free press spring 2013 issue 2: privilege
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7/29/2019 Free Press Spring 2013 Issue 2: Privilege
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Spring 2013
Issue 2: Privilege
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The people where I live
are painted dark and bold.
And sometimes though they are
tinged with gold the darkness
consumes their soul because they havebeen lled with years and years of need
and want and of wants they believe they need
but in reality its all a scheme
to get them hWooked up and addicted
to things they think are sweet
but on the inside the things are rotten
crawling with disease. And the truth is out there
in caps and bold but theyre too often too busy
holding hands up for handouts.Too busy looking for the next best thing instead of
attempting to create it.
But its a lifelong habit built or beat in by years
and years of standardized tests and bubble sheets
that by no means foster intelligence or individuality
and by all means push uniformity and the idea that
memorizing is ne if it gets you the 100 percent
Even though next year youve forgotten 100 percent.
And yeah its cold that the government has tuckedthe vast majority of us in a nice little fold labeled
minority not because of color but due to wealth
dont you be confused when I say the people where I live
are painted dark;
dark with ignorance but not necessarily stupidity.
Painted Dark with defeat
after countless failed attempts to break the cycle.
Painted dark with failure
that too many are too blind too see
because they are consumed eyes covered by the newest Louis this
or Prada that but at the end of the are left y
souls painted dark. No gold.
Still in societys nice minority fold.
Painted Black
- Nyanka
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I enter Bloomingdales. My outfit isnt unusual or dirty. I am clean and smell of
dove soap. My sister and I walk the aisles looking for something fashionable
to buy. We laugh, voices cracking like joy through thunderclouds. I can sense
someone creeping behind us. I look back casually and see this woman in her
Bloomingdales work clothes trailing behind us. Her eyes are sharp and her face
is certain that we are up to no good. I know that face. It is the face that says
I am not privileged enough to walk these aisles. It is the face that says I dont
have the money, even though it weighs heavy in my tan purse over my shoulde
to giggle through the aisles touching fabrics. It is the face Ive seen in countles
stores, for countless years telling me that I dont have this privilege. But Ive
learned to keep my cool. My sister and I continue caressing fabrics and crack-
ing joy through thunderclouds. Weve never stolen anything and our shoulders
support all the cash we need despite the color of our skin.
Snapshots of BlThe best benet of privilege is not ha
Young black and Hispanic men continued to be stopped in
disproportionate numbers. They are only 4.7 percent of the citys
population, yet these males, between the ages of 14 and 24,
accounted for 41.6 percent of stops last year.
(NY Times Injustices of Stop and Frisk May 13 2012).
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k Non-Privileges
Nyanka
to realize that you are blessed with it.
In My younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some
advice that Ive been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever
you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all
the people in this world havent had the advantages that youve had.
The Great Gatsby
I am walking the streets of the inner city kid. It is 20 degrees. The boys of
caramel and charcoal dont wear hoods on their heads. Most dont even wear
hats or bubble coats. I remember hearing a mother scolding her son take your
hood off.. you cant wear that hat.. it reminds us that we are cast into these
roles. Teenage boys you are more likely to stopped by the police if you wear
your hoody or wear certain hats. The weather does not dictate your attire socia
standards do. If you want to stay out of trouble you will wear no hoodies andyou wont wear crip blues or blood reds. Your bubble jacket makes you a targe
I am on the subway train. The train rattles my bones just as it rattles the bones
of the old lady next to me. She smiles and I return her smile. Her pink painted
lips have offered me a lifeboat in this box of uncertainty hurtling underground
I am out of Brooklyn and though my attire is non-threatening the eyes of a
select few bore at my black hair that isnt straight. It does not lay flat or tame. I
is wild and maybe that is the reason for the skittery eyes that avoid my choco-
late gaze. I believe Ive paid my $2.25 to be on this train.
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WHY ITS AWESOA LARGE PORTION OF OUR SOCIETY IS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE PRIVILEGED THAN THE REST.
They have access to more opportunity than the rest of the population, and most ofthese people will not even admit it. I am, of course, talking about white people. Atrst,itmayseemawfultobewhite,sincewehavetowearsunscreeneverytimewe go outside, but I would argue the opposite. Its great to be white because our societywas set up FOR white people! We all have an inherent white privilege that makes our day-to-dayliveseasier,andmostofusstillndwaystocomplain.Insteadofcomplaining,weshould be aware of just how awesome our lives are.
Now, I know youre thinking:
Didnt Martin Luther King end racism fty years ago?
I understand that this is a com-monly held belief, but this is just not thecase. There is still a large social gapbetween white people and minorities.For evidence of this, all we have to do islook at the source of power in theAmerican government: 43 out of 44U.S. Presidents have been white.
