May 152012
Science fiction writer John Scalzi recently posted a great blog entry framing white male privilege in gaming terms. He asks the reader to think of life as one long role-playing game with “Straight White Male” being the lowest difficulty setting. It’s still entirely possible to lose badly on this setting, but you start the game with much better odds of success than someone playing on the “Gay Woman of Color” setting.
And no, I don’t think I’m playing at a much higher difficulty setting. My disability certainly makes the game more challenging, but I started out with the same advantages as most other straight white men. The fact that I’m living a comfortable middle-class life simply demonstrates how powerful those advantages are.
