A friend mentioned an article in Times that was published recently. She was quick to point out that I would likely be riled up by it (she was right). The original article was published in the Princeton Tory, described on the website as a journal of conservative and moderate thought.
Let me start first with some general observations, this article was written by a white 18/19 year old freshman at an elite Ivy League institution who has worked really hard to get there. The previous sentence in a race blind world should read something like "this article seems to have been written by a 18/19 year old..." you get the point. This kid, most kids that get into Ivy League schools work hard to get where they are. In his case he is constantly told that somehow his path was easier, "check your privilege." However implicitly true that may be, he doesn't feel like he had it easy, he gave up nights out, studied hard, did all the right things to get to where he is, not to mention he doesn't feel like he comes from "privilege". It wasn't handed to him by any means. So he wrote an article which was titled "Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege", the title was later changed by Time Magazine unbeknownst to Tal Fortang.
It is easy to bash the article written by Tal, but we may want to take a second and remind ourselves that this is an article written by a 18/19 year old college freshman. I am a South Asian American and I remember being a freshman at UCLA and wanting to tell the world that I was different. Although, I didn't feel the need to "check my privilege," I did feel the desire to point out that I wasn't privileged. Unlike a lot of my South Asian counterparts, my parents didn't run successful businesses, weren't doctors, engineers, simply put we weren't wealthy. I took massive loans to pay for school, and I worked full time almost through my entire undergraduate degree to be able to afford things. So when I was bundled in those statistics about being the "super minority" etc... I always cringed. My family moved to the US when I was 12 we adjusted, got lucky, I luckily made the right friends, and yes... "I worked hard" to get in to a good college. It wasn't handed to me.
The difference between Tal and I is that I cringed but that is as far as it went. I understood, that in general the statistics were true, that South Asians were "privileged," that we were the super minority. I also understood that although my journey may have seemed tougher to me than some of my other South Asian counterparts, it could not be compared to the journey of other minorities. Maybe I understand that now as a 35 year old and didn't then. Maybe I just got lucky because I didn't sit down then to write an article about my story. The fact is I didn't and Tal did. It is not about Tal being "privileged," it is about something bigger than him. As someone on a post to his article stated, Tal be happy you won the "genetic lottery," you were born white. I am not sure Tal should spend a lifetime apologizing for having won that lottery, but writing about it in the manner that he did seems a lot like the 1% complaining about feeling persecuted by the media.
Tal... like it or not, a girl walking in a dark alley is likely to feel more afraid if a black Princeton freshman of your size and built is walking towards her then you. Until that changes, you will have to at least recognize that a difference exists, that you won the "genetic lottery," and at the least not gloat...
