Episode 181: Privilege-what it is, isn’t, and why it matters

When I teach the kids, they call me Miss Tyler, but today I am Auntie Tyler. Privilege is a concept that appears all over the Bible and in every sort of literature within it. Privilege is incredibly important within the Biblical narrative–but why? I want to peel back a lot of the rhetoric, talking points, and misinformation out there to take a hard look at how Christians should view privilege and what it should mean in the life of the Body of Christ.

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So, this morning we are going to do something very different than usual. We’re going to talk about the sociological reality of privilege and what it is, what It isn’t and why it matters—especially to the church because we find it mentioned all over the Bible and in all types of Biblical literature from the historical narrative to poetry, and wisdom sayings to apocalypse. Privilege is a word that tends to provoke strong reactions from white people, like me, even when we readily acknowledge the ways in which we ourselves don’t have it as good as other people do for this or that reason. Personally, I believe the topic has been poisoned by those who want to make it look like the argument of privilege is saying things that it absolutely is not saying—that every single white person has it better than every single person of color (POC) in this country or that if you are white then you haven’t struggled. The truth is that absolutely no one is saying that even though there are talking points out there that have been designed to provoke fear and defensiveness in white people. But the Bible talks about privilege.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist, and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have years’ worth of blogs at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on Amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids. (affiliate link) I also have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for adults and kids. You can find the links for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com, and transcripts for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

Let’s look at the UK. It shouldn’t even be remotely controversial to say that, if you are a member of the royal family or the nobility then you have natural privileges and perks that average everyday folks do not have. You are more likely going to attend Eton and Oxford than public schools. You will have top-notch health care and access to whatever it is that will assist you in developing your natural talents. You won’t worry about money as long as you are responsible with it because you have inherited wealth from your ancestors, as well as titles—giving you standing that you did nothing to earn. In fact, you didn’t earn anything you were born to possess or benefit from. No one does, rich or poor. We would all agree that it is a privilege to not have to deal with certain hurdles that others have to try to jump over.

Let’s look at Israel, and I understand this is a sensitive topic right now but who on earth would choose to be born behind the barriers in Gaza or the West Bank? Any takers? Of course not—there is no one who would not rather be born to a Jewish family in Jerusalem instead. Who would make the conscious choice of being born a woman in Iran or Afghanistan now that the Taliban has regained control of the country? Who would choose to be born in a war zone, or in an apartheid state on the side of those being oppressed? I am very grateful to be living in America and to be white because it means that I didn’t struggle in the ways that many of my friends of color have struggled. I am grateful that I wasn’t born into poverty in Mexico or South America, whose governments are either in cahoots with, controlled by, or in a losing battle with powerful drug cartels. I am grateful I have never had cause to live in mortal fear of what will happen to my sons who, despite being biracial, easily pass as white. There are hurdles I have never had to jump because I am who I am and I am sure you can say the same thing. The Bible flatly tells the have’s not to despise the have not’s and to not ignore them or mock them. When we deny the privilege all around us, we are despising and mocking those who suffer the consequences of the situations they were born into.

And there are other kinds of privilege. Generational wealth and education within the middle class. Although slavery was made illegal in the 1860’s, various forms of it lingered long afterward and even to the present day. Even poor whites, during antebellum days, benefitted and profited from cheaper cotton and tobacco than they would have if the workers were fairly paid and were free to seek employment elsewhere or were educated. My ancestors didn’t own slaves, as far as I know, but they did enjoy the benefits of what was being perpetrated against enslaved people. At the end of the Civil War, my family retained what they had before the war, while freed blacks were let loose with absolutely nothing. No land. No money. No education. No open arms waiting to embrace them anywhere. It is only within recent memory that the black community in America has been able to begin generating generational wealth–the ability to send off their children with a fair start in life educationally and financially and for the children to someday inherit and build upon what they had growing up. People who are firmly middle-class often fail to see what an advantage it is to have things provided for them because their parents had things provided for them. People who are upper middle class and rich are often completely oblivious to it. But the Bible isn’t. And the prophets sure weren’t.

