Judging by the title of this paper, one may think I am going to talk about the first movie in the Star Wars saga. (For the record I panned it a first but it has grown on me) No, I am going to discuss how society grants certain people privilege and how that privilege largely remains invisible. You may be thinking now that privilege is hardly invisible. There are many advantages of having privilege that are evident all around us. For example, people with money usually get a better shake in the justice system compared to people without cash. (Unless the person with money is a fall guy who is going down to help people with even more privilege. Cough cough Lewis Libby). We rarely think of a heterosexual, white, non-disabled, male as having privilege if he is just an average Joe busting his ass all week working construction and still barely able to keep up with his bills as being privileged. However, though he may not have many of the trappings that we associate with privilege, because he is a heterosexual, white, non-disabled, male, he does have certain privileges because he belongs to a or some dominant group. He most likely has never been looked at with suspicsion when walking into a convenience store the way many people of color are because he has the privilege of being a white male. More then any other form, the privilege of the dominant group (white, heterosexual, non-disabled, males) manifests itself in the ability for that group to say what the norms in society are. It is in this respect that privilege remains a phantom that is felt by everyone as it floats in the air, but is only seen by a few. 
       While we might not be able to get a clear view of the phantom of privilege as it hovers over society, it leaves its residue everywhere. We can examine that residue to determine its nature. One way this residue becomes apparent is by language. If someone states that race and gender will be an issue in the next presidential election, they are referring to the fact Hillary Clinton is female, Barrack Obama is African American, and Bill Richardson is a Mexican American. Thus, the words race and gender are synonymous with the races and genders that are not dominant. Hillary Clinton is the female candidate for president. Barrack Obama is the African American candidate for president. Using that train of language, we should be describing Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Joe Biden, and Sam Brownback as the white male candidates for president. How many times have we heard any of the major news anchors and political pundits in the country like Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Bill O’reilly, Bob Woodruff, Chris Mathews, Keith Oberman, Britt Hume, Wolf Blitzer, refer to any of those aforementioned presidential candidates as the white male presidential candidates? I am guessing that the answer is not too many times, if any. Could that be because all of those aforesaid news anchors and political pundits are also white men? We should ask the anchor of CBS News Tonight Katie Couric what she thinks; after all, she is not the CBS news anchor, she is the female CBS news anchor. When we don’t name the race and gender of all those men, we keep their race and gender invisible and don’t consider how the privilege of their race and gender has helped get them their power positions.
       That fact that many people in power from politicians to news anchors are white men brings us to the privilege of perceived possibilities. In Privilege Power and Difference, Allan Johnson succinctly explains the privilege of perceived possibilities by stating “we often choose a path because it is the only path we see.” (p.80)
 I am going to use a little anecdote from work to illustrate how that statement from Johnson can play out in real life. A few weeks back we had an odd weather pattern. (Well odd if this were not New England)  There was a strong ice storm that was followed by a couple of days in the mid 40s. Not exactly Miami weather but pretty damn warm considering the time of year. It was defiantly warm enough for the children in my Pre-K class to go outside to the playground for recess; unfortunately, the playground was still covered with ice because the building management did not bother to send anyone to clear the ice like they were asked. As I prefer for the children in the classroom to go outside and release some energy so they are not running around the classroom, I decided to take it upon myself to go outside with a shovel and ice pick to get rid of as much ice as possible in hopes that we would be able to go outside when naptime was over. I then gave a little science speech to the children explaining how the ice would be easier to break because it was above freezing and asked if any of the children wanted to put on their snow pants and go out and help me smash and clear away the ice. (The other alternative was to stay inside for free play with the indoor toys) Nearly every boy volunteered to help me. Not a single girl volunteered even after I tried to coax a few girls into it. So I led my army of boys outside into the cold, arming them with various blocks and toy hammers to smash the ice and little shovels to scoop it away as the girls stayed inside. 
       There may be many reasons why the boys chose the physical/violent activity and the girls chose to play inside, but one of the reasons is what Johnson stated “we choose a path because it is the only one we see.” The boys are used to seeing men work physically and the girls are used to seeing women have a role more indoors. In addition, it was a male teacher (me) who led the ice smashing expedition and not one of the vast majority of female teachers at the preschool I work at who tried to break the ice.
  Consequently, what started as my desire to let the children run around outside, ended up leading me to socialize the boys in my class in a way that will benefit them in our patriarchal society that values masculinity. This is an example of the phantom menace of privilege glomming onto a seemingly innocuous activity in order to perpetuate itself without ever revealing itself.
(for the record, we smashed the shit out of that ice)