All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air.
With one enormous chair,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Lots of choc'lates for me to eat,
Lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat.
Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
- Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady
Privilege makes you blind to that which never happens to you. Complaining to myself about men’s cluelessness naturally led me to ponder my own white cluelessness. I try to see what I’m not experiencing the way I want men to consider women’s experience.
The world has been inherently unequal since the beginning of time. Hierarchy and power abuse is mostly true too for our primate cousins, with the possible exception of the bonobos. Ideally, levelling the playing field should aspire to equal opportunity. Where the privilege-obsessed fail is by hierarchizing it, and assigning primacy to the wrong category: Race.
Let's Have A Grownup Talk About Privilege - With Curiosity Rather Than Outrage