The Violence of Privilege
Almost 150 years after the New York Draft Riots, as conservative pundit Bill Kristol made clear on The Daily Show, the idea of wealth as a substitute for military service hasn't changed much:
JS: So you don't believe in a public option, so even though that's good enough for the military it's not good enough for the people of America?
BK: Well, the military has a different health care system then the rest of Americans-
JS: It's a public system no?
BK: Yeah, they don't have an option, they're all in military health care.
JS: Well, why don't we go with that then?
BK: I don't know. Is military health care really what you want ... well, first of all it's expensive- I think they deserve it, the military, I'm not sure-
JS: But the American Public do not?
BK: No, the American public do not deserve the same quality health care as soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve[.]
So our military and qualified veterans earn top-quality health care by virtue of service to our country, and the wealthy can get equal if not better coverage by virtue of their wealth. Welcome to 1863, and in more ways than one.
Private law.
Mr. Kristol offers a textbook argument for privilege. The Latin roots of that word translate to "private law," an immunity from duties or restrictions that apply to others. A more complete definition is offered at West's Encyclopedia of American Law, via Answers.com:
(1)(a) - A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste.
(1)(b) - Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others.
(2) - The principle of granting and maintaining a special right or immunity: a society based on privilege.
Our myths and pretensions about "liberty and justice for all" aside, the United States has always been "a society based on privilege." From race and gender to wealth and occupation, our statutes and our culture have been and still are riddled with "private laws," duties and restrictions that apply to some and not to others.
In the summer of 1863 the flashpoint was conscription: poor and middle class males owed the nation a debt of service, while the wealthy could buy out of that debt. In the summer of 2009 it's health care: poor and middle class Americans can get top-quality health care if they serve in the military, or if they live long enough to qualify for Medicare, while the wealthy can simply buy equal or better care. As Rep. Anthony Wiener (D-NY) told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow last night, some senior citizens oppose "government run health care" while simultaneously demanding there be no changes in their Medicare.
A "wise Latina" nominated by a "magic Negro."
Health care isn't the only "private law" conservative-led activists seem ready to riot for. The confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor were almost wholly about privilege, as one white, male Republican senator after another decried her now-famous "wise Latina" comment. It was, they not-quite-said, proof that she was a racist. Lest anyone might miss the hint, Fox News host Glenn Beck came right out and charged President Obama - whom conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly called "the magic Negro" - with racism. As Paul Krugman wrote yesterday in the New York Times:
But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the "birther" movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship.
For many Americans, the presidency and other positions of power like the Supreme Court should be privileges reserved to whites. The white woman who yelled "I want my country back" - when challenging President Obama's citizenship at a health care town hall hosted by Rep. Mike Castle (D-DE) - was really saying "I want my white privilege back."
Similarly, conservative outrage about LGBTs - whether "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" or the Defense of Marriage Act - is a blatant appeal for privilege, a demand for "private laws" favoring heterosexual couples over all other family units.
And for LGBTs, as for women and other minorities, threats of violence are anything but news. From Medgar Evers to Matthew Shepard to the three women killed this week in a Pittsburgh-area aerobics class - and thousands of others - violence has long been a favored tool to maintain privilege.
American exceptionalism: national privilege.
As NLinStPaul commented here Monday, perhaps it shouldn't come as a shock that we remain a society of privilege-driven violence. The concept of American exceptionalism, so long central to our cultural identity, is itself a claim of privilege. As Madeleine Albright famously said:
If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.
Substitute word pairs and you get the blueprint for privilege-based violence throughout our history:
If we have to use force, it is because we are whites. We are the indispensable race....
If we have to use force, it is because we are males. We are the indispensable sex....
If we have to use force, it is because we are wealthy. We are the indispensable class....
Or, as recent allegations about Xe-nee-Blackwater head Erik Prince suggest:
If we have to use force, it is because we are Christians. We are the indispensable religion....
Peel away the bizarre rhetoric, and the outrage at recent town hall meetings is a story running throughout American history. It's the violence of privilege.
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