Privilege

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash 

  one Monday morning a few months later, Yazz informed her, as they queued for the toilet after the Race, Class and Gender class, that she was in effect now an honorary sistah with an h, a term that originated with black women which was now being appropriated (typical!) by those who weren’t

  however, Courtney could never be a fully-fledged sistah, only honorarily so

  she explained that being a sistah was a response to how we’re seen as much as who we are, which actually defies simplistic reductionism, and that who we are is partly a response to how we’re seen, babe

  Yazz found herself calling people she liked ‘babe’ these days, it wasn’t forced or pretentious, it just happened naturally

  it’s a conundrum, Yazz continued the conversation over lunch of bean soup for her (protein for the brain) and meat, mash and mushy peas for Courtney

  people won’t see you as just another woman any more, but as a white woman who hangs with brownies, and you’ll lose a bit of your privilege, you should still check it, though, have you heard the expression, check your privilege, babe?

  Courtney replied that seeing as Yazz is the daughter of a professor and a very well-known theatre director, she’s hardly underprivileged herself, whereas she, Courtney, comes from a really poor community where it’s normal to be working in a factory at sixteen and have your first child as a single mother at seventeen, and that her father’s farm is effectively owned by the bank

  yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most oppressed of all of them (although don’t tell her that) 

  in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed

  she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege

  Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean, where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother and a jailbird father? is a severely disabled person more privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured? Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for discussing inequality

  Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?

  was this a student outwitting the master moment?

  #whitegirltrumpsblackgirl

  Courtney added that as she only fancies black men and is likely going to have mixed-race children, her ‘white privilege’ is in any case going to be seriously dented, like at least 50% of it, and it’s incredible in this day and age that she’d never met any black people in the flesh before she came to university from Dartingford which is entirely white except for three Asians

  Yazz informed her that’s a non sequitur, conversation-wise

  Courtney replied that she herself is a big fan of the non sequitur which really only means that a conversation is free-flowing and intuitive, as opposed to following a predictable trajectory, so to speak

  Yazz excused herself to go to the toilet.

~ Bernardine Evaristo