Difference, Power and Privilege
Diversity Literacy Week 1 / Lecture 1
Prepared by Claire Kelly
The Diversity Wheel
Work
Background
Income
Marital
Status
Age
Parental
Status
Sexual /
affectional
orientation
Race
Education
Physical
abilities /
qualities
Ethnicity
Gender
Geographic
Location
Religious
Beliefs
Prepared by Claire Kelly
African
Traditions
Adapted from Loden & Rosener’s
Diversity Wheel cited in Johnson,
A. G. (2001). Privilege, power and
difference (Chapters 3 &
8).Boston: McGraw-Hill. (p. 15-41
& 96-116)
The Diversity Wheel
 Doesn’t say much about you as an individual but
says volumes about social reality i.e. your
positioning.
 Not all difference is created equal: inner and
outer circle.
 What is the difference between the inner and
outer circle?
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Difference & Power
 The problem is not difference, the problem is that
our world is organized to use difference to
exclude, oppress, devalue, discredit
 Different positioning confers different opportunities
i.e. difference access to resources
 Why and how such patterns come about, why
are they maintained?
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Difference as Social
Construct
 Social structuring is a social process: what we
experience as real is a cultural creation
 Differences only become significant if we live in a
culture that recognizes them as such
 Differences change over time but are generally long
lasting
 Rarely, if ever, experienced as such - just the way
things are
 “Difference maintained by a normative order that
supports those who accept the division and
constrains those who seek to alter it.” (Payne, p.
242)
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Unsettling the normative
order….
 Insert: Picture of Piet Dlamini who is an African
man (black) and also an Afrikaner
Weerstandsbeweging (AWB)supporter , which is
awhite supremacist organization.
 http://roganward.blogspot.com/2010/04/awbman.html
 http://www.google.co.za/search?q=Piet+Dlamini
+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:enZA:official&client=firefox-a
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Unsettling the normative
order….
 Insert: Picture of Thomas Beatie, who is the “man
who fell pregnant.” Beatie is a transgender male.
 http://www.thomasbeatie.com/
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=jho1UCPDqXg
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Privilege
 Insert: Picture of a cartoon demonstrating white
privilege. You can choose any “white privilege”
image that you think your audience will
understand.
 http://thefreshxpress.com/2011/03/white-aintright-or-is-it/
 http://cosmologyofwhiteness.blogspot.com/2011
/04/whiteness-and-white-privilege-paradigm.html
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Privilege
 “When one group has something of value that is
denied to others simply because of the groups
they belong to” (McIntosh)
 You don’t have to do anything for it
 Privilege is structural: “The path of least
resistance”
 Social position versus subjective experience: The
power of privilege is that it rarely experienced as
such.
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Privilege / Normativity
 Insert: Thembinkosi Goniwe, “Untitled” . Picture of
a black man and a white man, both with white
plasters on their faces. The plaster appears very
obvious that it was made for white skin.
 http://www.artthrob.co.za/01nov/images/goniw
e01a.jpg
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Privilege / Normativity
 Insert: A picture normalizing and privileging
maleness. The picture used for the class is an
image of stick figures, and the one says to the
other “women suck at maths.”
 http://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/ge
nder-difference-in-math-ability-variability-drivenby-social-inequality-study/
Prepared by Claire Kelly
How Privilege Works
 Three characteristics of systems of privilege:
 dominated by: positions of power, power looks
“natural”, entitlement
 identified with: standard, the norm
 centred: path of least resistance is to focus on them
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Divisions, privilege and us
 Individuals positioned and constrained but we are
not wholly given… “path of least resistance” not
the only path
 Thomas Beattie & Piet Dlamini
 To follow the “path of least resistance”, however,
is to sanction the power relations that plots the
route of the path – it’s like standing still on a moving
train (Howard Zinn)
Prepared by Claire Kelly
Extra References
 Zinn, H. (1995) You can't be neutral on a moving train: A personal history of our
times. Boston: Beacon Press
Prepared by Claire Kelly