Conformist Privilege

I have been keenly following the events surrounding the trial of the shitsacks who murdered Sophie Lancaster. It has been a great contributing cause to my depression of late. I have cried for the first time in months, on a number of seperate occasions: reading the 999 transcript, seeing the photograph of Sophie in hospital, watching the interview with her boyfriend, Rob Maltby. It affects me personally because I have myself been viciously assaulted a number of times because of my appearance, as have most of the people I know who are members of alternative subcultures, including my girlfriend. The idea of a similiar thing happening to her is one of my darkest fears. These incidents, strangely, affect my sense of honour as much as my sense of human decency: attacking unarmed, defenceless people in overwhelming numbers for no good reason, including women and children, is about the most cowardly act I can conceive of. In the course of my research on the internet, I discovered the blog Alterophobia, an at-times harrowing catalogue of similiar crimes from around the world. This is of course, just what makes the papers, and seeing as I know of a greater number of incidents than this blog contains just from my own personal experience, the issue is obviously a chronic one.

Over the last couple of months, I have also been reading up a lot around the issue of racism, and prejudice/bigotry in general, and have encountered the concept of majority privilege. Majority privilege comes in three major flavours in western society, as talked about by sociologists (or whatever the correct term is): white privilege, male privilege and heterosexual privilege. Basically, these boil down to the unfair advantages society confers on an individual for being white, male or heterosexual. It's a good way of looking at bigotry without a focus on the victim, though what people can actually do with the knowledge of their own privilege seems rather doubtful to me; after all, privilege is conferred by others. Now, a thing that struck me whilst reading White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, which seems to be one of the most popular essays on the subject of white privilege in particular, I noticed that, in some, though certainly not all cases, I did not appear personally to possess white privilege anymore because of the way I dress and wear my hair. For example, I cannot 'go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed'. I cannot 'be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me'. Nor can I always 'avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me'. If one replaces the term 'race' with the term 'culture' then it gets worse. Now, thinking about this, to say that I do not possess white privilege is, of course, ludicrous, and would probably induce some anti-racist commentators to shout at me, perhaps with good reason. However, these accounts from Alterophobia, as well as those left in comments on youtube videos, blogs and forums about the Sophie Lancaster case, attest graphically that the discrimination and danger faced by members of subcultures is very real, and very severe. It makes more sense, in my mind, to concieve of a new type of privilege: Conformist privilege. That is, the privilege afforded to those whose tastes in dress and media conform broadly with the expections of the majority culture. I've attempted making a list such as the one in the above essay though, as I obviously do not possess majority privilege, I will express it in terms of 'I would' rather than 'I can', were I to cut my hair, replace my entire wardrobe and abandon everything I love.

Daily effects of conformist privilege

1: I would be able to expect to be able to go about my daily business freely and not have abuse shouted at me.
2: I would be able to go for a drink in a pub or bar and not expect to have to account for my appearance to random strangers.
3: I would be able to use public transport without any fear of suffering abuse from my fellow passengers.
4: I would be able to use a taxi without having a conversation about 'what are you then?'
5: I could reasonably expect not to go out and not be assaulted, spat on or have bottles or eggs thrown at me for no reason.
6: I could expect people to automatically assume that I wash.
7: I would not expect ever to be accused of being a satanist, abusing animals or worshipping the devil.
8: I would expect to be allowed to wear what I wanted to work, college or school, within the bounds of any agreed rules, and not be told that my appearance was unacceptable.
9: I would expect to be able to turn on the radio and hear music that would appeal to me.
10: I could assume people would not make assumptions about my sexuality or any fetishes I may have based entirely on my appearance.
11: I would not expect people to cross the street to avoid me.
12: I would not expect mothers to tell their children to stay away from me.
13: I would not expect for people to judge me by the actions of other people who dress in a similiar way to me.
14: I would expect to be able to easily find clothes that I enjoyed wearing.
15: I would expect not to be restricted access to entertainment venues and public services because of my appearance (The so-called 'goth on a leash' case, were two yorkshire goths were repeatedly denied passage, is not isolated. I have personally experienced buses and unhired taxis just driving straight past me whilst I attempt to signal for them, as have others.)

and so on.

Oh, you'll say, 'a bloo bloo bloo', stop whining. After all, have I not chosen to dress as I do, like the music I do, and so on and so forth? Am I not asking for it? Well, sunshine, if you think it's reasonable that people should expect abuse and disdain for dressing how they want in a free, democratic society you can quite frankly eat shit and die.