middle class Christian family in Louisiana.
A character in the beginning level would not struggle with the protestors in Free Speech Plaza telling them that they are going to hell for their sexuality. They wouldn’t be stopped by campus police after an emergency text is sent out describing a 6-foot-tall dark-skinned robbery suspect. They wouldn’t worry about missing class because the elevator in Lockett has stopped functioning, and they are wheelchair bound.
But other students, who are at different difficulty levels at LSU, face these situations everyday. That’s not to say that the student described never faces struggles. Deaths in the family, relationship problems, mental illness, and other problems affect everyone.
But the students at different difficulty levels at LSU are facing those issues on top of everything else.
Think back to the first experience you had with someone telling you to check your privilege. If your family was anything like mine, it was probably at the dinner table.
If I asked to be excused before I finished all of the food on my plate, my mother would remind me that there were starving children all over the world who would love to have the food that I hadn’t finished.
“Great, send it to them. I’m not hungry,” I would think as I rolled my eyes and scarfed down the rest of my food.
Looking back, I realize that my mom wasn’t trying to guilt me about being born into a family where there was always enough food in the fridge. She wanted me to be aware of my privilege and to not take the food on our table for granted.
And she wanted me to be respectful of those children, who were not as lucky as I was, and to remember their existence as I grew up.
It is important to remember that there are people who have led different lives than us, and that some of those lives have contained struggles that we cannot begin to imagine. And when we make decisions and vote, we must remember their existence and be respectful of how our choices will affect them.
Ignorance may be bliss, but we aren’t in college to be ignorant. We’re here to learn.
