WMNS 1103 Lecture 13: Privilege, power, and difference
14 Oct 2020
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Document Summary
Ignoring privilege allows us to think differences are the problem. The idea that we"re all frightened by what we don"t know is a cultural myth. The problem is the ideas we hold about what we don"t know. The trouble around diversity is how the world is organized in a way that encourages people to use differences to include or exclude, reward or punish, credit or discredit. Diversity wheel: says a lot about the social reality that shapes everyone"s lives in powerful ways. The characteristics at the center of the wheel are usually very hard to change, are the object of quick and firm impressions that can profoundly affect our lives. Race and all its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege and oppression in which they were created in the first place. Once we give something a name-whether it be skin color or disability-that thing acquires a significance it otherwise would not have.