White men essentially have adynasty on the executive chair. Its like
if the Patriots won the Super Bowl everyyear for 237 years. Even if Obama is theman-in-charge now, its not like anyonesever taken a look at Congress and beenlike: Wow, what a diverse group of people.
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ME TO BE WHITESo if white people are practically locked into the most powerful parts
of society, this is going to trickle down to the rest of us. Its kind of like the
Reaganomics of Race. All authority is based on the traditional white role, andfor us white people, this is great. Whereas minorities generally have to bewaryoflawenforcement,wedonot.Policeofcershavebeenknowntoplantillegal substances on minorities to take advantage of them and arrest them. Ontheotherhand,whenthepolicendourdrugs,theyapologizeprofuselyfortheinconvenience and return everything. Sometimes they even throw in a freedimebag.
You see, the whole legal system is geared towards whitepeople, not minorities. The law is a very malleable concept,especially in favor of those with paler skin. Basically, its cool to be
white because the law actually applies to us when we need it, andit can be manipulated in our favor when we want. Minorities dontreally have this option, as the system is biased against them.
Now most of you have probably heard this type of banter before, and itjust doesnt apply to you. After all, most people havent had an issue with thepolice or seen the inside of courtroom before. So youre wondering, How does
beingwhiteREALLYbenetme?Wellforonething,awhitepersonneverhastofaceawkwardquestionslikeWhatethnicityareyou?orevenjustWhatareyou?Ifyoureaminoritylivinginawhite-dominatedsociety,theresboundtobe tons of cringeworthy encounters due to cultural differences. So if youre white,think about all these situations that youre avoiding. In other words, appreciatethe fact that you can openly listen to Macklemore and have no one judge you.
And lastly, white people, be grateful for our whites-only dining hall underHorsebarn Hill. I know how we all complain how its so far away from campus, butthink about how good the food is compared to everywhere else. Theres nowhereelse in Storrs with a full sushi bar. And dont forget about Caviar Fridays! I mean,this is like the best privilege we have, and most of us dont take full advantage of
it.NowdontworryaboutmepublicizingthisintheFreePress.Iknowitssup-posed to be a secret, but the minority community of UConn wont actually believeit; it sounds way too ridiculous. But think about it: why else would they have youputyourethnicityonyourapplication?
- Scott
ITS ACTUALLY ILLEGAL TO BE BLACK IN SIX STATES.[jk, but sometimes it seems like that]
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From early childhood, [we] are
taught ambition. Drawing from par-
ents repetitious advice, the lessons
learnt in public (and private) class-
rooms, and [our] own social growth,
[we] are raised to economically com-
pete. The degree to which one is an
effective competitor, let alone whether
this conditioning is effective, is en-
tirely dependent on a wide range of
socio-economic circumstances, that
is the degree to which one is privi-
leged. There are unavoidable material
differences in the American population
like race, gender, and especially eco-
nomic class, and they cause problems.
However, [our] old friend at the Free
Press, the white male capitalist clich,
is not solely responsible for all social
strife and inequality. It is not only The
Man that exploits this disenfranchised
diversity; but it is also the foundation
of the American dream - an easily di-
gestible positive aspiration distorted
into a promise that, when broken,creates millions of confused and bitter
citizens that are subconsciously bent on
[their] own self-destruction - under the
impression that one may make it, or
that one is inherently special. And so
inequity persists.
[These people] are the
working-class tea party republicans
that angrily shout, Get your govern-
ment hands off my Medicare! be-
cause their understanding of modern
healthcare is less of an understanding
and more of a chum bucket of talking
points that is promptly dumped onto
the head and into the mouth of any
reasonable disagreement. But past
the ideology and the stubbornness
whether by a cruel twist of fate or
by the invisible claw of GOP politi-
cal strategy, these people have been
mobilized against themselves, against
their own (and most other civil)
interest.
[These people] are the seemingly
indolent young men and women that
champion an oppressive social
hierarchy of superficiality. They are
wearing, doing, and thinking on the
subtle instruction of their parent com-panies and the overt dogma of their
chapter predecessors. In this realm,
differences and similarities solidify into
identities and social life for the down-
Give me a moment and a tear as I revisit the words of the dust bowl prophet, John Steinbeck:
SOCIALISM NEVER TOOK ROOT IN AMERICA
BECAUSE THE POOR SEE THEMSELVES NOT AS AN EXPLOITED
PROLETARIAT BUT AS TEMPORARILY EMBARRASSED
MILLIONAIRES
THE MASSIVE MISCONCEPTIO
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trodden becomes an unwinnable game. It
is a collective loss of goodwill-
Subscribing to traditional notions of
superiority comes with an intense social
burden, regardless of whether your ego
thinks you are an object of beauty or bad
taste. The burden comes from the feeling,
despite progressive logic and solidarity,
that superficiality means nothing to the
true human experience that a pound of
makeup and some jungle juice is a
terrible substitute for fifty milligrams of
novocaine.
