Check your privilege

Our world is rife with inequity. A common set of rules don’t apply to everyone. One set of rules for the rich, a different one for the poor; one set of rules for men, and another for women; a set of rules for whites and a separate one for blacks. Through these means powerful people continuously subjugate and oppress less powerful people to consolidate their power. That power is privilege.

Whether you see it or not, we are ALL guilty of perpetuating the inequities in our societies that often lead to the oppression of one group by another. We are complicit either by actively participating in the unequal treatment and discrimination of groups that are “different”, by “blissful” ignorance of the issues, or by denying that they exist at all and refusing to listen and learn - being so sure that things aren’t that bad (because you experience a different reality) so “the others” must be blowing them out of proportion.

We have designed social systems that increase access to opportunities for advancement for one group, while sometimes deliberately blocking out others. It's easy to take the things that you have access to for granted because, "isn't that how life should be", well it isn't for far too many people. Your education is not a given, that's privilege. Your gender - privilege. Your job - privilege. Your citizenship - privilege. Where you live - privilege. How you commute - privilege. The distance between your home and work - privilege. Need I go on? Privilege is such a beautiful thing. It's a gift that keeps on giving. If you're born with it lucky you! If you're not, oh well. 

So the next time you see someone struggle with speaking or writing proper English, instead of laughing, remember your privilege. The next time someone shows up drenched by the rain, instead of feeling embarrassed for them, remember your privilege. The next time someone tells you they are afraid of walking down their street at 8 pm, instead of saying, "but it's not that late now", remember your privilege. The next time your friend tells you they can't afford something you consider to be cheap, remember your privilege. I'm sure you get the gist by now. When we remember and acknowledge our privilege we are more likely to respond from a place of empathy. The nature of privilege is such that it makes you believe that there's something special about you that makes all the great things in your life possible, well, there is, and it's called privilege. Now, privilege is not a bad thing in itself, it's great. I want more privilege in my life, but it would be incredibly foolish of me to not recognize my privilege and think that other people who don't command my results don't do so because of a problem inherent in them, and therefore I am special.

In our fight for equity across board we must start by looking inward and uprooting all the implicit biases that make us perpetrators of inequity of whatever kind. We must consider in humility the benefits of our privilege and all the opportunities that it gives us access to and then show empathy to those who may not have had our privilege and hence lacked the opportunities we were fortunate to get. 

And if you really think about it, a lot of what we are is merely a function of time and chance. Being born into a wealthy home vs a middle class or poor home is really a lottery. And there are so many other things that happen along the journey of ones life that could make you either more or less powerful. The process of looking inward is not only one of introspection, in addition to that we must also listen to and learn from those we are dealing with the consequences of inequity. We cannot rely on our own knowledge and wisdom if the goal is to act in a manner that eradicates inequity and its consequences.

Engagement is crucial to understanding the issues so that we can create a more equitable society. Seek to learn about the stories and life of those that are different from you. Don’t lock yourself in an echo chamber of "your kind".

Let us lead with humility and empathy and rewrite the playbook of what it means to be human in today’s world, and I hope words like classist, sexist or racist don’t find their way in there.

We have lots of unlearning and re-learning to do. We ALL share a responsibility for our current social systems so we must all chip in to dismantle systems that present access to fundamental opportunities to one group as a birthright, while everyone else is left with next to nothing. We must then build new equitable systems that empower each of us to chase our dreams and rewards our hard work. Let's get to it.

PS: Please teach this to your kids and the little ones around, their generation will be the one that bends the arc of our society towards progress.