The people who complain about the lack of solutions tend to have a certain degree of privilege: White, men, college-educated, higher income, able-bodied, in positions of power, etc. And the more privilege folks have, the more likely they are to whine about the lack of solutions proposed. I am going to call this phenomenon “Solutions Privilege,” the privilege of expecting easy and instant solutions that would align with one’s worldview and not challenge one’s privilege. It manifests in the following ways, and because I benefit from male and other privileges, I’m also prone to it, so I’m going to use “we”:

1: The expectation that others provide solutions, even to problems we are complicit in perpetuating. Men expect women to solve the problems of sexism and misogyny. White folks expect people of color to solve the problem of systemic racism. Able-bodied folks expect people with disability to address ableism and lack of accessibility. Rich people expect poor folks to deal with wealth disparity.

2. The inability to register solutions that we do not agree with: The expectation for solutions, however, is paired with the inability to understand or even mentally register solutions that are proposed if they do not conform with our values.

3. Selective logic that only allows for reasoning that is aligned with our existing viewpoints and values: Privilege allows our logic skills to be selectively deployed to come to conclusions that are most likely to reaffirm our viewpoints and least likely to jeopardize our privilege.

4. A sense of superiority combined with the infantilizing of people of marginalized identities: The inability to register the solutions proposed by folks of marginalized backgrounds is likely tied to a sense of superiority that’s rooted in privilege, a sense that only the rich, male, white, elite-college-educated, etc., can propose solutions that would actually succeed.

5. The inability to see the irony of complaining about people complaining without offering solutions, while also not offering solutions: It is ironic how many privileged folks bring up the fact that people complain without offering “solutions,” while also not offering solutions to problems.

Read the full article about solutions privilege by Vu Le at Nonprofit AF.