The imperative of [our] situation isthat there is no other way for the elite to
take advantage of the weakness of the
general population than by the wide-
spread subliminal suggestion of a selfish,
narrow perspective. There is no overt rule
by lawmakers, law enforcement, and their
bankroll, as there has been in the recent
past, as [I] have described before.
[Our] Political reservations, [our] socialcowardice, and [our] minimization of
egalitarian logic in favor of money, pow-
er, or (imminent) instant gratification
lead [us] down a slope slick with blood,
gasoline, and gatorade perpetually
Was a high wall there that tried to
stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Prop-
erty,But on the back side it didnt say noth
ing
God blessed America for me.
[This land was made for you and me.]
When the sun come shining, then I wa
strolling
In wheat fields waving and dust clouds
rolling;The voice was chanting as the fog was
lifting:
God blessed America for me.
[This land was made for you and me.]
One bright sunny morning in the shad
ow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people
As they stood hungry, I stood there
wondering if
God blessed America for me.
[This land was made for you and me.]
OF THE MISANTHROPIC MASSES
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down, by the sheer force of gravity,
and lending bright young minds of any
denomination to hate their neighbor
and love their feeding tubes; The teat
tube, the [You]Tube[s], and the pneu-
matic tubes that the monster of centralbureaucracy utilizes, with incredible
efficiency, to give permission to the
central bureaucracy to use pneumatic
tubes.
And without trying spoiling the
meaning of [my] words; spoiler alert:
[I] am utterly privileged. Many of [us],
especially the people reading and writ-
ing this [you] and [we] have grown
up tall and strong by sucking down
the artificial and subtle sustenance
of oppression generated by privilege
without any conscious notion of any-
thing bad happening. Or maybe [we]
do detect that something is wrong, but
[we] dont know where to start count-
ing it, let alone fighting or preventing.
Good people at the top of societys
web of oppression are now in the awk-
ward position of constructing a viable
privilege theory (see abbey volcanos
privilege politics article below) with
the responsibility to apply that theory
in a reformist sense.
To top all of this newfound re-
sponsibility off, [we] have actual pre-
dispositions towards privilege to main
tain in the mean time [our] college
careers and livelihood beyond while
we try to figure out how to act right.[I] feel like a pretentious hypocrite in
these moments of self-awareness.
So, practically, what do [we] do?
To spew some measured recipe for
social justice would be difficult, and
would fail to represent [our] point,
which is
collective, yet not at all contrary to the
spirit of individual that lends itself to
democracy. Like most aspects of
leading a good life, the formula for
justice is dependent on functional
variables of positive will call it X or
call it real civil rights and the exe-
cution of that will by all that share it.
Something that should be counted on
is that [we] need to cut out the intel-
lectual novocaine from [our] diet and
let the disquieting compassion of activ
ism hit [our] brains with the full force o
CONSCIOUSNESS. This notion is a new
political namaste of sorts a greetin
representing a convergence of
difference and rationality. Or to get as
close to rationality as good humans ca
possibly get.
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Intersectionality is the study of intersections between different group
of minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple
systems of oppression or discrimination. Intersectionality is a method-
ology of studying the relationships among multiple dimensions and
modalities of social relationships and subject formations. The theory
suggestsand seeks to examine howvarious biological, social andcultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orienta-
tion, and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simulta
neous levels, contributing to systematic social inequality. Intersection
ality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within
society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion- or be-
lief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another; instead,
these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppressionthat reflects the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination.
INTERSECTIONALITY
quoted (with omissions) from wikipedia
ONE BLOO
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In the United States of
America today, there is no federal
law that consistently protects
individuals of the LGBT community
from employment discrimination, let
alone cultural discrimination. This
information, provided by the Human
Rights Campaign organization, also
claries that there are only twenty
states, as well as the District of
Columbia, in the United States,
that have recognition of same-sex
partnerships and dependants. These
statistics basically signify that
individuals apart of the LGBT
community are denied many of the
rights and privileges that all Ameri-
cans deserve. But aside from all the
organizations and groups of people
working towards equality in the
United States, or all of those ragingagainst it, there remains to be an
atmosphere of disparity amongst
the privileges people are living with,
because of their orientation. This
disparity runs deeper than just one
right or another. I mean dont get
me wrong, marriage equality is a
big deal, the right to employment
without discrimination is a big deal,
the right to love who you love is a big
deal, but the disparity of privilege
and security to just be who you are
between those who are LGBT and
those who are not, is grotesque.
When I mention the word
privilege, in terms of orientation
equality, I am not just referring to the
concept of relationships or partner-
ships between genders; I am refer-
ring to the basic lifestyles of people
in the LGBT community everyday.
