I’m very lucky to belong to a social group that talks about privilege– a lot. Coming into these conversations for the first time, as outsiders tend to occasionally, isn’t a comfortable process. It is painful to realize that so much of what you thought was your own hard work, what you thought you accomplished yourself, was due to a broken system. And it’s uncomfortable to realize, very plainly, that you have more than the person next to you, just by a matter of race, gender, sexuality, etc. It makes sense to “get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage.” (McIntosh 1) These sad truths, while so clearly embedded around us in society, are quickly dismissed sometimes, a knee jerk reaction. And living with the truths, being aware of your privilege doesn’t ever become a comfortable thing either, nor is it supposed to be.

There’s an old story I once heard. Maybe it’s just a tale, but it serves to illustrate privilege well anyway. There was a town that used to favor the richer areas first when doing snow removal. They would go into the fancy developments first, and then move on to the less affluent sections. Then, they decided to change the way they did snow removal and make it more even. They would start with the highest traffic roads first, and then continue forward equally. They didn’t decide to disadvantage the rich, just to make things even and fair. This led to a lot of complaints from the wealthier residents, saying that snow removal service had decreased in the city overall. They thought everyone else was also having to wait longer to get their snow plowed. They thought the entire town was struggling to remove snow with the same speed. It never occurred to them that they had been advantaged. They had assumed everyone lived the way they did.

So, we talk a lot about what our privilege is. We send “unpacking the knapsack” to our friends through facebook messenger. We identify all our types of privilege and then ignore half of them again. We talk about how much the system frustrates us. Some of us post articles on Facebook to a group of people who already share our views, or else argue with individuals on the internet.

But what drives me insane is we never talk about what to do next. While I’m so aware of my privilege, but with no understanding of what to do with that awareness in the short term, all it becomes is white anxiety, white guilt, and sometimes even white tears. I can admit to that. Because it’s frustrating. I know the usual things:

• Educate myself of other cultures so as to reduce microagressions
  • but also, be too afraid to ask people about their cultures because I don’t want to offend them
• Use my privilege to do well in life and succeed so I can then empower other people typically without privilege
  • but, I won’t be in a position to hire anyone anytime soon
  • The best I can do is volunteer right now, in which I typically fight able-bodied privilege not racial privilege
• Educate other people on their privilege
• Educate individual by individual what institutionalized racism is
• Use my privilege to further voice the experiences of others
  • but don’t speak for them
  • also, recognize I don’t understand and never could
• Go against racism, sexism, heteroism, ablism, etc when I see it
• Simmer in it???

Coming in new to the whole concept of privilege, just finding out you have it, and then being faced with this whole mess above is confusing, and a rough transition. Suddenly, the burden is on you to learn about someone else’s culture. Do some google searching. The burden is on you to pay attention to those around you, just like they had to when your culture was the norm. It comes with a lot to become aware of even just race privilege:

White anxiety, that I might offend someone when I’m trying so hard to help, or be freindly. (What if this is me trying to be a white savior? What if asking about their culture just reminds them that theirs isn’t considered the norm? What if everything I’ve ever done is a microagression?)

White guilt, that I have so much and others have so little. Survivor’s guilt. Feeling like I have heavy gold chains I can’t remove while walking through the slums. Feeling guilty even for feeling guilty. Wanting to talk about it but not wanting to make it someone else’s issue on top of it all. Because ultimately, this is not about me or my uncomfort.

White tears, rarely, but sometimes, because it becomes tempting to ignore it all. That is a white privilege. To ignore you have privilege. And it’d be nice to go back to thinking that people get what they deserve in life and I earned my position. That’s a beautiful fantasy. I understand why some people would want to cling to it.