Let's start out the day with this;
Everyone struggles. With lots of stuff. It is the condition of life.
And everyone has a unique set of conditions (although many will be similar), and privilege is part of what makes that up.
I struggled a good bit early in my adult life, to make ends meet and at times, it's still a struggle. But based in the life I live. I can point to times when I dug ditches for a living, did factory work, cleaned floors and bathrooms.
Others who might know me longer or better might have other views; "Your Dad was a dentist, your grandfather a doctor, your Mom a Computer whiz. Surely you lived a privileged life" and I would say it's absolutely true. I have. I've also known what it's like to have less than $5 mid-month and not know how I was going to feed my young child, except that I knew family would help, even if they had reduced means. My family couldn't pass on wealth on any large scale but helped me immeasurably when I was down - I was supported. That's privilege.
Because of who I am and how I was raised people assumed I attended college (and did, in my late 30's and again in my late 40's - and my employer helped me). That's privilege.
Some of you can say your parents paid for your college. Your wedding or even your house. Some families can pass on wealth and others cannot. All these things are in this combination of struggle and privilege we work with. And it's not equal or fair. Those are cards are largely dealt by decisions my family or I made.
I humbly submit that I have had struggle (like everyone) and have managed to frequently overcome it, but I won't bore you with further details, except to say;
I've never had to fight systemic racism. I never fought sexual discrimination. If people have judged me for my sexual preferences, I cannot say it impacted me in a life changing way. My gender can be an advantage or disadvantage, but from what I can understand nobody has paid me less for being a white male. I haven't had someone say to me I'm too old to work or invest in. Nobody's refused to serve me and I've not feared for my life when stopped by the police.
I've felt envy from those who see my privilege, and I've had people think that I'm not credible because of it - that is unfair and discriminatory, but it's part of the privilege too - life is definitely not equally fair to everyone. And look, I cannot help what I was born with, but I can help what I perpetuate.
Minorities in this country suffer just for being minorities and die at a much higher percentage due to violence and poverty. The LGBTQ+ community suffers for being queer or trans. Women in this country suffer just for being women. People are pushed out of meaningful work because they are seen as too old. This is discrimination we can do something about.
Yes. Everyone struggles. But that struggle doesn't need to contain systemic discrimination and violence. And how we fight it is to educate, to vote, to advocate for equality and help create situations where equality can thrive. Part of that is acknowledging privilege and discrimination and stopping the perpetuation of it by friends and family (and strangers when possible). Part of it is then trying to do something about it.
Stop posting memes of All Lives Matter. Yes - we know.
Stop saying that discrimination will continue as long as we keep talking about it - that we're making the divide worse by bringing it up. That's not how this works. Talking about it is only the first step in dealing with it and we cannot even get everyone to acknowledge that.
Stop saying there's good and bad "on both sides" when one side is anti-racism and the other side is racist. There are not "good racists". I do believe in converted racists - it's a learned behavior and people can learn and correct, but if you're still saying and doing racist things, you're not a "good person otherwise". A racist that is good to puppies is still a racist. Same goes for sexual preference, religion, ageism, gender discriminators - if you discriminate in any of these ways, you are treating others badly.
And some of this is a long path. If your religion brought you up to believe that homosexuality is fundamentally wrong it's hard to get rid of that scripting. If your culture teaches you to devalue the elderly, it's hard to get rid of that scripting. If your father dominated your mother and you were raised to believe that is the way men behave, it is hard to get rid of that scripting. But we have to,
Like former alcoholics, this is also part of our struggle - to be better people. And while trying isn't the same as achieving, it's a start and overwhelmingly better than complacency or denial of the issues. We're not perfect, we're always a work in process. But please, be a work in process if you're not there yet. I am. Don't contribute to the problem and please, please work to step across that border.
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