When a heterosexual man or woman
starts their day, they go to school, or
go to work, and have the conforma-
bility of doing their dailyactions without fear, without
secrecy, and without caution,
because they are who they are; they
are the norm, they are individuals
of heterosexuality, like most others,
they live, they learn, they love. But
for so many people of the LGBT
community, in so many places of
the world, they start their day, every
day, with a caution to hide their
true self, their true orientation. This
doesnt just phase their sexual or
relationship interests, it encroaches
onto everything they do. I know what
this is like, I am a homosexual man,
and for almost 18 years of my life
I lived under a cloak of falsehood
in fear of judgment, discrimination,
and shame. If I were walking in the
hallways at school I would have to
walk a certain way, out of fear: what
if I walk too feminine, or too fast?
They might think me to be gay! In
gym class I was afraid of trying with
sports because if I wasnt good
enough I might be called gay or
queer by the other guys. I was afraid
of taking showers too long in themorning like my sister did, in case
my father or brother thought me to
be like a woman, hence gay
Literally everything I did, my tone of
voice, the way I wrote, they things
I said in conversation with another
person, the work I did in school, the
job I had, the way I drove, the sports
I played, the way I danced, the way
I ate, the way I dressed, the way I
looked, what I read, how I ran, who
my friends were, what type of music
I listened too, or even how much I
displayed caring about any of these
things to others, was constantly
suppressed under a state of worry
and stress in fear that I might be
outed, for my entire life
So before the day came when
I summoned up the courage to just
be happy with myself for who I was,
against all the spite and wrath I was
ready to receive from society, and
come out, I was always in fear, I
was always terried to access theprivileges of self security that I
deserved, because of what others
would think. All over the world, and
in this very country, where we live as
a community, there are still states
where people of the LGBT
community live in fear to be who they
are every day, because of what the
world might do to them, see them
as, or judge them for, and its the
most tragic thing Ive ever witnesse
in my life. Regardless of orientation
regardless of gender, and part-
nerships; we are all people, every
person is entitled to be who they ar
every person is entitled to the basic
human rights they were born with,
to love who they love, and to love
themselves without guilt or shame
for existing.
My name is Titus Abad. I am a
gay man. I study Art & Human Right
at UCONN. I am an individual, I am
a citizen of the US, and I deserve al
the same rights of a heterosexual i
dividual, and vice versa. I deserve t
live in peace; I deserve to feel secu
and loved, as do we all,because we are all human beings.
Now think what it would feel like to
wake up every day, and be denied a
of these privileges just because you
orientation is not the same as
everyone else, because of the way
you were born. I was this person; I
suffered as many others suffer in th
scheme of society where inequality
still exists. In our very country alone
where we are rid of slavery, where
we are unied, where we all have a
cess to the rights of the constitutio
there are still enormous amounts o
people that are denied their basic
life privileges to love. I am fortunate
enough to have overcome the trials
of an individual in the closet, and
I will be a gay man for the rest of m
life, but really, I am just a man, like
other respectable men of this
country that are free. Remember
that your orientation gives you
privilege, and that it shouldnt, and
remember that your privilege shoulbe shared, so share it.
ORIENTATION EQUALIT Y & PRIVILEG
ART AND ARTICLE BY
TITUS EZEKIEL ABAD(ASS)
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Privilege has turned out to bean elusive and fugitive subject.
The pressure to avoid it is great,
for in facing it I must give up
the myth of meritocracy...
...If these things are true,
this is not such a free country
ones life is not what one makes
it; many doors open for certain
people through no virtues of
their own.
-Peggy McIntosh
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Many undergrads are introduced to the notion of
privilege very early on. Often, as was my experience
many moons ago, we are taught that privilege politics
are uncontroversial when it comes to social justice.We are instructed to read Peggy McIntoshs Invisible
Knapsack and we are taught that we all, in one way
or another, have some sort of privilege that needs to
be recognized and struggled againstwhite privilege,
heterosexual privilege, male privilege, the list goes
on. When we learn about intersectionality, we learn
that oppressions, and therefore privileges, often
overlap, and so we are afforded a somewhat more
nuanced understanding of how power works and
how privileges are created, used, and maintained,
and the ways through which they might be destroyed.
In the beginning we learn that privilege is often
invisible to those who have it and that privilege can
only exist if its exclusivemeaning for there to be
privilege, some group or another is suffering because
they lack that privilege. So we know that privilege is
bad and that we need to struggle against the power
structures that create privileges for some while oth-
ers remain oppressed. Sounds pretty cut and dry.
However, over the past year especially, many radicals
have contributed critical analyses of privilege politics
which need to be taken into account. Some of these
critiques are imsy while others are spot-on and can
help elucidate problems within privilege politics and
offer better ways of conceptualizing power and
structures of domination which can then, hopefully,
help us gure out ways toward creating a more
egalitarian, free, classless, and participatory society.