The way your family life is set up constitutes an area where advantage and disadvantage can be quite obvious. No one would deny that growing up in a loving, non-abusive, supportive Christian two-parent family free from addiction—regardless of socio-economic conditions—gives young people a huge leg up psychologically over those who do not have it. Attending a school where the teachers truly care and support their students makes a world of difference. Never having lived in foster care, being raised by relatives while parents are incarcerated, dead, or just gone remove a lot of hurdles that real kids out there face. Foster kids are often put out onto the street when they hit their 18^th birthday; when the support money stops coming in, and they end up at men’s shelters or on the streets.

Some privileges are seemingly random—physical beauty, musical or athletic ability, intelligence, health, and being able-bodied. All of these contribute to a person’s chance of success—including color and gender. Nothing I have mentioned so far has anything to do with merit or virtue. They are very much what we could call “accidents of birth.” No one is born deserving or not deserving any of these. They just are what they are. I would be a ridiculous fool to say that it isn’t a privilege to be very intelligent, white, and to have come from a family that was mid to upper-middle class by the time I graduated from High School. My parents paid for college—another privilege. My husband has those same privileges. We never had to worry about how to pay for college, and neither did our kids. Neither of us earned that—even though we worked hard in school because there are people who worked even harder to had to work full-time or part-time or take out student loans to afford their tuition. They, through no fault of their own, had that hurdle that we didn’t even hardly know was there. Not only that, but we were able to attend more prestigious schools with better science and engineering programs.

Let me just stop right there. Do I feel guilty about that privilege? No, I don’t—that would be counterproductive and self-centered. But that isn’t the same thing as me not seeing the injustice of it and knowing that change needs to happen. I really like Star Trek because it represents a world where a lot of this inequity has been defeated. I mean, there will always be abuse and irresponsible parents, but I believe that a world where no one is hungry and every child has equal education and opportunities is in alignment with the trajectory of Scripture. That we should greatly desire it goes without saying. I had a dream back on September 4 that I want to share. I wrote this in the morning when I woke up but haven’t shared it until now:

Last night, I dreamed that I woke up one day as a black woman in America. I still had all my memories of being a white woman, and the voice I used while talking to others was the voice of a white woman but the reactions to it were very different. I saw neglect and disrespect. I saw black youth in what can only be called a pit of vipers–cobras specifically–and my demands that those in charge do something about them going unheard and not taken seriously. And I am talking big obvious cobras just under the sand. Then, suddenly, I was white again, and I yelled about it and people scrambled to deal with the cobras as though this was the first they had heard of them. I went from setting to setting like this with similar results.

It wasn’t a matter of attractiveness because the woman whose face I bore was younger and far more attractive (I would kill for her hair, lemme tell you). The face was far more professional looking, well groomed, you name it, but she wasn’t white.

For many years now, I have been asking God to really make the reality of “privilege” clear to me, and that did it. I was so frustrated. Being “white” on the inside, in the way I thought, acted, spoke, etc. had absolutely no effect on these people’s reactions to me compared to how they responded when my face and body reverted back to my own. It was like a switch flipped in their heads that I should be listened to, cared about, taken seriously, and even feared.

Not caring about cobras waiting to strike at kids who were black until someone white was there demanding action and help in getting rid of them? And that’s the point, isn’t it? The not caring. It’s worse than hatred, really. The pretending that things aren’t wrong when steps can be taken on behalf of kids, even.

It was strange; the cobras were actually yellow. I had no idea there were yellow cobras but I looked them up and there they were, Cape Cobras. Geez, they looked just exactly like the ones in my dream, venomous and highly aggressive. They live in South Africa. And white adults were just standing by, casually uncaring. To care would mean needing to do something because no one could ever, ever see something like that in real life and refuse to act if they had even an ounce of love for kids. We don’t want to compare ourselves to apartheid South Africa—but after my dream, I think that maybe we really need to reconsider if we are different enough from them to feel good about ourselves.

How can this be true in a country that calls itself a Christian nation?

