Why I Won’t Give You Ten Tips to Manage Your Privilege (A 5-minute read)
The Privilege is Real
People are uncomfortable talking about, even thinking about privilege — particularly their own. No matter how many times I say there is “no shame or blame associated with privilege,” eyes drift downward and I see people struggle to just breathe.
As America’s gaping wounds grow more visible, this is not the time to look away. It’s the perfect time to settle into our discomfort.
Privilege is never having to explain to your child how to survive being stopped by a police officer. Privilege is never having to discuss your sexual attractions or correct your gender pronoun. Privilege is feeling physically safe regardless of where you are walking or what you are wearing. Privilege is never being asked what country you are from even though you were born in the United States. Privilege is not having to explain your religious holidays and knowing they are legally observed. Privilege is knowing that your rights were written into the original version of the Constitution, not retrofitted as an amendment, and they can’t ever be threatened or overturned.
As hard as it is to admit, privilege and oppression reflect how society assigns disparate value to all of us based on social identities and how we, consciously or unconsciously, assign value to ourselves. Social identities are based on characteristics of groups to which we belong.
What Does Privilege Feel Like?
Have you ever noticed that some people can float in a swimming pool by doing nothing more than relaxing on their backs while other people have to tread, staying in a constant state of motion to keep their heads above water? That’s how privilege and oppression work. We are all in the water by virtue of the fact that we live in America. Whether we are conscious of it or not, based on our social identities, the water (privilege) buoys some of us up while at the same time gravity (oppression) works to pull others of us to the bottom. These forces are in action regardless of what we do or don’t do.
At any time, a person with privilege can choose to tread water to reposition themselves or to move to a better part of the pool. A person who experiences oppression can only rest for a moment or risk sinking and never making it back above water. Exhausted from the constant effort of treading, there is little if any energy left to reach a better position in the pool. Survival is the highest and at times, the only priority.
Here’s the hidden truth about privilege: If you’re floating on your back, you only have one view — the sky. The more privilege you have, the more sky that’s in your line of sight. You rarely glance away to see or engage with others in the pool. You have very little awareness of the currents in motion beneath the surface or feel the gravity that pulls down others in the pool around you. Similar to fish, it’s unlikely you are even aware that your current existence is within water, much less that you are wet. If the water gets choppy and requires you to tread, you might discover the muscles you need to use are under-developed or have atrophied. You will struggle with the effort, feel uncoordinated, and experience the challenges faced by those who can’t naturally float. It is utterly exhausting.
While the constant struggles of the oppressed lead to illness and early death, it also makes them more resilient during challenging times. On the other hand, privilege creates fewer opportunities to develop resilience and may leave people less prepared to survive adversity. Privilege is mentally, emotionally, and socially toxic for individuals and to society.
The Toxic Idiosyncrasies of Privilege:
1. Privilege makes us indifferent to the oppression and struggles of others.
Privilege can make us assume that struggle, failure, or under-achievement reflect a lack of effort or worse, laziness on the part of people experiencing oppression; not necessarily that their circumstances are their fault, but changing those circumstances is completely within their control.
2. Privilege should feel counterintuitive because human beings are hardwired for fairness.
Scientific evidence indicates that human beings are hardwired for fairness and that hardwiring may be evolutionary.[1] The survival of groups of early humans hinged on the wellbeing of every member of the group. Inequities in resources like food or shelter may have jeopardized the individual, thereby putting the entire group at risk.
3. Privilege makes it seem like it’s the privileged person’s job to “save” anyone who is oppressed.
The role of people with various forms of privilege shouldn’t be to “save” the oppressed. Instead, we each need to leverage our privilege to create an equitable society.
4. Privilege gets in the way of meaningful relationships and is a precursor to the -isms.
Privilege creates social isolation that feels comfortable as we settle into “sameness” and surround ourselves with like-minded people. As human beings, we fight to remain safe and one mechanism we use to do that is to prejudge. As a result, unknown people spark fear, cultivate assumptions, and often lead us to jump to the wrong conclusions — prejudice.
5. Privilege makes periods of social disadvantage or even equality feel like oppression and that is dangerous.
When you spend a lifetime experiencing privilege you take it for granted, grow to feel a sense of entitlement, and you might be tempted to equate struggles or challenges to being oppressed — and you may genuinely feel oppressed.
I could close this with a pithy list of 10 Tips to Manage Your Privilege but I won’t. Instead of 10 tips, I’ll give you one. Use your privilege for good, not evil.
If you have privilege, you are positioned to be heard, acknowledged, and believed by others with power and privilege. Deal with people who share your privilege. Talk about it. Explore it. Challenge it. It’s time to disrupt the dangers of privilege and co-opt its power in order to create an equitable society.
FOR THE FULL ARTICLE: https://medium.com/@natalie4health/why-i-wont-give-you-ten-tips-to-manage-your-privilege-9ba16cf31671#.woxkrg3ca
[1] Tavernise, S. (2016, April 20). White Americans Are Dying Younger as Drug and Alcohol Abuse Rises. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/health/life-expectancy-decline-mortality.html?_r=0
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