Alan Johnson and S.C.W.A.A.M.P

For this week’s blog post, I have decided to choose the quotes option from the blog post list. In his book Privilege, Power, and Difference, sociologist Allan Johnson goes on to discuss the topics of privilege and power, and how it affects society as we know it. Through his first three chapters, Johnson displays how people can acknowledge their privileges as a problem and become part of the solution. In the first chapter titled “Rodney King’s Question”, Johnson brings up the idea that “we are not prisoners to some natural order that pits us hopelessly and endlessly against one another” (4). When it comes to the idea of privilege, the default idea is to think that we as humans cannot do something about it because it is not something that we actively try to do. Most people don’t actively want to be privileged; they were just born into their racial, social, and economic classes. As a result of this default thought belief, people tend to not do anything to act against their privilege and the power that comes with that. As Johnson argues in his writing, though, is that there is no “natural order” that forces us as humans to act against each other as a result of our differences. If we choose to act against our privileges and look towards being part of the solution, we can bridge the gaps in power for various racial, social, and economic classes. 

In his second chapter titled “We’re In Trouble”, he further adds to his idea of privilege as being interconnected. When reading this chapter, I took what he was saying as privilege not being “someone has this while someone else doesn’t have that”. Johnson doesn’t describe privilege and power in this way, though. Rather, he describes it as “ . . . her [his African American counterpart] misfortune is connected to my fortune” (8). Privilege and power isn’t one person having while the other person lacks, as I have always believed. Instead, it’s a chain reaction. Because one person is being raised up, they are taking away from others, which is why there is a big gap between various demographic classes. 

Something that really stood out to me with this reading was Johnson’s idea on love and “getting along”. He introduces the idea of “getting along” in the first chapter, but it was an idea he revisited in chapters two and three. He describes that “we don’t need to love one another – or even like one another – to work together or just share space in the world” (6). In essence, what Johnson means is that as a society, we just need to respect one another so that we can coexist in our world peacefully. He doesn’t describe it in a utopian manner where everyone loves each other and there is no war or discrimination. Instead, he describes it in a way that everyone can be respectful of one another despite their demographic differences, and that would create a world that can coexist and be peaceful. 

However, while reflecting on this reading, a question that came to me is can we as a society truly respect one another to the point where these power gaps no longer exist? Humans are competitive in their nature; Humans always want to be better than other humans. If someone is rich, they look down on those in the working class. If men feel powerful, they look down on women who don’t appear to be as powerful. It appears that this competitive nature is something that has always and will always be around, so can society come to a point where this competition ceases to exist and we can respect one another to bridge the gaps?