Privilege, Power and Difference: If Harvard Business School Can Address the Issue, Shouldn't Our Public Schools?

What? Not a red-head? Maybe I'm not that privileged after all..or am I just in denial?

Red-head aside, I am a privileged person, belonging to a privileged group in the United States, according to Allan Johnson, author of Privilege, Power and Difference. As a white, middle class, Anglo-Saxon Protestant living in the northeast part of the United States, I have always known this to be true even if, or especially because, I have never questioned my place or safety in our society. Johnson states that "we all like to feel that way: accepted, valued, supported, appreciated, respected, belonging" and for the most part, that is how my life has been spent and, as a teacher, how I hope to respond to my multi-lingual, multi-cultural students. What I, and few of my colleagues have not truly acknowledged, however, is what Johnson identifies as the "trouble we're in," that our privilege is gained at the expense of others. If we can't face that truth, can we implement positive change in our schools?

In the first three chapters of his book, Johnson lays down his foundation. First, he notes he is also part of the privileged class: white, male and heterosexual. However, he states that people who are privileged must own that reality and make the problem of an unfair social structure their problem. This, he admits, is daunting as first people in power must name the issues before they can be addressed: they must utter words such as privilege, racism, sexism, and patriarchy, among others, and that in doing so it must be attempted without "defensive sensitivity" to the language.

So, how does this translate in education and in society? Harvard Business School (HBS), long a bastion for the children of those who already hold power, namely white business people with connections, has, for the past two years, given itself a "gender makeover, changing its curriculum, rules and social rituals to foster female success" . In order to do so, the institution looked first at finding and retaining women faculty members, a third of whom left their prestigious roles in one time span (2006-2007) alone. While just a start, what HBS has attempted fits into Johnson's claim that those who hold power must recognize that truth and more importantly, lay claim to their responsibility for rectifying the problem.

Johnson continues, in Chapter 3, to state that being different is not a problem, that "if we feel afraid, it isn't what we don't know that frightens us, it's what we think we do know." Society has taught us that we need to be afraid of strangers or the unknown, when, in reality, we are a curious species with an innate desire to reach out to that which is strange or different in order to learn about our world. Using a "Diversity Wheel", in which inner categories are fixed such as age, race, and gender, and outer ones are malleable, such as our income or geographic location, Johnson shows how "shifting only a few parts of the diversity wheel would be enough to change their lives dramatically." So, the heart of the problem isn't that people differ from one another but that the world is "organized in ways that encourage people to use difference to include or exclude, reward or punish" or to "value or devalue". In the United States, being white is what has been valued; furthermore, the "dominant racial group in this country has had the cultural authority to define the boundaries around "white" as it chooses." For instance, at one point in our history Italians and Irish were not considered white enough by those in power. These cultural groups are now part of the recognized "white" power structure, a label other ethnic groups see as the route to not being oppressed, and in doing so, sometimes oppress others. Let me explain.

Johnson points out that "you don't actually have to be white or male or heterosexual to receive the privilege attached to those categories. All you have to do is convince people you belong the appropriate category." I see this at my school where the quest of being considered "white enough" or rather, not black, translates into racism between a people who share the island of Hispaniola, the Dominicans and Haitians. My school is dominated by Dominican immigrants, many of whom deride their Haitian and African immigrant counterparts as well as native born African Americans. In fact, though 90 percent of Dominicans are descended from African slaves, most are in denial of this truth and firmly declare that they are Spanish, that they identify more with the culture of their language, than with their ancestors. This is a result of a complicated history, well documented by Professor Henry Luis Gates in his PBS special Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided.  In essence, many Dominicans consider their motherland Spain, not Africa, a self-identity fostered by the island's past, long-standing dictator Trujillo and by a social reality that not being black has translated into a better economic life, and thus a better social standing. As Johnson points out "we usually don't look downward in the social hierarchy but to people we identify as being on the same level as or higher level than our own."

Today, the results of this desire to not be black can be seen and felt within the walls of my one urban school. However, unlike Harvard Business School, this power structure (primarily of racism) has not been overtly acknowledged, has not been named, has not been rectified, perhaps because to do so, the greater issue of privilege, power and difference, of a power structure designed around "whiteness" is a step few of us have the courage to take. After all, to address racism between black and brown students we first have to address the root of it all, that "whites as a social category oppress people of color as a social category...is a social fact." If we can't or won't address this in our schools, will it be addressed at all? Harvard is trying to address gender equity; we should address our privilege and power issues, too.