Each month I have the opportunity to write an opinion column on a topic of my choice. I’m grateful to the Daily Hampshire Gazette for giving me this platform. I’m lucky to be able to share my views within my community and I recognize that this is a privilege not afforded to everyone.
I tend to write about things that I’m thinking about in relation to my own growth and development. When I write about dealing with grief, overcoming perfectionism, or trying to be more compassionate, it’s because I’m working through it myself.
I write about these challenges as openly as I do because I have the privilege to do that. I am in a secure job with supportive colleagues and a good retirement plan. I have the advantage of a good education. My family is stable and supportive. We don’t worry about housing and our bills are paid. We aren’t struggling with transportation or lack of food.
It’s easy for me to write about the topics I do because I don’t have to worry about negative repercussions. I can be active in my community because I’m a “nice, middle class, white lady” with a modicum of power and I’m used to people listening to me. I recognize this as privilege.
I am a middle class, heterosexual, married, college-educated, able-bodied, white woman over 50. I’m almost as privileged as they come. If I were a man, I’d score even higher on the privilege scale.
If you aren’t comfortable having conversations about privilege, or you get defensive when someone tells you you are privileged, I hope you will read on because it’s important to really get this concept.
Having privilege isn’t about you or me as individuals; it’s about the way society enables some people to go through the world with relative ease while others are blocked from succeeding because of their identities. Having privilege does not mean that individual people don’t struggle, they do. Privilege is about the unearned advantages that get conferred to people by society as a result of their (mostly) fixed life circumstances.
I often use the analogy of a racetrack. Each of the categories I described above gives me a step forward from the starting line. I’m white — one step forward; not LGBTQ — one more step forward; college-educated — step forward again; homeowner — that’s another step forward.
For others, this might work in the opposite direction. If you are black — take a step back; Muslim — step back again; if you speak English poorly, with an accent, or not at all — take a step back; you have a disability — take a step back. Some people may take a few steps forward and a couple steps back.
If you can picture this happening at the starting line of a race, you can imagine how far ahead I already am in relation to my running buddy. Most of the characteristics I described are not things I can easily change about myself, nor can my running buddy, but they certainly have an effect on where we end up at the conclusion of the run.
So, what can we do to change this structure? First, get comfortable with your own assumptions about your life and privilege.
As a white woman, I’ve never worried about my personal safety when I’ve gotten pulled over for speeding. I’ve never had a shop clerk follow me around a store to make sure I wasn’t shoplifting (except when I was with a friend who was not also white). I’ve had no trouble opening bank accounts or taking out a mortgage.
As an able-bodied person, I’ve never had to worry about how I was going to get myself into a public restroom when I needed to, or whether there was a curb-cut that would accommodate a wheelchair.
If examining our own privilege is the first step, figuring out how to use that privilege for good is the second. The next time you notice that someone is being treated differently because of their race, gender, sexual-orientation, or socio-economic status, speak up and point it out.
For the most part, I don’t believe that people are intentionally acting badly toward each other; it’s just that they haven’t taken the time to see how our culture is set up to advantage some people over others. As we recognize this and change how we respond, we can start to make actual changes in our behavior and that of others.
If you want to learn more about privilege and its effects, here is a collection of books and articles that I’ve read or that are on my reading list:
■“Waking up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race,” by Debby Irving
■“So You Want to Talk About Race,” by Ijeoma Oluo
■“What if I Say the Wrong Thing,” by Verné Myers
■“Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race,” by Reni Eddo-Lodge (The Guardian, May 2017)
Jackie Brousseau-Pereira of Easthampton writes a monthly column. She is the academic dean and director of first-year seminars in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is also the current president of the board of Community Action Pioneer Valley.