I did not become fully aware of the world and myself until the beginning my middle school years. There is where I recognized the advantages and disadvantages that society has put upon us people collectively. I believe that privilege is a cultural construction like any other issue of race, class and gender.

Macintosh is right in defining that privilege is “an invisible package of unearned assets that [she] can count on cashing in each day, but about which [she] was “meant” to remain oblivious.” Some people are aware and conscious of their privilege and others choose to remain oblivious to their privilege, typically being those people who may or may not feel guilty of having such an advantage because it is benefiting their lives. And obviously in any situation, they are people who simply remain oblivious because culture has taught them well on being oblivious. I came to acknowledge the existence of privilege by example, rooted more firmly on the side of the disadvantaged, those considered limited on this idea of privilege.

Three privileges I have not earned in this life; one, being offered a leadership position without the thought of awarding a male the position first or without having it be interrupted or passively aggressively being controlled by other male forces; two, not being able to be treated with the same fairness as white people in various domains; and thirdly, not being able to see my skin color of women being publicized and praised with the idea of beauty hash-tagged to it. Now being twenty and a young adult I recognize how difficult it is to be a black woman, with a race un-favored in America’s history and a sex so overrun by male dominance. Being a person of color I am unable of preventing the harsh acts of bad treatment that may be inflicted on me. In America, I (standing in place for colored people) am criminalized and face the law more than I can face the books, just because of the way we look. I cannot historically say we have benefitted when it comes to obtaining the benefits the world has to offer. Being of color I am expected to fail for the bad decisions society pre-assumes I will make, but I have not made them, and yet I still must fight to have my voice be heard and respected amongst all my white classmates. Now that is unfair. Add the fact that I am a woman, my disadvantages become unfairly larger. Men, over long periods of time and passing have never really found themselves fighting because the constitution was built by them. Their rights have been there for them in forms of culture and social constructions come to exist. They tend to be at advantage when it comes to taking the lead, as the women are supposed to follow their lead, but that is not right. However, it’s been like that for a while now. Men are granted more power and more voice, they have been built with the confidence to lead. As a female student. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve watched a MALE professor call first on a male student to then call second on a female student and reiterate their responses in a way that the female student’s response has suddenly become the supporting sentence, or added sentence to the male student’s original contribution to the classroom discussion. From just my own experience and feelings, I believe it to be the hardest thing to observe and worse, being victim to having it happen to you directly.

There are privileges I believe I have earned consist of having the available opportunity to be educated because I’ve progressively used by access to education to elevate myself in areas of prestige and skill; having the ability to claim the rights that my ancestors have shed so much loss for because I use them now to build up a community (and myself up) on native pride; and lastly, having the privilege of being a writer not by hand-out or “diversifying purposes” but by my ability to write. Macintosh says;

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo subjects.

The world is certainly shaped around its “colossal unseen dimensions” and some of us are in deep in denial and avoidance. After reading this piece of work I feel as though I hold the responsibility of spreading my own awareness and knowledge on this idea of privilege. Hopefully through my own involvement, I change the mindset of a few, in order to eventually have a chain reaction of “mind reconstruction”, and those who are privilege then feel inspired to use their advantages to help other groups of people, oppressed, and on the other side of the spectrum.