Read

How Can We Learn from Privilege?

Creator:
Published:
May 20, 2024
June 8, 2020
Once you understand it, we have to know how to talk about privilege. Find out here.|Once you understand it, we have to know how to talk about privilege. Find out here.

Conversations about privilege tend to elicit two kinds of responses from people with privilege: denial or well-intentioned urgency to “do something” about it. Both responses avoid the discomfort of squaring up to the deeper causes and effects of privilege. And if we don’t understand how privilege functions, we won’t know how to interrupt the cycle.

From my own limited perspective as a white male, I’ll share three considerations for how individuals with privilege might begin to respond, but first we need to get clear on what is at stake.

Having privilege doesn’t mean that I somehow am cheating in the game of life, as if I haven’t worked hard along the way. The ultimate cost of privilege is that experiences that for me are just “a day in the life” might be a matter of life and death for others.

I bumped into this cold, hard fact during grad school one night when I was up late on campus for a class event. It was a bitter late winter evening and I was in a hurry to get home, so I decided to run through the parking lot while carrying my backpack. I made it to my car. I got in and I drove safely home. There was, for me, nothing out of the ordinary about what happened that evening. There would be no story to tell at all if weren’t for what happened to a fellow student around that same time.

Not long before my uneventful late-night run, another student was walking back to his dorm and realized he had forgotten to bring his student ID with him, so he called campus security to help him get in. When they arrived, they insisted he wasn’t a student here and refused to let him in. Unlike me, that young man was black. No one was physically harmed that evening, but all too often situations like this escalate tragically when individuals with privilege fail to understand how their own privilege influences their perceptions of and reactions to others.

Having privilege means, among other things, getting the benefit of the doubt in being perceived as competent, honest, and non-threatening. Privilege isn’t just a matter of individual perception or bias; it is embedded into the fabric of our social structures with very real mental, physical, financial, and cultural consequences. So, how can individuals and groups with privilege begin to respond?

First, we need to realize that facing up to our own relative privilege takes time and hard work. One college educator warns individuals with privilege to not rush too quickly to “do something” about privilege. Hasty, well-intentioned action that lacks deeper understanding can be a form of avoidance and further perpetuates the structures of privilege. Allies need to be reminded that they get to choose when to pick up or put down the fight for justice and inclusion, unlike those who experience first-hand a particular form of marginalization.

Philosopher George Yancy invites white people to “tarry” with the unease of their racial privilege. Yancy isn’t advocating that people should wallow in self-guilt. Rather, the pervasiveness of privilege calls for a rediscovery of healthy forms of lament as a step toward deeper reconciliation and healing.

Second, recognize that allyship doesn’t mean being a “voice for the voiceless.” It’s not possible to fully speak for someone else, and doing so keeps the other voiceless. Think instead of the power of tuning your ear to the voices of those who go too frequently unheard.

Finally, be attentive to the access that your own particular privilege grants you. Look around the room and across the table. Are there voices and experiences that are underrepresented? How can you use your privilege so that others might enjoy the same abilities and freedoms?

Identifying and acknowledging privilege is a crucial step, but it marks only a beginning, not the destination. We learn the road by walking it and by walking with others whose journeys have been different from our own.

Creators:
Ben Wilson
Published:
May 20, 2024
June 8, 2020
On a related note...
3 Tips for Shopping Sustainably

3 Tips for Shopping Sustainably

Mary Cunningham

What 'Dune' Teaches Us About Scarcity and Social Equity

What 'Dune' Teaches Us About Scarcity and Social Equity

Hanna Van Elk

Choir Raises Money for Cancer Patients in Kenya

Choir Raises Money for Cancer Patients in Kenya

Grotto

This Music Teacher Is Changing Lives of At-Risk Youth

This Music Teacher Is Changing Lives of At-Risk Youth

Danielle Thomson

Jesus' Favorite Podcast EP 7: Fighting For A Cause With Alexia Dukes

Jesus' Favorite Podcast EP 7: Fighting For A Cause With Alexia Dukes

Grotto, Ebony Moxey, Javi Zubizarreta

Lifting up Black Stories: 3 Artists Fighting Racism

Lifting up Black Stories: 3 Artists Fighting Racism

Grotto

How to Navigate Some of Today's Most Pressing Issues

How to Navigate Some of Today's Most Pressing Issues

Ben Wilson

What It’s Really Like to Be a Catholic Missionary

What It’s Really Like to Be a Catholic Missionary

Krista Steele

CASA Volunteer Shares Her Story | Little Ways: Advocate

CASA Volunteer Shares Her Story | Little Ways: Advocate

Grotto

What We Can All Do to End Domestic Violence

What We Can All Do to End Domestic Violence

Grotto

Our Go-To Ethical Trade Gift Guide for 2018

Our Go-To Ethical Trade Gift Guide for 2018

Grotto Shares

Fashion Shows Raise Awareness of the Effects of Violence on a Community

Fashion Shows Raise Awareness of the Effects of Violence on a Community

Grotto

Engineers Without Borders Meet Community Needs | Little Ways: Engineering

Engineers Without Borders Meet Community Needs | Little Ways: Engineering

Grotto

Spend 9 Minutes, 29 Seconds With This Prayer for Racial Justice

Spend 9 Minutes, 29 Seconds With This Prayer for Racial Justice

Grotto

How Are We Going to Wash the Stain from Our Hands?

How Are We Going to Wash the Stain from Our Hands?

Josh Noem

What Good are “Thoughts and Prayers” Anyway?

What Good are “Thoughts and Prayers” Anyway?

Isaac Huss

Show up With an Open Heart, and Just Stay

Show up With an Open Heart, and Just Stay

Elizabeth Abrams

What I Learned from a Year in Service after College

What I Learned from a Year in Service after College

Caelin Miltko

This Ethical Trade Coffee Supports Small Farmers

This Ethical Trade Coffee Supports Small Farmers

Grotto Shares

How Microlending Has Changed Women's Lives in India

How Microlending Has Changed Women's Lives in India

Molly Gettinger

newsletter

We’d love to be pals.

Sign up for our newsletter, and we’ll meet you in your inbox each week.