Take the Paranoia Walk

This is How DEI “Privilege” Fakery is Practiced – Interrogation Games

By Stanley K. Ridgley, PhD

So-called privilege theory – as in “white privilege” – was popularized by Peggy McIntosh 35 years ago in her “invisible knapsack” essay.

 McIntosh was not a social scientist, even as she bills herself today a “research scientist.” She was an English teacher who wrote her dissertation on the poetry of Emily Dickinson.  Like so many of the leftist tropes popular now, she just fabricated her privilege essay.

That is to say, she made it up.

The “invisible knapsack” was an exercise in confirmation bias constituting a list of leading questions about the private lives of persons and designed to yield a contrived result—all based on her alleged personal experience.

Today, her “privilege” hack-work is enshrined in almost every progressive reference list, as if to gain symbolic capital by mere repetition. You’ll find her privilege fantasy on many college campuses in the form of a “game” called the “privilege walk.” It’s part of a litany of “orientation” grooming activities that aren’t always what they seem to be.

The Privilege Walk

UPDATE for September 2024

The origin of the “privilege walk” is not with Peggy McIntosh. In fact, she explicitly denies having created it while advising against its use. Here, economics professor Christian Parenti shares his correspondence with McIntosh in a key article on the origin of the exercise.

Typically, the Walk’s origin is ascribed to Peggy McIntosh sometime in the 1990s. McIntosh, a feminist, anti-racism trainer, and Senior Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, is famous for describing “white privilege” as an “invisible knapsack.” However, as McIntosh told me in an email: “I did not invent the exercises you refer to and in fact I urge people not to undertake such exercises. They are too simple for complex experiences relating to power and privilege. I don’t know where they originated. They seem to answer a craving for instant One-size-fits-all awakenings. I think they are counterproductive.”

Despite the disclaimers offered by the “facilitators,” this game is really an oral survey designed to publicly expose and humiliate students with so-called “privilege” and to put them on display for all to see. You can watch the typical privilege walk on YouTube, complete with saccharine background music—here’s one. And here’s a critique.

This technique of fake social science is available to you as well. You can contrive your own fake social science. You, too, can show how certain folks possess whatever quality you choose. For instance, take paranoia.

Let’s set up our own “paranoia walk” to demonstrate how some folks are afflicted with the pathology of paranoia, just by having them answer a list of leading questions.

Here’s an exercise based completely on the template provided by the “privilege walk” interrogation game.

Ready?  Let’s go!

The Paranoia Walk

This workshop has been designed to provide college students with an opportunity to understand the intricacies of paranoia and to explore the ways that we can suffer paranoia based on being members of social identity groups in the United States. Please note that this exercise is not meant to make anyone feel guilty or ashamed of her or his paranoia in any social identity categories. Rather, the exercise seeks to highlight the fact that everyone has some paranoia, even as some people have more paranoia than others.

By illuminating our various paranoias as individuals, we can recognize ways that we can use our paranoias individually and collectively to build a more trusting society. The purpose is not to blame anyone for having paranoia that can block achieving goals, but to have an opportunity to identify both obstacles and benefits experienced in our lives.

How to do it:

Participants should be led to the exercise site silently, hand in hand, in a line.

At the site, participants can release their hands, but should be instructed to stand shoulder to shoulder in a straight line without speaking.

Participants should be instructed to listen carefully to each sentence, and take the step required if the sentence applies to them. They should be told there is a prize at the front of the site that everyone is competing for.

1. I sometimes find it difficult to trust others.  Step Forward.
2. I am sometimes offended or feel offended when I probably ought not to be.  Step Forward.
3. I respond well to constructive criticism and I welcome it.  Step Back.
4. I think that this a hostile world, generally speaking.  Step Forward.
5. When I hear people whispering, I figure that it’s not about me.  Step Back.
6. I sometimes feel isolated, even when I’m in a crowd or in a classroom  Step Forward.
7. I’m anxious all the time   Step Forward.
8. When I fail at something, I automatically blame others.  Step Forward.
9. When I fail at something, I shift the blame to something unseen.  Step Forward.
10. I love to compromise.  Step Back.
11. I don’t rush to judge others.  Step Back.
12. I can tell right off what kind of person someone is by their appearance.  Step Forward.
13. The world can be incredibly cruel.  Step Forward.
14. I can walk down the street and not worry if people are looking at me. Step Back.
15. I don’t like being told “it’s just your imagination.”  Step Forward.
16. I can pull myself up with my bootstraps to succeed.  Step Back.
17. My personal success depends mostly on what I do.  Step Back.
18. I believe that one’s personal identity should be celebrated by all. Step Forward.
19. No matter what I do to succeed, I will always be undermined.  Step Forward.
20. My parents taught me to “Watch out for those people.”  Step Forward.
21. I’ve sometimes been told I “have a chip on my shoulder.”  Step Forward.
22. I sometimes feel that “they” are out to get me.  Step Forward.
23. I believe that America is the land of opportunity. Step Back.
24. I believe that merit is most important when a person is hired.  Step Back.
25. I distrust someone who says that America is a meritocracy.  Step Forward.
26. If others succeed, I assume it’s because they had unearned advantage. Step Forward.
27. I love lists of innocuous words and phrases that are actually insults and putdowns. Step Forward.
28. I try to discover much about a person before judging them as good or bad. Step Back.
29. I try to determine if someone is insulting me using code talk of some sort. Step Forward.
30. I often feel that my problems and failures result from an invisible system of enemies trying to keep me down.  Step Forward.
31. I slot people into categories according to superficial characteristics. Step Forward.
32. I feel that I’m right often, but have trouble communicating this to people.  Step Forward.
33. The sound of people whispering bothers me a lot.  Step Forward.
34. Most people convey “hidden meanings” in things they say.  Step Forward.
35. I have no trouble communicating my meaning.  Step Back.
36. I place a lot of emphasis on how people make me feel.  Step Forward.
37. I don’t bear a grudge and in fact am forgiving.  Step Back.
38. I believe the world ought to change to meet my needs. Step Forward.
39. I believe that my sense of “belonging” at any time is what’s important. Step Forward.
40. I am not easily offended. Step Back.

At the game’s conclusion, we have a visual representation of how each of us is afflicted with paranoia in relation to others, with those who are at the front demonstrating more propensity for paranoia.

NOTE: The Paranoia Walk is based on the interrogation game called the “Privilege Walk,” including the creepy initial instructions and description of our “paranoias.” If you are ever required to participate in a “Privilege Walk” while in a workshop or “brave space,” know that you are in a campus thought reform situation, the initial stage of your “transformation.”

The “privilege walk” is an interrogation — an oral survey — disguised as a game whose purpose is to collect personal information and put students on display with the information, which may then be used against you. This is just one of the techniques used in coercive “transformative education,” and I relate many more of them in Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-wing Brainwashing in Our Universities.