Greetings, friends. I have a fun topic for you today. Let’s talk about privilege, shall we?
[a dozen browser tabs close shut in unison]
Alka replied yesterday to say:
I appreciate the dialog, the way you ended acknowledging the privilege to own these arms.
That struck a chord with me, because I didn’t really talk about the privilege of owning firearms, so much as the privilege of being freely able to publicly air my opinions about owning firearms. But Alka’s implicit statement is entirely correct — it is a privilege to own a firearm safely in America.
About a year and a half ago, Jeanne and I were traveling around southern Arizona, camping out and hiking on the weekends, and working remotely from (mostly) short-term rentals during the week. On a late-evening dash to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, we got stopped by a county sheriff in Ajo for a dead tail light.
The police looked inside the vehicle, saw two middle-aged people with a ton of camping gear, and visibly relaxed. They asked us what we were doing, and we said we were planning to camp dispersed for the night in the vicinity of the park. One of them asked us if we had a firearm in the car.
I said, quite candidly, yes, we did, in a locked case under the driver’s seat.
To my everlasting surprise, the cop said, “Good. You might into some rough folks out there, and sometimes we’re a long way away.” They told us to expect elevated police presence as we got closer to the Mexican border, and advised me to fix the tail light, lest I get stopped again.
Now, how do you think that exchange would have gone if we had been Black or Latino?
My point is that it is objectively way safer to own a firearm in America if you are white. Ceterum censeo pro vigilum imperdiet cessandam est. This constitutes a form of privilege, which I define as any form of elevated status or freedom in society which the bearer did nothing to acquire.
It is in the nature of privilege that it is invisible to those who have it. Since us white men (and the occasional Karen) do not experience the injuries and hindrances that come with its absence, it is all too easy for us to take for granted the fallacy that everyone can safely act as we can.
It’s easy for those of us who are privileged to see critique of privilege as a personal assault. We don’t want to be made to feel bad for possessing elevated status that we did nothing to earn. We don’t want to think about what duty that status imposes on us. But if I have a bad day in front of a cop, I get a “please calm down, sir” and not either tased or shot. The cost to me of that duty is nothing as compared to the economic depredation and mortal peril that women and people of color and people of all minority statuses experience in our society every goddamn day.
Now, I have been speaking exclusive for myself here, but also to the white men who are reading this journal post. We cannot teach anything about privilege to people who are less privileged than we are. To them, we can only shut the fuck up and listen. That is part of our duty.
What do I mean when I say duty? The Anglo-Norman hereditary aristocracy had a phrase, noblesse oblige, which modern American speakers mangle by appending an extra superfluous syllable. Nobility obliges.
Now, thank God, in American society, we do not have titled hereditary nobility, but the premise holds. Those of us who are privileged have a duty to those of us who are less privileged. A burden of care. Morality demands it. The categorical imperative demands it. The fact that we did nothing to be white, and male, and privileged does not absolve us of this responsibility.
So we get back to why I think it is my duty to be armed. It’s not just about me and Besha defending ourselves. I wish, for the love of God, that America was not more awash in firearms than Afghanistan or Iraq, but it is, and wishing does not make it otherwise. We can wish for the rule of law to protect everyone, but it doesn’t do that adequately. The durable rule of law is the greatest achievement of American society, even as horribly flawed as it is, but it is not guaranteed to last forever.
You probably don’t want to hear it, but… White Christian fascism has been emboldened by general discontentment with the neo-liberal political establishment’s utter failure to trickle down the vast economic growth of the past two or three decades. This failure, combined with the failure of that establishment to lift a fucking finger to reverse the dangers of global climate change, will almost certainly destabilize our society.
The Christo-fascists are already shooting up power stations and plunging innocent people into darkness in winter weather conditions, like they just did in North Carolina, and have been trying to do in Oregon and Washington. There are people who are preparing for their “electric boogaloo”, waiting for the opportunity to disrupt society, disrupt the rule of law, and impose their twisted vision of Christian white supremacism on our country. To eradicate the “threat” of American pluralism and win back the white male privilege that has been slowly and rightfully eroding in our society for decades. I hope I’m wrong about the severity of this threat. I’d rather be wrong than right.
So I can own firearms safely, learn to use them, teach others to use them safely. To help them learn to defend themselves. Because I am white and I am cis-gendered and male, and I am no threat to the police. And I have a duty to serve those who are less privileged than I am.
That duty extends in a whole bunch of different directions, as I see it, but I don’t want to go into it today. I’m already 25% over my word target and 100% over time. I’m sorry not sorry this took a dark turn. I hate feeling like I have to think about this topic. I'd rather be making pickles and being bad at blacksmithing.
I have one more thing to say about noblesse oblige. The difference between the ancient English concept, and how it translates into the duty of privilege in our modern society, is in the answer to this question: Who decides what form that duty takes?
The ancient concept was unquestionably patriarchal and absolutely top-down. I’m sure that the feudal lords of medieval Europe were sure that they knew best what was right for the less privileged in their society.
I do not. Part of my duty, our duty as white cis men, is to develop profound humility. To learn how we can put our privilege into service. To avoid the presumption that we know is best. Above all, to put aside our discomfort, to shut the fuck up and listen.
In fact, I’ll start right now. If you’re reading this, I send you my love. I hope you have a wonderful day. I’m going to go try to shake off this cloud I just conjured.