On declaring one’s privilege

 This might not be the smartest thing I ever wrote but for some reason I do feel the need to write about this once (and only once 😊).  

Let me just set the scene: I’m a middle aged (European) man, largely in favour of the woke & decolonizing global health agendas (long overdue), I don’t need much convincing that structural/systemic racism remains widespread in pretty much every country in the world, although it’s in some countries worse than in others. I wouldn’t describe myself as “woke” though – some things are beyond me, plus I aimed to be, at a certain point in my life (like many in my generation), J Krishnamurti-style “aware” (instead of “awake” 😊). In case you wonder, that didn’t really happen.   

So, with that out of the way,  I wanted to briefly offer some thoughts on a practice that seems to  become more common (last week, for example, I noticed it at a Decolonize Global Health seminar I attended): to make one’s privilege(s) explicit, before you start talking.

Now,  I certainly get the idea of ‘privilege’: I probably experienced it most during my travelling years (2000-2003) and when teaching English in China. Now in Covid times, very much so as well, obviously. But of course, in many ways, I had been privileged all along, even if I wasn’t fully aware of it at the time (white, male, stable upbringing, safe country, relatively good governance, social security,… you name it).

But although I understand why it can be useful to indicate one’s’ “positionality” in a debate, I don’t really see the point of making one’s privilege explicit before starting to talk in a session. Or rather, if one does so, I would like to see it broader. Let me explain why.

For one, it’s blatantly obvious for most of us in these sessions that many of us are ‘privileged’. I admit, it provides some interesting (and sometimes necessary) info. But check somebody’s social media, and you will know as much (if not more).

Two, it feels a bit like the self-flagellation from the Middle Ages, a sort of purifying ritual (that especially Americans seem fond of). Or if you want a metaphor from another part of the world, it also smacks a bit of “neo-Mao style self-criticizing” (like Jack Ma had to do in recent weeks versus Xi Jinping).

Three, for some reason, it’s always the well-meaning public health students or soft-spoken young social scientists who seem to be willing to declare their privilege, I never see this being done by the posh medical students heading for their first Tesla, let alone by the ‘top dogs’ in the system. I’ll be all for declaring one’s privilege in sessions if  Bill Gates, Seth Berkley, Peter Sands, Albert Bourla, Emmanuel Macron (not to mention Jeff B) do so too, when kicking off their High-Level meetings and replenishments.      

Four: it’s mainly young people who seem bent on declaring their privilege. When you get older, that sort of thing doesn’t come that easily anymore, it appears, perhaps because by then, one day you feel privileged, the next day, nah… not really. Maybe also because you increasingly realize that we human beings are actually a mix: of (1) privilege (and some of us are certainly far more privileged than others), (2) struggle (“life happens to you, your family…”, and you can’t really blame anybody for it … (eg disease, tragical accidents, choices you made that turn out the wrong ones…)) and (3) exploitation by a ruthless capitalist/patriarchal/... economic system  (unless you belong to the 0.00001 % (and even then)). 

My point is: unless you start talking about all these dimensions, your self-introduction – focusing on privilege only - remains a bit fragmentary.  I don’t think that in a scientific session you need to go into the ‘struggle’ dimension, but discussing ‘privilege’ should be complemented by talking about ‘exploitation’, in my opinion.  Even if I’m very well aware that the ‘exploitation’ suffered by participants in most of these sessions doesn’t even come close to the exploitation of the ones “really” hit (and often destroyed) by this economic/patriarchal/… system. But this sort of ‘race to the bottom’ benchmarking is one of the favourite legitimizing mechanisms of our neoliberal global system, and there’s no need to give in to it.

As make no mistake, many of these well-meaning global health students won’t feel as ‘privileged’ when they have to hit the labour market, or more in general, join the rat race where ever more needs to be done with fewer people for reasons of ‘efficiency’. When some of them become Deliveroo or Uber Eat-deliverers, previous talk of ‘privilege’ will feel empty. And I really don’t need to go into the way many public health people in LMICs, even some of the relatively ‘privileged’ ones, are now being hit by budget cuts, often coming from the North.

Also,  I feel “privileged” to have grown up in a time where the massive size of the ecological crisis & planetary emergency wasn’t that obvious yet, I still had a few ‘innocent decades’ in that respect. It’s anything but “a privilege” to have to face the climate & biodiversity crisis, as a young generation, and clean up the mess (if it’s even possible).

Finally, unless I’m mistaken, “global health” & academia have a fair amount of exploitation itself, both being quite neoliberally run “businesses” at times, including towards relatively privileged young people based in the South, so better to also include that in the “picture”.  

So here’s my suggestion: 

Let’s indeed declare one’s privilege at the start of a session or even plenary, but (1) let the bigwigs do so first, and let them also make explicit why they continue to take the decisions they take to sustain a ruthless economic system; (2) when you, as a humble global health student or staff member, do so, make it something “creative” in which you also include the exploitation dimension.

Like: “ ‘I’m privileged in many ways, … but having said that, I’m not as privileged as (and no doubt more exploited than) Bill Gates ( who doesn’t have any ‘deliverables’ or KPIs apart from self-imposed ones, as far as I can tell), I don’t have Seth Berkley’s or Peter Sands’ salary package, neither do I have billion dollar signs in my eyes like Albert “Pfizer” Bourla, “breathe” privilege like Emmanuel Macron …  and I certainly don’t have Jeff Bezos’ privilege to exploit hundreds of thousands of employees, while getting filthy rich with it”.      

For the ones among you who prefer three dimensions (and who doesn’t in academia?  😊) ‘white supremacy’, a term that is used a bit too easily in woke discussions, in my opinion, could be added to the equation.  That is no doubt a continuum as well, not a binary thing.  Let’s call it perhaps ‘supremacist thinking/mindset’ (as obviously, this is not just a white ‘privilege’)

So when we exclude ‘struggle’ from the discussion (even if there are, obviously, links with ‘privilege’ & ‘exploitation’ dimensions, see the whole SDH debate), we could then go for a “3-D declaration”.  

Let’s call it the woke equivalent of the UHC cube. You would make explicit:

-        The amount of privilege (so far in your life)

-        The amount of (capitalist/patriarchal/…) exploitation you suffer in your current job/life

-        The amount of supremacy thinking  (my guess: most of us in global health score very low on this dimension, in the year 2021, but happy to be proven wrong)

That should make for interesting “3-D introductions”, I think. And for the many cube fans among you, you can even visualize it 😊!  

PS: I’m well aware that there are many more dimensions (see also the intersectionality debate), but at my age, I’m not that intellectually flexible anymore : ) 

PS: let me repeat this again, for good order: I know the ‘exploitation’ doesn’t come close to what marginalized people in LMICs (and, increasingly, HICs) suffer. But I don’t believe in this sort of ‘race to the bottom’ benchmarking, which is too often used by “the powers that be” to sustain their system. We shouldn’t let them.  And in Covid times even less.