On navigating privileged wokeness.
Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke”, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
I am writing this in the hope that some people will benefit from the summary of the fragmented lessons that I have learned over the last 28 years. That they will not have to spend as much time confused and directionless as I did.
I am an able bodied, well to do, upper caste, heterosexual, English educated Indian male. I doubt if there exists any greater intersection of the circles of privilege. There might be rich, woke, able bodied, heterosexual, White men who look at me and say “privileged bastard”. I have lived, and continue to live, my life mostly oblivious of my privileges and entitlements. I started this previous sentence with “I have lived most of my life blind to my privileges.” and then realised that it was ableist and that it is my privilege that let me ignore it all these years.
I have a nice long story about how I understood some of my privileges and entitlements over the last 28 years or so, but for now, let me just say that these realisations came in trickles and spurts for the most part. They didn’t all come at once and here are the reasons why.
1. I didn’t have anyone to show me the many types of privileges all at once. I met many people who showed me one or maybe two privileges that they had identified, and were themselves oblivious of their own many privileges. Putting all this together was left to me. It took a lot of time and came with a lot of confusion and angst.
2. I didn’t have the knowledge or the clarity to figure it all out at once.
3. I was, like many of my ilk, sure of my ‘merit’ and deservedness.
4. I wanted to feel like my struggle against the system was worthy of hero status. Something that I call the underdog reflex.
Here is one illustration of the incompleteness of my early wokeness. I spent six years in the USA in my twenties. I went there convinced that the USA was the beacon of justice and democracy, that black people were lazy criminals and that Islam was the enemy. I made Pakistani, Arab and Black friends and I learnt about their history, their culture and their humanity. I learnt enough to know that my assumptions about everything to do with them were wrong. I came back to India ‘enlightened’ but I was still homophobic and casteist.
Denial was my initial reaction to every mirror shown to me. It took some serious beating and battering before I accepted each of my privileges. Acceptance was followed by guilt, worthlessness, anger and a bunch of emotions that honestly don’t get you very far. Calling out other privileged people was an easy outlet for my guilt and anger. I’d get into online fights on everything from caste to animal rights because I was sure that I had found the moral holy grail and that those who had different opinions were unwoke fools.
I said “incompleteness of my early wokeness” earlier because I want to make a point. There is no complete wokeness, early or late. If you are born with even a single privilege, you are using something that others do not have. A male, however woke, cannot deny his sex/gender privilege. An upper caste person, however woke, cannot deny their caste privilege, and so on for every other characteristic that gives you a leg up in life. It is tough, even near impossible to eliminate your dependence on these privileges. Not all of us can renounce every privilege we hold. Wokeness is the acceptance of privilege. Renunciation is not a necessary next step.
Here are some suggestions that might help you navigate your privileged wokeness.
Wokeness is not a race that you need to win. Walk with others, listen and learn. Listen, especially to those who do not have one or more privileges that you have. Talk to people who have the privileges that you have but don’t see them for what they are. Find arguments that are simple in language and content. Walk away from toxicity instead of getting your ego involved in debates. You can’t win everyone over every time. Use new arguments the next time. You never know what combination of words might trigger a drastic change in someone’s view point.
How you navigate the world with your knowledge of the inequities in society is up to you. There is no absolute formula, touchstone or yardstick. There will be people who are ahead of you and behind you on this journey. Once you see that wokeness is a continuum, your urge to colour others good or bad will reduce. This will help you create arguments without anger and hate. People are far more likely to change their viewpoint if you show them that you changed your view points yourself. Beating them up with moralistic superiority will achieve nothing. Appealing for compassion is much smarter and infinitely more effective than showing someone down with your morality. I learned this from my vegan years when I was outraged by everyone who hadn’t seen the light. It gave me heartburn and little else.
Your wokeness superset is not absolute. Don’t judge others without hearing them out. This is easier said than done, but it is worth keeping in mind so that your first reaction is not outrage. Also, leave enough room for additions and subtractions based on what you see and learn.
Regardless of how privileged you are, you have an obligation to yourself to live a nice life. Your wokeness can guide you in determining the parameters and the levels of the parameters that make a good life. Make a commitment to yourself to live a better life. Tweak the parameters every time you come across new information. Be aware of where you are veering off from your stated commitment to these parameters. Don’t beat yourself up when you fall short of your stated commitments. Be aware and generate enough humility to understand that you are not as heroic as you might think you are.
Understand intersectionality. Something that is important to one group of underprivileged people might be the very thing that another group of underprivileged people want destroyed. If you are part of neither group, educate yourself.
Before you go around distributing your compassion to everyone else, be compassionate with yourself. Self hate is the primary reason for most of the crap on this planet.
Commit to a simple statement and check your commitment every now and then. Here is an example “I will limit my footprint on the privileges that I have been handed”. A sentence like this can mean different things to different people. Only you know that it means to you. Be kind to yourself and don’t delude yourself. Use numbers where possible. The privilege of social capital cannot be captured in monetary terms. Be that as it may, think of what you are willing to let go if you have the promise of an equitable society, or even the society of your dreams. Regardless of what your answers are, you will have some idea of your real commitment to the causes you talk about.
