If You Were Shocked To Learn You Have "Privilege," Tell Us About Your Experience

It's "a right granted to some, but not to all" or "an advantage that is completely out of your control." We don't ask for these "privileges," but when we recognize them, we have a chance to provide opportunities for those less fortunate.

It's probably not something you think about daily, but the fact of the matter is that everyone benefits from a form of privilege in our daily lives.

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The weight of those privileges may vary from person to person, but they provide us with advantages that we may take for granted.

And before y'all go into a full panic over the word, let's quickly go over examples of what it means to have "privilege."

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It's not so black and white as "privilege = bad person." There's not one identity or group that holds all of the privileges or lack thereof.

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Take me, for example. As a Black person, I fully realized I had privilege once I visited someone from a different socioeconomic ($$) background with a single-parent household.

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I was raised by middle-class, married parents in an affluent neighborhood. This gave me access to better schools, healthcare, and more resources than others, which put me on a fast track to obtaining a higher education. I didn't realize my privilege until I came face to face with a close family member who lived a very different life because of the lack of the same resources I had my entire life. We were of the same family but lived very different lives because of my privileges. (Since I was a kid, I didn't earn these resources.)

Maybe you first realized your privilege when you visited a building that your loved one with a physical disability couldn't access because there were no ramps or assisted access available.

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Perhaps you realized there was only one woman in the room, and the weight of her opinions and ideas or the opposition of her thoughts rested solely upon her and her alone. She was greatly outnumbered.

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Or maybe your partner with darker skin was wrongfully singled out by a security guard for suspicion of stealing or creating danger while you were ignored and presumed innocent.

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To help get you thinking about it, here's a list of some types of privileges.

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For a more detailed list, check out the "Privilege... What Does It Mean Handout" from UCLA.

Tell us about the first time you recognized you had privilege, whether it was one or many. What happened, and how did it make you feel?

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