Overcoming Bias by Tiffany Jana

Author:Tiffany Jana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2016-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

I then asked the students to think about, if these folks were on the margins of society, who were the corresponding groups that we might think of as being in the “center.” Their list:

Marginalized Groups

Center

1. People of color

1. White people

2. Women

2. Men

3. People with disabilities

3. Able-bodied people

4. People in poverty

4. People not in poverty

5. LGBT people

5. Heterosexuals

6. Non-Christians

6. Christians

7. Immigrants

7. Natural-born US citizens

I then asked a question that took some courage on my part given how emotionally and politically fraught conversations about privilege are, even though its answer is fairly obvious. I asked the students to think about me, their guest lecturer, and point out which categories I fell into in the marginalized groups vs. the center. Visually obvious to them was that I was a white, able-bodied man who did not appear to be in poverty by virtue of my clothing and appearance as a guest lecturer visiting from another state. Obvious from my stories was that I was born in the United States, into a Christian family, and that I was married to a woman. There was not a single one of these examples in which I fell into a category that is marginalized in twenty-first-century America. I asked the students if my privilege was my choice. Looking at these categories, their answers were “of course not.”

From this list, there are arguably only two categories that might be considered some kind of choice. One is religion, the other, wealth. It is worth pointing out, however, that both religion and socioeconomic status are not a choice when you are a child. These early influences are dictated by the choices and circumstances of whoever raised you. Nevertheless, I used this exercise as a launchpad to talk about my experiments in choosing voluntary poverty, in part as an attempt to make the choice to give up some privilege and live in solidarity with people who are often marginalized and ignored.

But can you actually give up privilege? Well, you can’t change your skin color, but you can change your socioeconomic status and choose poverty. Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, once said, “I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter.”1 Voluntary poverty is very different from involuntary poverty, and the two should not be confused. For centuries, Buddhist monks, Catholic nuns, and utopian communalists have embraced voluntary poverty as a way to free themselves from the demands of material society to pursue enlightenment. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers inspired by her embrace voluntary poverty for an additional reason: as a means to bridge the divide in experience between those who are poor and those who are not. Day said voluntary poverty “means nonparticipation in those comforts and luxuries which have been manufactured by the exploitation of others . . . while our brothers [and sisters] suffer from lack of necessities, we will refuse to enjoy comforts.”2 Matthew was so intrigued by this notion, and inspired by Day’s example, he decided to try living in voluntary poverty.

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