History tells us for as long as there have been people there has been one group in power and another in subservience. I do not say that this is the correct way – it is what it is. But what does this all mean for us? Well, understanding that you make rules in your company to establish both power and deviance is very important. Understanding the context of why some are more inclined to follow these rules is just as important. When you open a newspaper, see a TV add, or watch your daily soap – what do you see? When you enter your office what do you see? When you enter your local space what do you see? Do you feel these images reflect your culture? Your social space? Your political space? Do you feel safe in these space? Do you feel free to act out your identity? All these questions relate to privilege. In its various forms and constructions.
So many things have been said and written about the ideas of privilege, and mostly the ideas have been structured on absolute or obsolete values. You either get or you don’t. you either have it or you don’t. In my experience adding a label, to the front of a word can cause create confusion and distort the ideas behind a movement. SO why am I writing about this? The main reason is that our inherent privileges make us more prone to follow social norms, rules and laws. In a company various forms of privileges exists. If we are not aware of these privileges, there will be [dis]order. So what is a privilege? Privilege can be seen as any form of advantage or special right or immunity that is granted to a specific group or person. Let’s break that down. An advantage can be any construct that grants the said person a higher probability of prosperity. This advantage can also be situated in the social sphere. It can be the images that guide our identity formation, it can be the norms that structure our day-to-day interactions, it can be the universal values that support of disregard our own value system. The issue in today’s life is that many are born with an inherent privilege – racially, culturally, social and economically. These individuals do not see their inherent privilege because it is important that the advantage that privilege grants us is abstract to ourselves. It’s not an obvious thing. If an individual is born into a rich family; it does not mean s/he will automatically be successful in business. What it does mean however is that s/he has a larger pool of resources both economically, socially and culturally. It grants the person a head start in the race. So special rights and immunity? How can someone be immune? Of have a variation of the law? So to understand these rights, we should understand rules, power and why we follow them, we should understand the importance of culture (local, national, and global constructs of culture). The global village affects the way we understand our own culture and what importance has been placed on it. So let’s clean this up. Firstly, laws (rules) are written over one another, like building a house foundation, then brick by brick. So tracing back, the origin of laws is important [what did the first set of rules say]. The original law was written to establish a division between order and disorder. To take it one step deeper – the law was written to establish the power of one group and separate them from another. Social and cultural laws [norms] take similar shape. So if the core of the law was to establish the power of one group of people whatever we build on top of that law will still enforce this power dynamic. Okay now that, that’s out of the way. We can start to rebuild this house… So immunity and special rights? Well in my experience immunity is more related to the impunity of the law [the fact that no one is enforcing the law, or that the law is not equally enforced]. So how does this happen? Well in the focus of corporate environment. The boss (CEO, MD, COO, CFO, or Dir - [insert title]) can be exempt from certain rules, grants him/her inherent ‘special rights’. It is important to note that some employees may be given more leniency than others. This is a special right granted to that specific group in your company. It is also noteworthy that sometimes the cost (social, political or economically) to enforce a law against a certain group is more than the result of the desired outcome. This will make the probability less of that law[rule] being enforced towards a certain group of people. Immunity and Special rights are tied to the inherent advantages of a specific group – if a person has more resources available to contest a law it would be obviously easier to do so. To get to the grit and grime. We have to be aware of the systems that promote our privileges, because whether we are aware or oblivious of our inherent privileges be still benefit. YES, you still benefit. This is the great conundrum. If you are aware of your privilege both private and work spheres – what do you do with it? Well, what do we do when laws are unjust? Do we change them? Rules will only change if we change the social, political and economic systems that enforce them. So as a Boss what do you do? Well, let’s lay it out. We cannot escape our inherent privilege [be it social, cultural, biological, economically or politically]. Our privilege is part of what makes us, us. It is part our identity, our existence. We cannot change it. Important to note it is no one’s fault that s/he is born with certain privileges. It is the system that exists. It is, however, important to note that we have the power to change the system. In essence, we have the responsibility to change the system. SO as an individual [that manages other people] we need to be aware of our privileges. We need to be aware of the privileges that govern the rules we make, and the privileges that govern others to follow our rules.
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February 2018
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