Privilege awareness campaigns criticized
Two Canadian educational institutions this week faced blowback for campaigns intended to highlight the racial “privilege” of students. The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) put up posters encouraging students to “check their privilege” using a list of privileges such as “Christian,” “White,” “Heterosexual” and “Male.” Meanwhile, B.C.’s School District 74 put up posters featuring school administration officials highlighting their encounters with racism and privilege.
In one, district superintendent Teresa Downs stands next to a quote reading, “I have unfairly benefited from the colour of my skin. White privilege is not acceptable.”
In another, district principal of Aboriginal education Tammy Mountain appears next to the quote, “I have felt racism. Have you?”
The UOIT posters appear to have been quickly taken down.
“I fit the bill for almost every single category yet the promoters have no idea whether or not I’ve had ‘unearned access to social power’ because of this,” wrote one critic on the Facebook page of UOIT Student Life, the department that created the posters. Administrators said the posters were not intended to shame people who fell into one of the indicated privilege categories. “Becoming aware of privilege should not be seen as a burden or source of guilt, but rather, an opportunity,” read a poster accompanying the checklist.
In B.C., a CBC report quoted Kansas Field Allen, a parent who took to Facebook to complain that by encouraging students to be cognizant of racial identity, the School District 74 posters were sowing racial division. Online discussions quickly descended into ugliness. One pro-poster commenter was targeted by private messages reading “it’s hilarious when you talk about white privilege when you walk around with a status card.” Field Allen reported being berated for raising “white racist children.”
The B.C. posters were based on a City of Saskatoon billboard campaign that faced similar criticism. One billboard featured a white man alongside the quote: “I have to acknowledge my own privilege and racist attitudes.” “Some of the chatter on social media presume that the city has scripted this statement and that it is intended to make the assumption that all people are racist — It’s not at all. This was an individual who lives in Saskatoon and has seen the ill effects of racism,” Lynne Lacroix, the city’s director of recreation and community development, told Postmedia.