Calling tall white men: there is a cure for undeserved privilege
Think about how to use your privilege to change someone’s life for the better
● I have rewritten the intro to this article several times. The first iteration was when I overheard a student asking her mother why she was having trouble finding a job “even though she wasn’t born during apartheid”.
The next was when people were complaining about taxi drivers dropping older people off at odd stops. Then billionaire businesswoman Magda Wierzycka tweeted that South Africans could change the country by employing more “cleaning ladies and gardeners”. The theme keeps recurring. And along with the many examples of privilege in action are questions about how we are changing the country with our hiring practices.
The way to create constructive change in South Africa is to have discussions we should have had 20 years ago.
As business leaders, do you have discussions about privilege? As employees, do you raise the question of your privilege in the workplace?
Hylton White, a social anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, said privilege was important to address if you want to push change, but the problem is that it is not obvious.
First, recognise if you have your own privilege, or lack thereof, as an employee, manager or CEO — even though “people who have been privileged feel surprised, even angry, because they haven’t been made aware of their privilege or the fact that their situation and their behaviour are actually based on unfair advantage”.
Some symptoms of privilege are obvious — inherited wealth, being male, having white skin — but the most important kinds of privilege are often harder to see. These include secondary privilege, such as having a posh accent or a deep voice, or being tall or having gone to a private school.
Could this be a reason for the “latte effect” in top management in South Africa? The term refers to a racially mixed majority of employees in a business, with “milky” foam and just a sprinkle of “cocoa” in top management.
It is a race issue.
The Employment Equity Commission report for 2016-17, the latest available, shows that 68% of top management positions in South Africa are held by white people. Black people account for 14.4%, Indians for 8.9%, coloureds for 4.9% and foreigners for 3.4%.
It is also an issue of gender. The figures are just as depressing for women.
Nene Molefi, an author and speaker on diversity and owner of human resources consultancy Mandate Molefi, said she explains privilege using her “100%” analogy. “The 100% package is as follows: in Western society, if you are born white, male, heterosexual, Jewish or Christian, able-bodied and middle class, or into an educated family, the world is made for you.
“Take any of those parts away, and you minus 30% to 35%. Add ‘homosexual’ or ‘woman’ and some privilege is gone, whoosh,” she said.
Nene said in the South African workplace, the secondary types of privilege — such as “accent privilege” — can mean the difference between getting a job or not.
“I am from Soweto so I speak English a certain way. My daughter, who went to private schools, will be taken more seriously than I am. If I have two economists with exactly the same qualification, but one has a ‘Model C’ accent, they will get the position. The same goes for someone who is tall, or has a deep voice. That is unearned privilege, secondary privilege, where someone is exactly the same as you, but something pushes you up the ranks,” she said.
Molefi said when she explains rank, power and privilege, people who are privileged feel like they are being attacked, and then feel guilt.
“There is nothing wrong with rank, power or privilege. Nobody wakes up and says: ‘Oh I’m white and male, I will take over the world.’ That is by chance, what you were born into. Nobody is accusing you.
“But the way to effectively engage in this dialogue is to realise that society treats you differently because of your race, gender, or a multiple of things.”
“If people try to deny it, go to companies and ask people who are openly gay or any woman in a boardroom. It is laughable and embarrassing to admit, but even black people or women have learnt that somehow we are less than others, and in turn we ourselves may treat each other that way.”
“It is years and years of socialisation. Don’t ask me in Woolworths where you can find these biscuits, because I am also shopping and I don’t work here. This is an everyday reality,” she said.
White said institutions were built around middleclass and eurocentric social and cultural norms. “I see this at the university all the time. The classes are all in English, for a start, but it’s much more than that. For example, being comfortable approaching lecturers to go over issues. Students who come from less-privileged backgrounds usually feel more cautious about approaching the people who teach them. That creates differences in success,” he said.
Clinical psychologist Daniel Rabinowitz said people should first work out why they have “automatic benefits simply due to status as a member of a certain group” and take it from there. “An important part of understanding privilege is also to understand the effects on those who experience discrimination and oppression due to privilege,” he said.
Molefi said even though privilege is a result of institutionalised thinking in South Africa, guilt gets us nowhere. “This is who you are, just accept it, and think about how do I use my privilege to make someone else’s journey better?”
Molefi said the discussions were not easy. “It takes a bit of eldership, which has nothing to do with age, to say that I can recognise my skin colour and gender and here is what I am going to do with it to build a more inclusive South Africa.
“If you agree that privilege comes from unfair advantage, then start challenging privilege and privileged people’s behaviour — as well as our country’s leaders to explain why we live with so much inequality in a society that is supposed to be democratic.”
When I revisited this article again this week there was a glimmer of hope. The High Court in Pretoria had found Imperial CEO Mark Lamberti guilty of impairing Adila Chowan’s dignity by referring to her as “female, employment equity” employee.
Lamberti resigned from the Eskom board.
That is a stand against the misuse of privilege.