we’ve gotta talk about the privilege
Privilege is a word I can say in a room full of white people and make at least a friendly enemy.
Tell me I’m wrong.
If I say it - even as a softball, even just for consideration – it can feel like a judgement and a weapon. And yet to make traction of any kind, in any way, toward dismantling oppression, injustice, and the systems that perpetuate them: we’ve gotta talk about privilege. So how do we do it?
Frankly that might be a question I can’t fully answer in my lifetime. As a white, cisgender, able-bodied woman I’ve got a lot of unlearning to do. To start let me break down what privilege means to me; then maybe we can compare notes.
Privilege tells me one single story about how life works. One. It says there’s only so much to go around and I should be suspicious of anyone who wants to talk about leveling the playing fields. More for them equals less for me. And while it’s powerful and omnipresent in our politics, in our economy, and even in our social lives: it is a fiction. One created by powerful white men who stand to gain from the rest of us staying distracted and divided for their own personal gain. One that keeps us from even dreaming of better ways of being: like futures where we dismantle the hierarchies, obliterate the patriarchy, and start to really care for our planet and each other.
Well, that’s kind of my point.
“Imagination gives us borders, gives us superiority, gives us race as an indicator of capability. I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free.” – adrienne marie brown
Privilege is the ultimate imagination stealer. It keeps us so focused on playing defense that we lose sight of the game we’re in altogether and the fact that interdependence is crucial for our survival.
See those systems that create injustice? The ones that tip the scales in your favor just enough to keep you from looking too closely? They’re not out there – that’s what makes them so hard to pin down. You’ve experienced their insidious messages all your life and they’ve coalesced into an invisible web deep in your subconscious. They prevent you from seeing how the world works for anyone who hasn’t had the same lived experience as you.
This, my friend, results in a distorted sense of reality.
If you’re a self-development nerd, I’ll tell you – you will get a lifetime of material if you set your filter to curious and look bravely at systemic level harm. Read some stuff about toxic individualism (cough cough, Kerri Kelly’s American Detox) and you’ll understand the origin story of that voice in your head that says you’re not good enough. The one that keeps you always and forever reaching for a sense of self worth that you can never seem to grasp.
There’s so much more. But maybe that’s a starting point just to consider why we should talk about the privilege instead of getting really angry and shutting down completely: you know, for the sake of our future on this planet.
Now maybe you can tell me: if you’re still feeling defensive… if I’ve missed some really important detail about why it’s useful and you don’t want to let it go - what does that word mean to you?