Many of these critiques are quite lengthy, so Ill use
the rest of this article to simply do an overview, as
well as provide links for further reading.
One of the rst pieces to come out in early 2012
was guest post by Will on the Black Orchid Collectivewebsite. Will argues that privilege theory fails when
put into practice within social movements. He claims,
Privilege theorys main weakness are a tendency
towards reformism, a lack of politics, and a politics of
retreat. What he means by reformism in this regard
is that privilege theory, for example, tells us that the
most oppressed are at the most risk and so there-
fore they should not be at the forefront of struggle
because they have too much to lose. In turn, privi-
lege theory is often used to justify less-oppressedpeople ghting on behalf of the oppressed since the
can afford to get arrested without losing their home
or being deported, for example. But it has been
demonstrated, again and again, that the oppressed
must take their struggles into their own hands, and
the movements that succeed are the ones that do
this. Reformism, by way of (some interpretations of)
privilege theory, argues the opposite and turns the
oppressed into helpless victims. In many ways, this
peculiar situation reies white supremacy and othe
structures of domination. By lack of politics, Will
means that structures of power and domination areoften left unanalyzed while most effort is put into
making sure that individuals somehow check their
own privilege within social movements, thus depolit
cizing these movements and turning
revolutionary potential into individual attempts to
check ones own privilege within personal settings
Checking ones privilege is surely helpful and often
appreciated, but the question remains as to what
those attempts actually do to destroy current struc-
tures of power and domination. Finally, Will argues
that privilege theory is a politics of retreat because
it thrives in depoliticized times when mass revolu-
tionary movements are hard to nd. Again, Wills
critiques of privilege theory come from his time spe
organizing in mass movements which use privilege
theory as a lter through which to make decisions
and inform strategies and tactics. This argument is
highly criticaland I think what we can learn from
Will is a critique of how privilege theory plays out in
mass movements rather than our debates about it
our classrooms. There is no need to either fully agre
or disagree with Will, but we should take his critique
into account when we put theories of privilege intopractice.
At the Bay of Rage website, CROATOAN critiques pr
ilege theory because it tends to conceptualize white
privilege, for example, as mainly a psychological
problem created by the attitudes of individuals and
SOME RECENT CRITIQUES OF PRIVILEGE POLITICSBY ABBEY VOLCANO
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that this view fails to address power and structures
of domination in society, let alone change them.
Many critiques of privilege theory argue against
this very pointthe idea that privileges manifest in
individual behaviors, which, in turn, require simply
a change in such individual behaviors to eradicate
complex structures of power such as white privilege,
patriarchy, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, etc.The critique here is that abolishing patriarchy, hetero-
sexism, cisssexism, white supremacy, class society,
etc., requires militant and radical social movements
that will replace our old structures of oppression and
domination with new structures which foster a
classless, egalitarian, participatory, and, hopefully,
a vastly less boring society. CROATOAN writes, We
argue that prevailing discourses of personal privilege
and political representation in fact minimize and
misrepresent the severity and structural character of
the violence and material deprivation marginalized
demographics face. So not only do privilege politics
miss the point, the politics, as they are deployed,
actually set back militant class-struggle movements.
Another critique of privilege politics is that they
often fail to make sense of how capitalism, white
supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, etc., work
together to maintain current power relationships
and structures of domination in society. Rather,
privilege politics have a strong tendency to isolate
oppressions and their accompanying privileges. So,
for example, there is both white privilege and maleprivilege. What does this mean for people who have
one or the other? Both? Neither? How does this
help us understand the intricate ways in which all
hierarchies are woven together in society? Privilege
politics are often based upon identity politics which,
in many instances, fail to challenge power structures
and instead rely on ghting against the laundry list
of individual oppressions and the all too famous
Oppression Olympics which grows out of these
analyses. The critique is leveled that checking one
privilege creates a situation where more authentic
voices are made out of those suffering from the
longest list of oppressionsagain, leading us back
toward the Oppression Olympics, a game no one rea
ly wins and one which is based on identity alone anlacking more nuanced analyses of power, capitalism
the state, and the ways in which all hierarchies work
together to maintain power-over. The critique isnt
that identity isnt important or that the state and
capitalism are more central to struggle, rather, the
critique is that analyses of identity alone will not lea
us toward struggles which can overturn all forms of
hierarchy, oppression, and exploitation.
But if privilege politics are a liberal fantasy as these
critiques suggest, what are the alternatives? Which
analyses can help us understand how domination,
oppression, and exploitation manifest so we can de
stroy such structures and create a better world with
endless possibilities? How might we utilize theories
of privilege in a revolutionary, rather than a liberal
and coopted way? Or can we?
