White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

[Orrex]

30. You know, when I read these "privilege lists" posted on DU, I want to call bullshit

I mean, it seems over-the-top and cherry-picked to make the case.

But...






then I realize that this is a problem of my ego, and--like it or not--I need to accept that I benefit from the listed privilege (and many more) even if I don't bother to realize it.

That was a hard lesson to learn.

There's a strong temptation to say "yeah, but..." about any or all of the entries on the list, but a little honesty allows one to see the truth of the list as a whole, unpalatable though it might seem.

The additional and underlying lession is that even if should have a bad day or some sour experience or another, I need to remain conscious of the fact that the same experience would be that much harder if I were Latino or African-American or female.


Like I said, a hard lesson to learn. It has to overcome ego and aesthetics and the simple failure to see from another's perspective, and it's easy to see why so many resist the meaning of the checklist.

But once learned and truly accepted, it greatly improves one's ability to understand how profoundly and fundamentally our society maintains its tradition of inequality.