Tips for Radicals

Why the anarchist movement needs privilege analysis

It’s pretty popular nowadays for radicals to dismiss analysis and arguments based around privilege. Especially popular in the wild forests of the non-tumblr internet, critiques often mix up ‘privilege use in theory’ with ‘my personal experience of how privilege is used in practice’.

Popular critiques are to attack:

1. the more abstract theory of privilege
   e.g. “psssh fuck identity politics”
2. how privilege theory is inherently middle-class/reformist
   e.g. “it takes the focus away from class struggle”
   e.g. “it stifles militant action”
3. how privilege used in practice
   e.g. “it’s just used to stifle points of view you don’t want to hear”
4. the effectiveness of privilege as a tool
   e.g. “it’s demoralising and makes people feel guilty and apathetic”
   e.g. “it over-individualises everything and doesn’t focus enough on structures of oppression”

I’ve broken my response down into five separate posts

You need the theory: the class struggle must be intersectional: why privilege is a key item in the class struggle toolkit. 

Militancy: why privilege isn’t a toothless tool: the strategy of balancing anti-oppression thoughts with militant action.

The irrational fear of “check your privilege”: how ‘the privilege card’ only tends to shut down obnoxious dicks, and how to deal with being called-out.

Privilege talk just makes people feel guilty, right?: a short post bcs that’s obv bollocks.

“The real problem is too much talk about how racist I am”: on blaming privilege-as-a-tool on everything ever, and on a lack of strategy.

The limits of privilege as a tool (some much-needed caveats): when privilege is useful as a tool, and when it tends to fall down.

Enjoy!

Image above from Suzi X: her Flickr and blog - check out her other work, it’s great!