I Am Privileged and So Are You

Anonymous

When people talk about privilege these days, they mainly think of one or two things; either somebody who is extremely rich like a celebrity or royalty or the idea of white privilege. I can tell you, I am neither of those two categories, yet unlike some who try extremely hard to fight those that bring to them the idea of privilege, to say they aren't privileged or don't suffer from being privileged, I acknowledge it whole heartedly, because to acknowledge it is to understand not only yourself and how you were able to get from A to B, but to recognize those inherent differences in others and reasons why not everyone is or isn't in the position in life you find yourself in now.


The day I first discovered this, I was working with some children in an extremely poor neighborhood at a school that was considered a "bad school," by all that knew it because of the neighborhood, coupled with routinely low test scores and the like. I remember this one day specifically I wanted to reward the children for their efforts on a project with a pizza party and the delivery guy told me that they literally do not deliver to this zip code, an entire zip code, even in broad daylight because of the level of gang activity and how many of their delivery men had been routinely robbed and beat up. Even after begging b/c the address was that of an elementary school, they still refused and I had to send someone to go pick the pizza up. That had never happened to me in my life before. Although I'd lived in some dicey neighborhoods, it wasn't to that point. These kids unfortunately, were part of some of the sad stories of poor urban life...father's and mother's in jail, parent or parents working all hours just to make ends meet, kids having to be sent home on weekends with bags of food provided by the school so they wouldn't go hungry over the weekend, and having to be bussed as close as literally 3 blocks from the school because of gang activity. How do you stand up and say, not having come from that, but a safe neighborhood and a safe school with perhaps a two parent household where mom's there to greet you after school and help with homework, and dad's there to run you to your soccer games, adn there is plenty of food on your table, that you and that child there have the same exact opportunity to do well in life. Sure you both have opportunity, but some of these kids had to be mother and father because there was no one else and we all know, if you're hungry or scared you're going to get shot or made to sell drugs on the way to or from school, school and learning is the last thing on your mind.


I Am Privileged and So Are You



This is how I first came to really know my privilege. Knowing this, that just by pure luck of being born to who I was born to and being put into the opportunities I was put into, I had a running head start in life that many of these kids simply will never get. It helps you not only appreciate what you have, but also begin to understand at least on some level, what others have to really go through sometimes just to survive. You see privilege isn't just about your race or your poverty level or lack thereof. It's about your gender, your nationality, your religion, your sexuality, and all the other parts of life that this world assigns to you and can unfortuantely use against your success or survival in this life.


I Am Privileged and So Are You



So what does understanding privilege mean? Sam Dylan Finch wrote a great article about the subject where the subject of privlege and how to check it, is outlined as the following:


1. It’s Not Personal – And It’s Not an Insult


When someone is asking you to check your privilege, they aren’t trying to insult you.They’re asking you to be compassionate towards the particular struggle that they’ve had, and to acknowledge that their struggle has been different from yours. They want you to acknowledge and reflect on the ways that your lives and your backgrounds are different.


2. It Doesn’t Mean You Haven’t Struggled


Having privilege says nothing about whether or not you’ve had a difficult life. You can have privilege in one aspect of your life, while having struggled or encountered disadvantages in other ways “Checking your privilege” isn’t about conceding that you’ve had an easy life. It’s about acknowledging that there are certain struggles that you will never encounter that are very specific to certain groups of people. Acknowledging that there are struggles we don’t share doesn’t invalidate the difficulties you’ve faced – it just recognizes that those difficulties can vary based on our identities, and our lives and our experiences can be drastically different as a result.


3. It’s Not a Time to Defend Yourself


If your gut instinct is anything like mine, you may feel an urge to defend yourself. “I’ve had a tough life, too!” you might say. “You don’t even know me or what I’ve faced!” But now isn’t the time to derail a conversation about someone else’s challenges by inserting yours. It would be the equivalent of walking into a stranger’s hospital room and exclaiming, “Suck it up! I broke my arm once!”


4. It’s Not a Time to Demand That Someone Educate You


But while it’s great that you want to understand, it can actually be really problematic to make these demands.It can be upsetting, stressful, and exhausting for someone who is oppressed to open up about their pain just to educate someone who doesn’t understand.Your education isn’t their responsibility – it’s yours.





I Am Privileged and So Are You
21 Opinion