Further reading:
Be Careful With Each Other, So We Can Be Dangerous Together http://invisiblestrugglers.blogspot.com/2012/03/be-careful-with-each-other-so-w
can-be.html
Escalating Identity http://escalatingidentity.wordpress.com
The Poverty of Privilege Politics http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=679A Class Struggle Anarchist Analysis of Privi lege Theory from the Womens Caucus of AFed http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/state/327-a-class-strugg
anarchist-analysis-of-privilege-theory--from-the-womens-caucus-.html
http://www.cirtl.net/les/PartI_CreatingAwareness_WhitePrivilegeUnpackingtheInvisibleKnapsack.pdf
http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/
http://escalatingidentity.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/who-is-oakland-anti-oppression-politics-decolonization-and-the-state/
See for example:
http://www.academia.edu/2451610/Insurrection_at_the_Intersections_Feminism_Intersectionality_and_Anarchism
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I am American like I follow the 10 commandments-
I mean, amendments.
I am American like Bill of Rights-
I mean, Bush of Wrongs.
American like Freedom of Religion...
including being atheist,
Like sticking to your belief no matter how much people may say you need a
particular god in your life
or Jesus.
I am American like freedom to profess
Like freedom to profess my freedom to protest
Like freedom to be stupid.American like British Child who threw tantrum and called it revolution;
Ancestry forgotten.
That explains our education.
American like Occupy
The I AINT MOVIN FO SHIT movement.
American like American Pi,
But not American like Pi
Because we suck at mathematics.
American like we translate freedom of speech to freedom to talk shit.
American like wrote the second amendment
HOLD UP, lets take a second,
amend this.
American like settling soldiers in the quarters of people without quarters.
Like returning soldiers to their quarters
But while they fight for a quarter for our freedom we put them in enough debt to
return with no quarters.
American like America, she has a cyst in her ovaries-
I mean, Manifest Destinies
Like destiny stretches across the Pacific to the middle east specifically
Well assist the with an army to help you create diplomacy-
I mean, democracy
UN Diplomacy, UN Democracy
Undiplomatic, undemocratic
the irony.
American like she cant have babies- I mean, countries of her own
So she adapts them-
I mean steals them
American like Im Puerto Rican!
So youre American.
American like legal illegal search for and seizure of all that exists
like Im a hypocrite, you're a colonist.
American like the 99%
Not the middle class
Not the lower class
The Upper Prison ClassAmerican like freedom to take your own freedom
American like freedom to plead your guilt so the criminal can be the
free one.
American like right to a trial
Like right to purchase.
POP UP!
You have the right to a 30 day free trial.
American like no cruel punishment or torture
Like cruel punishment being apart of a country that has so much
but does nothing with it;
So essentially cruel punishment and torture is
being American.
American like protect that not mentioned
I am American like power t o the people
Who are rich
And want to pay less in taxation
I am American like Bush of Wrongs
I mean Bill of RightsAmerican like Political Parties
American like ~I like to party~
Political Party, ~I like to party~
Same difference:
You blow cash you dont have,
think youre a celebrity,
act like a fool.
Fool like an American
Who obeys the 10 amendments-
I mean, commandments.
By Sabir Askari Abdussabur
I can taste the salty tidal wave of sweat cascading down my fa
I can feel my lungs cringe at every exhalation
Stillness has become an impossibility
I am a lone rabbit caught silfaying at high noon
My speed is my only ticket to salvation
And its soon to expire
I kick loose gravel into my wake
Counting down the miles, the yards, the steps
Past each onlooker eight dozen heartbeats behind
Towards the spandex banner at the bottom of a blessed slope
My throat cries at its transformation into sandpaper
And every glance at my two ton wristwatch pushes me on
I am at the top of hill overlooking the Promised Land
My dash becomes flight as the ground waits beneath me
I cross the final barrier and fall into a mangled heap
I turn in a flurry of cotton as my nerves jump alive
I seek traction in the grass
But it too quickly turns to dirt
Then to root
Then to stone
Then to grass again
My legs relentless in their efforts to uncoil my jeans
My eyes frantic to recognize solid black from transparent blac
My brain trying to remember where my one acre of safety lies
And just how far I was dumb enough to wander from it
I had stared into the eyes of the wolf
He showed me jaws of sawed off lead
My fight becomes flight as I look to the ground to carry me
I find a familiar patch of woods which I know lies behind the
Promised Land
I cross the final barrier and collapse into a mangled heap
- Brendan Field
BOLT10 COMMENDMENTS
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Our 43rd President, the leader of the free world for 8 years:
December, 1966: Bush, after having a few beers, stole a Christmas wreath from a hotel in New Haven,
Connecticut. Arrested for disorderly conduct.