And that brings me to another reality in life about privilege, one that I knew about but had normalized until my book designer David posted something about it. I hadn’t ever realized that it shouldn’t be normal for me to worry about being sexually assaulted if I am out walking at night. It isn’t something that men need to obsess over or even really think about. They might get beaten up and mugged, of course, that can happen to men or women, but they don’t lie in their beds at night thinking, “What if an intruder breaks in and rapes me?” I think about that. I have always thought about it. Imagine being a single woman. Oh sure, I have had to deal with my fair share of discrimination—having started my working life in the 90’s. And I have had to deal with dismissive comments no man would ever hear, regardless of color. But the worst treatment I have received as a woman has been in the Church.

It was in the second church I attended as an adult that the modern worship leader began to come on to me and harass me sexually. When I rebuffed his advances, he didn’t stop. When I went to church leadership, I was told that it must be nice to know that I’ve “still got it at my age.” I was 33, hardly geriatric. And the idea that any woman naturally loves that sort of attention from a married man with six kids? Ew. It creates a hostile worship environment. Before too long, when his wife found out, I was blamed and it was made known that I was unwelcome in that congregation. He was more valuable than I was. I was the problem, even though I had done my due diligence in reporting it. It was a Southern Baptist Church, and although it surprised me then, now it wouldn’t.

But that still paled in comparison to what began to happen when God called me to teach—even though I make no effort to teach men. Heck, I make no effort to teach anyone except by posting on my websites and social media pages. I am only on the radio because people came to me and asked me to do it and I have only spoken at conferences where I was asked to come and given authority to teach. And yet, even in minding my own business, I get gender-based hate mail from men who (instead of simply disagreeing with me) get ugly and pull verses out of context to tell me that I must remain quiet. Even at home, I guess, because that is where I teach from. The reason is because of my gender, and not my level of knowledge, intelligence, giftedness or calling. It’s something men never have to deal with. Likely, it is something they can’t even imagine—and any sort of discrimination we can’t even imagine represents a privilege in our lives.

In the outside world, in many ways, I am more privileged than a black man. But inside the evangelical churches (along with too many others) he would be privileged over me. Someone white might tell him to shut up, regardless of how good a preacher or teacher or leader he is, but it would only be based upon his color.

One of the ways I like to explain privilege is this—“who would you never, in a million years, want to trade places with?” For all that many Evangelical white men (certainly not all) complain about a war on men and specifically a war on white men, I don’t see any of them volunteering to be a black man and much less a black woman. And it is because they (and we) recognize that it is far better to be white in this country than black. This doesn’t mean that as long as you are white, you have it made because you absolutely do not. A white male can struggle terribly because of poverty, a lack of generational wealth and opportunity, poor education, disability, poor health, etc.

Privilege isn’t the same thing as having no struggles, it’s just an acknowledgment that the playing field isn’t equal. And that shouldn’t make any of us bristle. Nor should it make anyone feel guilty for whatever privileges they did have. We were born into an unjust system, but it doesn’t mean we have to ignore it or have a right to deny it. We need to pray and work for a better world. One of the things I hate to hear the most is that America is a great country because the best and the brightest can rise to the top. Yeah, they can, but not always and it isn’t inevitable. As a special needs mom, I am not satisfied with living in a society where we are okay with only the best and brightest being able to escape abominable circumstances but where everyone else is destined to continue to suffer and somehow it’s okay. America won’t be great until everyone escapes, and every child is fed and educated and safe. Maybe the worst thing I ever heard another believer say is, “Well, God knew that people would be born into those circumstances,” when I made the statement that it broke my heart how much more difficult it is to preach the Gospel to people who have never known anything except deprivation and fear and righteous anger at being sidelined. It isn’t okay with me. It shouldn’t be okay with any believer to allow it and ignore it and even institutionalize it or see it as inevitable. And if that makes me a liberal then what on earth is wrong with conservative Christians? I am simply siding with those with whom Messiah identified in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Those of us with whatever measure of privilege we have, as believers, must always speak up on behalf of and assist those who do not.

Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann C. 2008 pp 87-8 (affiliate link)

A Prayer of Protest

Since our mothers and fathers cried out,

since you heard their cries and noticed,

since we left the brick production of Egypt,

since you foiled the production schedules of Pharaoh,

we have known your name,

we have sensed your passion,

we have treasured your vision of justice.

And now we turn to you again,

whose precious name we know.