#privilege awareness

[quidcumque]

The most effective "Concept of Privilege" education I've ever experienced involved lining a group of people up at the edge of a field. They're told to take a step if something's accurate. It starts out pretty innocuous, very much like an ice breaker

Take a step if you're right handed

Take a step if you have a car

Take a step if one or both of your parents went to college

Take a step if English is your first language

Take a step if you've traveled internationally

They'd ramp up eventually into the questions that more overtly deal with privilege, though again focusing on the experience of it than the labels of it

Take a step if you work in a salaried job

Take a step if you usually do not have difficulty entering a building

Take a step if you feel comfortable walking to your car at night

Take a step if your school or work takes off the days for your major (religious) holidays

Take a step if your race or sex is widely represented in congress

Take a step if you feel confident that the police will help you in a bad situation

And so on. At the end of the questions, when all are spread liberally across the field, they're told that it's time to have a race --first one to the other side of the field wins.

[agarthanguide]

I Have Never Felt More Privileged in My Life

I follow this blog, TYWKIWDBI, and about a week ago, they posted this story, about the carnage in Syria, and the photos/lack of photos in the press. It included a link to some very graphic photos out of Syria, as well as descriptions of those photos, which I read.

I didn't look at the photos.  Thank God I didn't look at the photos.  I wouldn't consider myself overly sensitive, but I know enough about myself to know that I couldn't handle it.  Hopefully will never have to handle it.  And I was filled with a rushing sensation of gratitude and shame.

Now, I'm a pretty privileged girl.  I try to be aware of it in my life, and I think that, if nothing else, I am at least grateful for the opportunities I've been given, many of which are a direct result of the conditions of the the world at the moment of my birth.  But I have never, never felt such crushing awareness as I did the moment I sat in my safe, air-conditioned apartment, reading about the horrible atrocities on the other side of the world, and choosing not to look at the evidence.

It only takes a moment of abstract thinking to realize how unbelievable it is that I can call up such information at my fingertips- that I have the power to look into the doings of virtually any other society in the world (only 32.7% of the world even has internet access, according to internetworldstats.com). But it takes a special kind of disconnection- a special kind of luck of the draw, to have all of these things and choose not to look at the things that could hurt you.

Anyway, that sat with me for the last week, until suddenly I simply had to say something.  Thanks for listening.