Allan Johnson's Privilege, Power, and Difference

While Allan Johnson’s Privilege, Power, and Difference is focused mainly on our interactions with one another in the world at large, I was struck by how much of what he discusses can be applied to the classroom and our relationships with students. In particular, Johnson’s section on impressions and assumptions really connected with me. I was reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink when reading Johnson’s observation of how “we routinely form quick impressions of race, gender, age, or sexual orientation” (20). While Gladwell mainly focuses on the usefulness of split second determination, Johnson focuses on the danger of such decision making when applied to our understanding of others. Johnson argues that we use these impressions “in order to see the world as an organized and predictable place” (20). Yet people are far too complex to be predictable and thus our assumptions can quickly get us into trouble, particularly in the classroom.

When reading of Johnson’s lunch with his African American friend/colleague, I was thinking of how easy it is to avoid ever thinking of how the life experience of another differs from your own. If we fail to make the conscious decision to think about the ways that race, gender, sexuality, and class can shape/define the existence of others, it is easy for us to assume that everyone’s life experiences are just like our own. Ultimately this way of thinking allows us to more easily (and often times erroneously) judge others.

I see this happen in school all the time when we as teachers get frustrated with our students. We sometimes assume that our students’ experiences are similar to that of our own. Due to confidentiality laws, teachers are often left in the dark about a student’s background. So unless a student feels comfortable enough to share some of her experiences with us, we must rely on own impressions of that student to form a basis for our understanding. And this is where things can get tricky. It’s easy to assume that the popular athlete who sits in the second row of your honors English class is just being lazy when he doesn’t turn in his essay on time, that he values sports over academics. But dig a little deeper and you may find that this easy-going, young man has an abusive alcoholic for a father and spent the time when he would otherwise have been writing about The Scarlet Letter trying to defuse an escalating fight between his parents. Or on the flip side, he really may have just blown off the paper. The point is, sometimes we don’t know everything we think we do. It is important to remind ourselves of this not only when dealing with issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class but in all other aspects of our lives as well. People don’t fit into neat little categories, as much as we’d sometimes like them to.

Another subject in Johnson’s article that I’ve been thinking about is his assertion that men, heterosexuals, whites, etc. cannot be oppressed because “a group can only be oppressed if there exists another group that has the power to oppress them” (40). This may be true in the macrocosm that is American society but our lives are made up of smaller microcosms as well complete with their own unique set of cultural expectations and power dynamics. For instance, a male friend of mine is a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school in Mansfield, MA. He is one of only 7 male staff members out of a faculty of 103. Fully licensed in both elementary education and physical education, Aaron has for years now been trying to make the transition from the classroom into physical education. He has dutifully applied for any physical education positions that have opened up in his district only to be told that as one of the only male teachers at his school he is too valuable to replace. So while it is certainly true that the moment that Aaron leaves work, he resumes the power and privilege afforded him as a white, middle-class, male by American society, at work he is at the mercy of a microcosm that values his gender first, his aspirations/qualifications second.