OK, so I've been reading about the water situation in Flint, and with all that there is about that incredibly unjust situation to be furious about, here's one thing that's really pissing me off about how people (white people in particular) are responding to this story.

I know it's dangerous to read Facebook comments (although not as dangerous as it is to drink the water in Flint) but in reading the comments on stories about this issue, I've found a disturbing number of people insisting that this incident cannot have anything to do with the race of the people affected (majority black), either a-because it has happened to poor white people too, as everyone knows from the movie Erin Brockovitch, or b-because white privilege doesn't exist and today in America we really only have economic privilege. I cannot tell you how infuriated this line of reasoning makes me. But since apparently it needs to be said, and not many people seem to be saying it, I submit to you the revolutionary idea that MORE THAN ONE KIND OF PRIVILEGE CAN EXIST. And that people can be discriminated against for multiple reasons at once. It's not an either/or kind of situation.  (Let's lay aside for a minute the likelihood that poverty and race play into each other-I'll get there).

So let's set race aside altogether for a second. Imagine that I (a white person, but we're setting that aside briefly for the sake of this hypothetical) go for a job interview, where I am interviewed by a guy who, unbeknownst to me, likes to work mostly with men and is homophobic. He is already thinking he may not want to hire me because he knows I'm female. But when I walk into his office, he sees that I have short hair, don't wear a wedding ring, and seem like I might be gay, based on the way I dress, sit, all the multiple things that set off people's gaydar. I feel like I'm pretty qualified for the job and the interview goes well, but I never get a call back. So what happened? It's not that I didn't get the job only because I'm female. And it's not that I didn't get the job only because I'm gay. Both factors interacted. Being a woman was already a disadvantage in that situation, and he might not have hired me anyway, but the fact that he identified me as gay just  made it a little easier for him to make that decision.

Now let's apply the "it's happened to poor white people too" reasoning to the above hypothetical scenario. Have women who are NOT gay not gotten jobs because they were women? Yes, of course. Does that mean that there's no such thing as straight privilege? No, it does not. It means that straight privilege is not the only kind of privilege around. Women can have straight privilege and lack male privilege, which makes them less likely to get certain kinds of jobs than men. I, on the other hand, am less likely to get those same kinds of jobs than both men and straight women, because I am lacking two kinds of privilege. And if there were statistics to back it up (which there can't be, because discrimination based on gender is largely illegal in the US), they'd probably show that being turned down for that kind of job happens more often to lesbians than to straight women. (Note that I am not trying to argue here about what kinds of jobs men and women are more likely to get, what kinds of jobs lesbians are more likely to get, or whether more men or women are unemployed. Yes, I know there are a lot of lesbian golfers. This is a HYPOTHETICAL scenario. It is meant to make a point).


So now, let's return to Flint, and the issue of white privilege. Has environmental injustice been perpetrated in this country against poor white people? Yes, it has. But just as in my example, where straight women getting turned down for jobs because of their gender didn't mean that there was no such thing as straight privilege, white people being subject to environmental injustice does not mean that there's no such thing as white privilege. And the fact that poor white people are more likely to be subject to such injustice than rich white people does not mean that either. It means that there are multiple kinds of privilege at play. In any Flint type situation, being a poor community is already a strike against you. You could get poisoned water anyway. But being a community of color just makes it that much easier for city officials to set that up, and to brazenly ignore your complaints about it. In this case, we do have some statistical data to back up that claim. Here's an article from the Huffington Post this summer, talking about the correlation of high levels of lead poisoning in children and substandard housing (with lead based paint) and cities with large African American communities.  It's not water, but the principle is similar...the cities are poor, so they don't have a lot of money to do anything about it, but it's more easily tolerated and much less of a public discussion because the cities are also majority black. In the same vein, Flint had two strikes against it--being poor and being majority black--and both of those were involved in creating a situation where the government knowingly provided people with dangerous water to drink and bathe in, and went on doing it despite complaints.

We white people are prone to not recognizing white privilege, because we're not aware of it harming us, and we view it as natural and deserved. When we're not wealthy, however, as most of us are not, we are really aware of the privileges associated with wealth, because they go against us (hence the many white people maintaining that only economic privilege exists). Interestingly, when I taught wealthy kids I found that most of them didn't believe that there was such a thing as economic privilege-they were surprised that I did. They viewed their access to things from political clout to expensive schools as deserved, because they studied hard or were practical or did a lot of extra-curriculars. The bottom line is, it's hard to see the privilege that accrues to you as a specific category of person, especially when you've been taught that category of person has nothing to do with it. And that's pretty normal. But there's a difference between not knowing it's there and forcefully insisting that it doesn't exist when it's pointed out. When people of color are telling you that you have privileges they don't have because you're white, you should take that seriously, the same way when I tell you that you have privileges I don't have because I'm gay (if you're straight), you should take that seriously. Acknowledging that you might be privileged in some ways shouldn't be a threat to your identity or personhood, and it doesn't mean you aren't lacking privilege in some other way. It does mean, however, that you will understand events in your country better, that you can listen more carefully to people who suffer injustice, and maybe that we can all work on some of this stuff together.

Next time...how racial and economic privilege intertwine. In the meantime, here's a link to a list of places you can donate to so that they can deliver clean water and water filters in Flint. If you've gotten this far, go donate even if you don't agree with me about white privilege. I'm pretty sure we'd all agree that clean water, in this day and age in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, shouldn't be a privilege but a right.