Most of us have some type of privilege. As a result, it’s hard to understand the way that privilege shapes our daily experience. This is understandable; when you’re a fish, becoming aware of the water you’re swimming through is very difficult, since we’re so used to taking it for granted. My goal is to get you to see the water, to get us all thinking more deeply about the different identities that we have and those affect the way we live, behave, and interact with the world and those around us.
First, think about the identities that you have. Of course, there are the most important and defining qualities––the things that you choose and that define you as an individual, like your job, your hobbies, your passions, your beliefs, your friends and family, your fashion sense, your favorite things, and so on. But there are another set of identities, ones that you don’t get to choose, that have a profound impact on your life, whether you realize it or not: your race, gender identity, sexual orientation, whether or not you have a mental illness or a disability, your socioeconomic status, your level of education, and so on. These are the identities we are addressing when we talk about privilege. Because of the way society is structured, you will be treated differently and have different experiences based on these identities.
The more our awareness of these identities grows, the more we begin to understand how our intersecting identities and privilege impacts even the subtlest aspects of our everyday lives.
Take, for example, an ordinary conversation, whether it’s with a friend or a stranger on the Internet, about something contentious or something completely mundane. If you are a cisgender man and/or white, chances are you’ve played what’s sometimes called a “privilege card.” You might subconsciously feel that your opinion is more right or valid than the other person’s, for reasons you can’t really explain. You simply feel that your voice is more authoritative and “sounds more right” than the other person’s. This is because in our society, white men are generally seen as the default logical and intelligent beings. It’s an implicit cultural belief that the thoughts and opinions of white men are objective fact. I’ve been in several arguments in which someone thought his opinion was the end-all, be-all of a topic, as if whether he personally agreed or disagreed with something is all that matters. This is where we get the concept of “mansplaining,” the idea that men assume they know more than women about pretty much everything. We need to always question whose voices we believe and why. Is it because they’re actually providing the best evidence? Or because we simply take them more seriously because of who they are?
This is also why we have jokes about the way women have to speak in professional settings in order to be taken seriously. Women are generally considered to be more emotional and irrational than men, and are perceived as “shrill” or “angry” where men are more likely to be described as “passionate” or “assertive.” Women’s voices end up being minimized and silenced because they either can’t speak confidently for fear of being considered aggressive, or they are dismissed for being too emotional or “crazy.”
Another example of how privilege can influence our perceptions is the trend, especially on social media, for false equivalences to be made based on a lack of understanding of how systems of power work. This applies to all claims of “reverse racism” or “reverse sexism,” or hashtags like #HeterosexualPrideDay and #AllLivesMatter. If you don’t understand the experiences of a particular marginalized group it’s easy to see something like a Pride celebration and think “straight cis people should have that too!” But what’s more difficult to understand is that Pride isn’t just about feeling proud, it’s a commemoration of the long history of the LGBTQ+ community having to fight for survival. Privilege means not needing to acknowledge things like systematic violence and discrimination when it applies to a group you aren’t a part of, so that means constantly challenging ourselves to recognize how systems of oppression impact different situations.
And there are often factors outside of our control, like many of our identities, that impact our lives and our safety in really big ways. Let’s take this to a serious place for a second. After the Pulse shooting in June, I felt real grief. For two weeks I was breaking down and crying every day, and I couldn’t listen to or look at the news without wanting to throw up. Because I had experienced a loss. A community that I identify strongly with, in which I had found the ability to express and be comfortable with myself, had just had its heart ripped out. The LGBTQ+ community had just been reminded of how unsafe we are on a daily basis, purely because of who we are.
I realized this week that the state of trauma and grief that I was in for a little while is how many members of the Black American community live their lives every single day. Because they are constantly reminded of the danger they’re in. And they are constantly having members of their community threatened and taken away because of a prejudiced system. And there is such an overwhelming silence on the issue from the people who are complicit in it. What I couldn’t imagine feeling much longer until it slowly started to be alleviated is a wound that is constantly being reopened for the black community.
So what has to be understood about privilege, even though we use all of this sociological and academic terminology for the systems built around it, is that these social realities are actually deeply personal and emotional. And the way that privilege shapes reality for each of us can sometimes be difficult to grasp at first glance. It’s on all of us to dig deeper and try to understand the systemic issues so we can begin to overcome them.
