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theseritualsultimatelyreinstantiatedthewhitemajoritysubjectasthesubjectcapableof
self-reflexivity and the colonized/racialized subject as the occasion for self-reflexivity.
These rituals around self-reflexivity in the academy and in activist circles are not
without merit. They are informed by key insights into how the logics of domination
that structure the world also constitute who we are as subjects. Political projects of
transformation necessarily involve a fundamental reconstitution of ourselves as well.
However, for this process to work, individual transformation must occur concurrently
with social and political transformation. That is, the undoing of privilege occurs not by
individuals confessing their privileges or trying to think themselves into a new subject
position, but through the creation of collective structures that dismantle the systems that
enable these privileges. The activist genealogies that produced this response to racism
and settler colonialism were not initially focused on racism as a problem of individual
prejudice. Rather, the purpose was for individuals to recognize how they were shaped
bystructuralformsofoppression.However,theresponsetostructuralracismbecamean
individual one: individual confession at the expense of collective action. Thus the ques-
tion becomes, how would one collectivize individual transformation? Many organizing
projects attempt to do precisely this, such as Sisters in Action for Power, Sista II Sista,
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, and Communities Against Rape and Abuse,
amongmanyothers.Ratherthanfocussimplyonone'sindividualprivilege,theyaddress
privilege on an organizational level. For instance, they might assess whether everyone
who is invited to speak is a college graduate. Are certain peoples always in the lime-
light? Based on this assessment, they develop structures to address how privilege is ex-
ercised collectively. For instance, anytime a person with a college degree is invited to
speak, they bring with them a cospeaker who does not have that education level. They
might develop mentoring and skills-sharing programs within the group. To quote one of
my activist mentors, Judy Vaughn, “You don't think your way into a different way of
acting;youactyourwayintoadifferentwayofthinking.”Essentially,thecurrentsocial
structure conditions us to exercise what privileges we may have. If we want to under-
mine those privileges, we must change the structures within which we live so that we
become different peoples in the process.
Thisessaywillexplorethestructuringlogicsofthepoliticsofprivilegeastheyinform
bothactivistandacademicwork.Inparticular,thelogicsofprivilegerestonanindividu-
alizedselfthatreliesontherawmaterialofotherbeingstoconstituteitself.Althoughthe
confessingofprivilegeisunderstoodtobeanantiracistpractice,itisultimatelyaproject
premised on white supremacy. Thus, organizing and intellectual projects that are ques-
tioning these politics of privilege are shifting the question from what privileges does a
particular subject have to what is the nature of the subject that claims to have privilege
in the first place.
