(Here's a link to his article in case you haven't read it: http://theprincetontory.com/main/checking-my-privilege-character-as-the-basis-of-privilege/ )
By now the young Tal Fortgang's fifteen minutes are almost up. His article detailing why he should never be asked to "check his privilege" has gone viral, enthused some, and pissed off most.
It's no question to me that the kid is blatantly wrong. His understanding of white privilege came from an extremely privileged, ignorant perspective of the term. I was offended as a person with basic awareness of the structural issues at play that keep those of different races disadvantaged.. and I personally as a Jew was offended that he felt his Holocaust survivor grandparent's struggles excused him from awareness and compassion. The kid's article, for all intents and purposes, sucks. HARD.
And so, forty year old men in suits condemn him on CBS, and make a joke of his ignorance. The good people at FOX praise him, because what else are they good for but pissing people off? And this kid gets a media whirlwind of praise and condemnation... and then it settles and he's forgotten.
But the thing is, there's a way larger lesson here that should be a take away.
We're offended because he's wrong, but he did it with some pretty decent vocabulary. We're offended because he goes to Princeton, so he should absolutely know better. If an Ivy League would accept him, surely he should be the highest caliber of student, right? (see George W. Bush for reference.)
The major issue is not his opinion though, it's the educational structures that allowed for it.
This kid is just a kid.
I bet if you met him, you'd think he's a nice Jewish boy.
You'd probably like him as the sleepaway camp counselor of your kids or something..
His opinion may be wrong, but so is writing him off. He came from a very similar background to you, he just got higher SAT's and learned how to use that vocab to dazzle his teachers over time. I know, because I did similar things (though not similar enough, because I go to UMD.) Coming to college, I didn't know a damn thing about privilege or how it worked or what it meant. From the perspective of the privileged, things look pretty good around here. Sure we see the homeless on the street, we hear about gang violence in the news, but there's the separation of a television screen or our different clothing, or even skin color. Moms and schools avert our eyes from unpleasantness, and we let them.
On Tuesday I was assistant teaching a class with 13 year olds and I asked if they had ever heard of the term "white privilege." None had. Just now, I discussed this very article with my roommates, and one asked, "what does it mean to check your privilege."
I didn't learn this stuff until I pursued sociology and service learning in college, which I only took because I chose to. My dear roommate is a dietetics major, and hasn't been exposed to any kind of awareness of her privilege. She too could have easily written the article, and it wouldn't be her fault, not really. Until given good reason to look around, people don't. Privileged people unfortunately don't know the questions to ask, because like I said, stuff looks pretty good around here. We should, we must, but we don't. It shouldn't be a choice to learn of the ills of society, and instead, it should become a requirement.
The problem in my opinion is that our education, system never challenged us to look around elsewhere. It asked us to memorize equations, to write a five paragraph essay that never stray from the rubric, or to guzzle information on topics we care little about and regurgitate them for tests. It challenged us to read about historical issues with the distance of a textbook. As far as plenty of students know, MLK already settled all that racial inequality business..THANKS MLK. Never once in my High School, which was actually racially diverse, was I asked to "check my privilege." Though I really wish I had been.
So, until we find a way to change the dialogue in classrooms, maybe to change just one semester of gym class to one that centers around social understanding, or creative thought, or dialogue about important issues, we're going to find countless Tal Fortgang's. In an ideal world, we privileged would all read into this stuff ourselves, and think before we speak, but we have never had to before, and that's not the world we live in. His article sucks, but it sucks for a reason. When we vilify him, we ignore our daily participation in sheltering ourselves and our loved ones from "checking their privilege."
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