A Responsibility in Privilege

While discussing equity-related topics with a friend two weeks ago, mainly her argument with a classmate regarding his devil's advocate stand on why he thought the Women’s Fifa World Cup wasn’t as important as men’s, she relayed her frustrations of male figures assuming the importance of events and figures while taking both sex and gender issues into account. 

Having arrived at a liberal arts institution, Emerson College, frustrations like that are an issue that isn’t unheard of. Issues like race, sexuality, gender, and —of course— privilege, are seen as part of what one should take ownership of as they synthesize one’s identity and perceptions of the world. The opinion piece Privileged White Discrimination by Memo Lopez made me want to write this article. This is solely a recollection of my experiences and observations as a freshman student so far in my college experience.

In many of my orientation events, the only point that was consistently drilled into us was the difference between equity and equality. Equality is defined as giving everybody the same things and treating them the same; and equity is giving everybody the necessary tools to stand an equal chance of success. These definitions stand under the realization that some people have different skills, needs, and abilities. In a place like the United States, where examples of systematic discrimination are eerily easy to point out and language dichotomies label people in ways that segregate at an ideological level in issues that shouldn’t, the argument for equity is evermore important. Privilege is one of the issues which this argument revolves around. 

I agree with what I took as the central thesis of Memo’s piece: “Coming from an arguably ‘privileged’ position should not make your opinions less important.” Being privileged was defined to me as not having to consciously think about what makes you stand out from society and how you will be perceived as a result. The famous phrase: “check your privilege,” has been constantly chanted in jokes and memes —which I am guilty of having taken part of untilt recently— to the point in which we have been desensitized from its meaning. I ask you, the attentive reader, and Memo, to reflect upon these words: “It’s interesting to see the irony coming from people claiming to go against racism turning out to be racist themselves by suppressing opinions because their white skin tone.” If you happen to be light skinned, or anyone who identifies with my established definition of privilege for that matter, I ask you to read it from a different perspective. Let’s read it from the perspective of an ethnically indigenous person, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, somebody who has faced generational oppression, and let’s check our privilege. Let’s ask ourselves how it would feel to hear someone speak on our behalf. 

It is important to understand that people in positions of disadvantage, such as minorities or victims of abuse, can easily —and unknowingly— be undermined and even discriminated because of their skin color, sex, gender, abilities, and experiences by us, who posess a privilege and who aren’t affected by the issues that affect them.  So let’s listen to people’s experiences as we get ready to express our own, in an informed and sensible manner, for we have no idea how one’s identities have shaped their world view nor how our own could undermine others’.