Students at Appalachian State University in North Carolina are being admonished by a residential adviser who is urging them to “check” no fewer than seven types of privilege, Campus Reform reports.
The dangerous privileges to be checked were all listed on a bulletin board in the campus’ East Hall, and included “white privilege,” “male privilege,” “Christian privilege,” “heterosexual privilege,” able-bodied privilege,” “class privilege” and even “cisgender privilege” (a person is “cisgender” if their stated gender matches their physical sex).
By each kind of privilege is a flyer informing students in greater detail of the myriad ways they can experience privilege. The flyers were created at the University of San Francisco to facilitate national efforts in privilege-checking.
“If you’re confident that the police exist to protect you, you have white male privilege,” one flyer declares. Another says “If you can use public bathrooms without stares, fear or anxiety, you have cisgender privilege.”
To bolster its point, the board is populated with pictures of Internet memes that are apparently intended to be humorous.
“I don’t see color,” one picture of while male reads. ”Which means I also deny having white privilege.” Another one says “I have the privilege of being totally unaware of my own privilege.”
Sophomore student Mike Herbert told Campus Reform that the bulletin board came across like a “slap in the face.”
“Although a lot of us have similar views as he does, we feel like it’s a giant middle finger to us.” Herbert said. “It’s very condescending. It’s arrogant. It’s very holier-than-thou.”
Herbert said that another flyer, posted in a bathroom, told students that if they didn’t understand “what was wrong with [them],” they were welcome to visit the RA’s room to be ”enlighten[ed].”