1967: Bush is arrested for disorderly conduct when he storms onto the Princeton University football field
climbs onto the field goal crossbar, and tries to break off a piece as a souvenir.
November 8, 1967: Bush defends the use of a red-hot coat hanger to brand pledges in The New York
Times, claiming it is defensible because the resulting wound is equivalent to only a cigarette burn. Be-
fore branding pledges, Bush would show them a full-sized branding iron to frighten them. His fraternity
fined $1000.
Late 1960s: After gaining entrance as a legacy student, Bush maintains a low C average at Yale, the ba
minimum to graduate. In his freshman year, he was in the 21st percentile of his class. While at Yale, sayshe cannot wait to leave the school, and hates its intellectual snobbery.
Late 1960s: Bush admonishes a Yale schoolmate for admitting plans to avoid serving in Vietnam; calls hi
irresponsible.
May 27, 1968: 12 days before his student deferment expires, George W. Bush applies to join the Texas
National Guard. Despite a waiting list of 18 months, Bush is signed in the same day. Bush is assigned to a
celebrity sons unit, with sons of two other senators (Bentsen and Towers), sons of oil magnates, and 7 son
of Dallas Cowboys players. He was assigned to pilot duty despite a 25% score (lowest possible for duty),
and was commissioned to 2nd Lt. despite lack of qualifications or passage through Officer CandidateSchool. Is trained to fly an F-102, which is being phased out, guaranteed to never be called into duty in
Vietnam.
1973: Bush applies for entrance into University of Texas law school, and is rejected. Harvard Business
School apparently had lower standards than UT, as it accepted Bush. Bush graduates from Harvard with
an MBA in 1975.
September 4, 1976, a state trooper saw Bushs car swerve onto the shoulder, then back onto the road.
Bush failed a road sobriety test and blew a .10 blood alcohol, plead guilty, and was fined and had his driv
ers license suspended. Bush had several beers at a local bar before the arrest. His underage sister was
the car when he was driving drunk.
Bush got a court hearing to get his driving suspension lifted early, even though he had not completed a
required driver rehabilitation course. He told the hearings officer that he drank only once a month, and
just had an occasional beer. The officer granted his request. But Bush continued drinking for 8 years
after that date and has said publicly that he drank too much and had a drinking problem during that time
Directly quoted from http://www.blogd.com/bushrecord.html
GWB - Great to Be White
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And so my writings lled with scorn and menace and complete condence in the demise of humani
came to an end. Because I realized I could not make statements about what I could not dene. Humanity. O
maybe what has so strongly, and so falsely, been dened and dictated to us. There is little spark to be foun
in a people who have been told it is hopeless. Its interesting to observe, the ones on top, the ones with
freedom, theyre lled with hopelessness. You go to the smallest, brownest village you can nd. You feel the
hope, the love, the embrace. They arent perfect but they are certainly closer to humanity.
Humanity is egalitarian. It is a noun, for sure, but it is also an expression and an ideal. It is a verb.
Humanity is an action. Compare the connotations between Humanity and Human nature. Which overows
with brilliant light; which uplifts and soars and insists on bringing you along? Two men stand, arms inter-
twined and blood owing between bodies. They want life. It is theirs. We see this as human nature.
Demographics are restrictive, if you think about it. We study the people who ght for marriage equa
ity and afrmative action and abortion and say, dont they know its all the same ght? Join together! Demo
graphics are oppressive. Dont we know we are the same people? We are so close to the chimpanzee. We
are so much closer to each other.
Of course there is culture and tradition. But culture is proud and alive and vibrant. We can love and
embrace and hold our culture! We can open ourselves to yours. Demographics are dead. I am a politician
now. I cannot open myself to the black vote. I will never be black. I will never have an abortion. All I can do
talk, release campaign ads.
I have the image of a dominant human this whiteness, and male-ness. Its a powerful tool to have
and a great challenge. It is powerful because I can tell other dominant humans, you are not what you think
you are. I am not going to be what you want me to be. Powerful because I can say, you dont understand, b
you will watch me. They will watch me, because their human nature requires it. Like a missile locking on to
target. I am followed.
It is challenging because I must prove myself to every person I meet in every place I go. My words w
be tuned out, useless, full of privilege and oppression, until my actions say otherwise. This is true humani-
ty the embrace of self and lack of self; of identity and lack of identity. A mutual understanding: we dont
really know. And something comes between us, recognizable yet undened. I know some day we will reclai
that term, human nature. For now I must reject it, I must embrace our humanity.
MUSINGS FROM A DOMINANT MIN
- WESLEY NICHOLS
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Privilege is a weird animalIn no way is this more real to me than right now
I try to stare out the train window, and look less lostLost as in spiritually lost?No, lost as in lost lost.
