capri0mni: A black Skull & Crossbones with the Online Disability Pride Flag as a background (Default)
Ann ([personal profile] capri0mni) wrote2012-01-02 05:44 pm

Whence Invisible Backpack of *fill-in-the-blank* Privilege?

Now that I

a) am learning how to make simple, slide-show-based videos with "Windows Movie Maker" and

b) have a means to record my own voice-overs,

I'm thinking of making a series of slide-show based videos out of this post My own version of the Bipedal Privilege Backpack (each video focusing on two or three privileges at a time, and illustrated with stick-figure cartoons).

And I'd like to open with a discussion of what "Privilege" is, and what it means to have "an invisible backpack" full of it.

So I'm asking my circle:

What counts as "privilege"? Is privilege always founded in culturally determined biases? Is that the difference between "privilege" and "natural ability"?

and also: Whence the metaphor of the "invisible backpack"? Who thought that up, and what was the inspiration?
spiralsheep: Evil commandeers the costume budget (chronographia Servalan Evil Costume)

[personal profile] spiralsheep 2012-01-03 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
I know what you mean, yes.

Also, if we all have invisible knapsacks (from our of our fairy godmothers?) then some of us are gifted with silver spoons to spend* and some of us are loaded with dead weights (or are even additionally expected to carry privileged people's silver spoons around for them while we trail in their wake cos they're social protagonists and we're servants/scenery).

* Note my cunning and TTLY SUBTLE reference to SPOONS!!1!! ;-)
spiralsheep: Reality is a dangerous concept (babel Blake Reality Dangerous Concept)

[personal profile] spiralsheep 2012-01-03 01:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I worry about what people might choose to hear if I stray anywhere near concepts that can be reinterpreted as sins-of-the-fathers or Those-Xs-have brought-Y-on-themselves-because-They're-all-Z.

Babylon 5 brought me a fresh appreciation of mathematical probability and its retelling as the capriciousness of supernatural beings:

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole to Franklin, A Late Delivery from Avalon
trouble: Sketch of Hermoine from Harry Potter with "Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading)" on it (Default)

[personal profile] trouble 2012-01-03 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
As I recall, the image she was going for was that some people come with fully-packed backpacks that make the trip much easier than those who come with partially-full or empty ones. The backpack carries the metaphorical equivalent of extra socks for when you get a dunking in the river or calamine lotion to soothe bug bites.