PRIVILEGE
What is privilege?
It’s having special rights that others may not have, or access denied to others.
I’m white, English-speaking and able-bodied. That gets me through some doors that, say, disabled, non-Anglophone people of colour may find barred to them.
This week, we saw the build-up to and the coronation of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey, London, England.
It was a big reminder of the privileges that the monarchy and “nobility” (maybe not so noble these days, eh, Andrew?) enjoy without much cause to question. Few of us enjoy the trappings or the ease of life that wealth and high status gives to the King and Queen. More on that in a minute.
Privilege itself needn’t be a bad thing, per se. If you can use the advantages given to you to speak up for those less fortunate than yourself, it can help society. Many of us do use our privilege to help out the elderly, disabled, the poor, the refugees and others cast aside merely for being “other”.
We may be enjoy privileges in some areas, but have disadvantages in others. I am transgender. That is, currently in the UK, a big disadvantage. The government, rather than working to extend equal rights to my community, is working to restrict the rights that we do have. Anti-trans articles in the mainstream media number over 1,000 per month. Hate crimes aggravated by transphobia increased by 56% last year (ONS, 1), and are now over seven times what they were back in 2014–15. Trans children’s healthcare is in limbo after the NHS closed the Gender Identity Development Service without a replacement (Open letter, 2). I could (and do!) go on, but you get the idea.
Another front in the government’s culture war is free speech. “What’s wrong with free speech?”, I hear you say. Nothing at all is wrong with the principle. But those whose privilege allows them to shout loudest about their free speech being threatened aren’t the ones who need it most. Two examples illustrate it well. Firstly, Joanna Cherry, KC, an MP for the SNP, claimed across as many newspapers as would listen, that she had been “silenced” by a venue whose staff refused to platform her (BBC News, 3). The other is JK Rowling, Britain’s richest author sat in her Scottish castle, who often makes similar claims in newspapers and other outlets, whilst simultaneously threatening to sue her critics.
If speech is free, then the people at the receiving end of what can only be described as a barrage of anti-trans rhetoric would have equal coverage, wouldn’t they! So where is the speech of trans people published (apart from the odd blog entry like this one)? A survey by Trans Media Watch found that around 9 out of ten of the voices about us are not from us. How often do you see a reply from a representative of a transgender organisation on any of these stories? Shouldn’t free speech also apply to the “lowest” of society as it does the most privileged?
The same culture war also has asylum seekers in its sights. How often do you hear from asylum seekers in reply to a mainstream media announcement by the current Home Secretary, Suella Braverman?
If you look at the comment section below social media posts about trans people and asylum seekers, you see an egregious lack of basic knowledge of the rights or lack thereof of such groups. This is part of the disadvantage that we experience; public ignorance and misconceptions of us and our issues, even vilification.
“OK, but what does this have to do with King Charles? He now has to serve us.”
Glad you asked! His mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II was devoted to serving the British people. She opened hospitals, supported a lot of charities, made a nice speech each Christmas etc. I admired her fortitude during some really dark days in her life and that of the country. But it left me with a fundamental question; what tangible measures was she able to take to improve our lives? As “constitutional monarch”, she was unable to make any statement that could be construed as ‘political’. This is a vague term that can be used to silence the monarch over the worst excesses of the government of the day. It is part and parcel of the monarch’s role; not to change anything in the lives of the public. The monarch gives a rubber-stamp to legislation, provides a figurehead for the country in diplomatic and cultural programmes, and arguably brings in some tourists. The job comes with a fleet of luxury “company” cars, a yacht, a private jet, a few palaces including a “des res” in central London, a private art gallery and a large retinue. Oh, and the pleasure of seeing one’s face on the country’s postage stamps and currency.
With QE II’s passing, my interest in the monarchy has ended. I don’t wish harm to Charles or Camilla, or even to the hangers-on and heirs in line to the throne. The Prime Minister of the future will not be receiving personal missives from the monarch asking for this or that. I wish, instead, that we paid more attention to the things and people that are bad for us, and less to the ephemera of monarchy. We need to speak up for the disadvantaged and against the attacks on our democracy while we still can. We have to “use it or lose it”. Banning protesters isn’t how we, the British, are supposed to do things. We are meant to support each other, look out for the underdog, call out injustice and celebrate the good things that make us who we are. We need to value each other more, and the very richest of us less.
If all we do to build our nation is put up some bunting and bake a cake every ten-year royal anniversary, we have failed ourselves, and no amount of pomp and circumstance will pay those bills or bring us closer together as a people.
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Sources:
1 — Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022 — GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
2- An Open Letter to NHS England from concerned GIDS Staff | by Representatives of the GIDS Staff Group | Medium
3 — I’m cancelled for being a gender-critical lesbian — Joanna Cherry — BBC News (archive.org)