Te train head-honcho decided to inorm me o this with a priceless sense o,Call it bravado
Im rom connect-icut, the burbs, the sae place to raise your kidsAnd obviously this guy can smell it on me, or something
Express to Grand Central, get o there, not hereoutstanding
Its not like I havent been to New York beoreI was only going 20 minutes outside the city anyway
However still, Im kind o lostLost as in existentially lost?
No, lost as in complete moron lostTis train is packed
I nd mysel arguing, with myselDo I think that because Im not used to it?
I never ride trains, Im rom the burbs remember?Is it rude to think that this is crowded?Tis train is, like, ridiculously diverse
New colors and sounds food my inexperienced senses
A woman speaks happily in a Jamaican accentBouncing a small baby on her lap, rattling o about her other grandchildren
Tis is beautiulKind o like the woman sitting across rom me
Presumably an educated 20-somethingShes been reading the entire time
I drop something and she looks up, nallyNow Im denitely being rude
A man comes across cars and bursts through the back doorImmediately.Im in a staring contest
Hes huge, with tattoos all over his armsHat to the side, wie beater
And a stare that could scare any white-kid rap an out o the genreTis is lasting way longer than I anticipated
Alright, too much intimidationOur contest is ended, when his curious son comes running up
Remember what I said about eeling rude beore?yup
We hit Harlem and 125th, the guy gives one last look, and they leaveI ask mysel the ever-important question,
Who the hell am I?A ew stops later Im hal on the platormHal still stuck in the previous 20 minutes
I imagined mysel as a walking,Tats why you dont talk to strangers advertisement
How the hell did I get stuck on that train?Was it a sign?
Was I due to reak out?I think about how many mornings I had an eect on
How many people the dumb kid on the train disruptedOh wait, its the city and no one cares
But still, why did having no control terriy me?
Is it because o what I look like?I run through socio-economic acts
Eugenic ctionAnything that my mind can conjure up about the history o race relations
Ten I stop; Ive been overthinking, I know I haveIt hits meit is My privilege
My white, rom the burbs privilege,Tat is to blame or the naivety and ear
My conclusion is discouragingBut at least I realize my context,
Eagerly anticipating a new train to study
From Where I Was
Alex Fontai
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Privilege Without Purpose
I consider myself one of the most privileged people in the world.
This issue is not intended to make you feel guilty. Sometimes you have to look at what you have and be appre
tive. Take a good long look at what you have and give back to those less fortunate. While some view charities
a way for the upper class to feel better about themselves, doing good should be its own reward. There will alw
be somebody worse off than you. You may never meet them but he or she is out there. Everybody in the wor
has the moral obligation to help one another and make the world a little bit better. I may live in a very
idealist mindset, but there is nothing wrong with trying to make the world a safer, more caring place for everyo
B. Caws
I do not drive a Lamborghini. Nor do I have the newest pair of Air Jordans. Ialso dont have a high paying executive job waiting for me once I graduate. I
do, however, come from a loving home where my parents are still married and,
although they may have left home, none of the siblings have abandoned the
family. Growing up, I always had a roof over my head and food in my stomach;
which is a lot more than some people have. I am going to graduate in May and
unlike many, I will not be upwards of $25,000 in debt. My parents have paid
for my college experience; a favor I intend on repaying to my kids. I am com-
pletely aware of how well off I am compared to hundreds of millions of people
around the world.
Privilege is a matter of perspective. While we may think of privilege as
coming from a certain town or having a lot of money in the bank, every-
body reading this is privileged. You live in a country that allows you to
think, speak and publish (looking at this magazine) whatever you want.
You go to one of the best colleges in the country and have access to
eight dining halls! Elsewhere in the world, people struggle to nd clean
water to drink. Every night you have a warm bed to sleep in, inside a
building where people care what happens to you, whether it is a dorm
hall, a frat house or your parents house.
Being born with a silver spoon doesnt classify you as a person. Youare how you treat other people. Being born on either side of the spec-
trum doesnt automatically make you a snob or a savage. Words like
that dont describe who you are and shouldnt be used to describe
anyone. They are anony-miscers. They allow small minded people to
classify you as something rather than seeing you for what you really
are: a human being. Where we come from should have no effect on
how we view other people; but it does. We should see each other as
people not members of social classes.
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Wed Like to Thank the
Academy,[okay, not really, but heres a list of people who worked on this]
Da
niell
e(centerfold)
Ransom(pages 15,16, 18, 21, 22, 26)
[you]
Josh
(cov
er)
Nyanka
Sydney Rosendale (page 1)
Scott
OneBlood
B. Caws
Kasia
(pages 24,25)
Hay
-Tay
pg20
Samm
Abbey
Volca
no
Alex Fontaine
Titus Ezekiel Abad(ass)
NABID
KatieH
ir
Brend
anField
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Back Cover - Josh
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