Week 3

Jake Maize

Full disclosure: I’m a straight white guy from a upper-middle class family. Most of my formal education has been in private schools, and I’m writing this blog post for a class at CalArts. It’s only been a couple years since I’ve been made aware of the idea of privilege. My language here is purposeful: “been made aware”. I’m not sure if I would see more then a handful of instances where I have an advantage if it weren’t initially pointed out to me. As Peggy McIntosh said, its privilege that lets us not see privilege. I’ve never feel like my voice isn't heard because of who I am. I’ve never experienced what it feels like to be discriminated against by race, gender, sexual orientation, or really any other category. Given my background, its not terribly surprising that I have my share of biases that I struggle against. The very least I can do is strive to identify those biases. And I agree that seeing our own privilege is important to understanding our place as artists, especially when we’re reaching out to people with varying levels of privilege. McIntosh points out, “power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is intact permission to escape or to dominate.” I’m not proud to say that I once had an outlook that only took “earned” strength into account. It wasn't intensionally malicious, it was ignorance. Certainly a self centered view of the world around me. To use a metaphor used by one of the community members from last week’s video: Privilege gives us a blanket that protects us from cold reality. I was holding my blanket over my head. I certainly still have my blanket, but I hope it’s acting less as a blindfold.