How do you take responsibility for your privilege?

Reflections
It’s taken me years to admit & acknowledge my privilege because of the impoverished conditions I grew up in. It wasn’t until I went to college on a full-ride scholarship awarded to former foster youth that I began redefining myself. And with that, came a LOT of resistance. I was not “one of them;” I hadn’t come from a wealthy, two-parent household that could afford $55k+ per year for a liberal arts education. To me, privilege represented unbridled consumerism and insulated la-la lands, blended within socially reckless shades of whiteness.
But that didn’t change the fact that I had been given an opportunity. And with that single opportunity, my whole world changed. I realize now the irony of my attachment to my “otherness,” to my suffering, and to my victim-mentality because it enabled that exact lack of responsibility I resented in others. Today, I am shifting myself to do the work of learning to embody my privilege with responsibility, reverence, and respect for others. And fuckin hell, that feels LIBERATING & BIG!! Yes, I am privileged. No, I will not be quiet or sit down but I will move over and make space for others. And I will ((try)) not to bulldoze your reality with my privilege.
Port Townsend, WA
May 18th, 2020
コメント