A lot of things have recently caused me to consider my privilege. The ability to go to Haiti on an alternative break trip, the incident that occurred at a UCLA party a couple weeks ago, anything I talk about in my Race and Contemporary Society class or my Gender Communication class.
It's not usually something that people consider on a regular basis. Most of us don't consider ourselves to be spoiled. We are simply thankful for what we have and then we move on. But we don't ever think about the privileges we have.
Privilege is something you are given, that you have no control over. It is unearned. It is important to recognize your privilege in order to recognize those who do not have the same privileges as you.
This spring break, I am lucky enough, I have the privilege, to go on a trip to Haiti with fellow LMU students. During our first meeting, all of the students who are going on Alternative Break trips discuss privilege, in order to understand that we will be visiting people that don't have the same privileges that we do. We also discussed the differences between volunteerism and social justice. This is important to privilege because those who simply "volunteer" often forget to deeply examine their privilege and end up just pitying and sympathizing for those that they are help, instead of having an open mind and learning from those that we wish to help. The students at this meeting recognized their privilege as people who are going to a four-year university. Some recognized that they come from a middle class or upper class background, that they are males, that they are white, that they are straight, that they are cisgender. These are all important privileges that we much recognize.
A couple weeks ago, we witnessed an incident that was caused by the lack of acknowledgement of privilege. Students at a university not too far away from us, UCLA, forgot about their privilege and dressed up for the theme of a party wearing blackface and other stereotypical clothing. You may be wondering what this has to do with privilege. Well, most of the students were white. They did not examine the privilege that they have as white people, and they used another culture as their costume. They forgot about the long and tragic history of blackface. They dressed and performed stereotypes of black people because they somehow forgot that that is racist. They did not examine their privilege as white people, and therefore could not recognize the lack of privilege that black people have as a result of the color of their skin. They used a culture that has been oppressed and degraded for a long time as a part of a fun costume that they could wear for one night and not have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
I am so lucky, I am so privileged, to have the opportunity to attend a university where I get the chance to take courses like those I am enrolled in this semester. I get to learn about my privilege and examine the things that I didn't spend the time to examine before.
It is easy to recognize your privilege. Simply think about your characteristics that have a counter characteristic that is oppressed. I am an able-bodied, white, cisgender, straight person who comes from an upper middle class background and I attend a four-year university. These are ways in which I am privileged. I am a young Jewish woman who is a student and is unmarried and has no children. These are ways in which I am not privileged. These are just a few of the ways in which you can be privileged or not privilege.
Recognizing privilege is the simple part, but not the only part. It is more important to do something after you have realized your privilege. Recognizing your privilege leads to recognizing those who are not privileged in the way that you are. After you realize that, you must be an ally to those who do not have the privilege you do. This certainly does not mean speaking for those who aren't privileged, but helping those who are not privileged speak. This can mean working on a social justice issue, reminding those who have the same privileges as you that they need to check their privilege, as well as many other things.
Now just a few last-minute reminders. Having privilege or not having privilege is not a competition. You cannot claim to be "more oppressed" than someone else because you don't have privilege in a different area than someone else doesn't have privilege. Comparing your lack of privilege as a black person to the lack of privilege as a woman, or the lack of privilege of a woman to the lack of privilege as a transgender person is like comparing apples to oranges. You're wasting your time on something less important than the real issues. And finally, as my Gender Communication professor, Kristo Gobin, enlightened us, "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
