Cassandra james, dei managerThere are certain words that can trigger a visceral reaction when someone hears it. It can make you turn off your ears and refuse to hear anything that came after that word, because now you are on the defensive. It doesn’t matter what the context of the conversation was, you’re no longer listening. You’re just waiting to respond. Working in DEI a word that I’ve seen cause the conversation to either screech to a halt or get derailed is the dreaded P word……PRIVILEGE. Be honest, how many of you rolled your eyes, and uttered the phrase “well I’m not privileged. I didn’t grow up with money.”. For some people, the word privilege is synonymous with money. However, privilege simply means unearned access or advantages granted to specific groups of people because of their membership in a social group. In other words, it’s something we all have, and it can show up in a variety of ways. It can be based on anything from your religion, ability status, age or even educational level. An important thing to remember about privilege is that it’s not inherently bad. I’m not a bad person because I’m right-handed and the world caters to right handedness. I can however ensure that I have left-handed scissors available, or make sure if I sit next to a left-handed person, I’m sitting in a way that doesn’t make them uncomfortable. Also, did you know privilege can change, it’s contextual. What serves as an unearned benefit in one situation can be a disadvantage in another. A few years ago, I was enrolled in an ASL/English Interpreters program. As part of the curriculum, we had to go to a Deaf Night Out, which consisted of the interpreting students signing badly to the Deaf participants. As I watched the hands of the Deaf community signing away, totally at a loss for what was being communicated, I realized my hearing wasn’t such a privilege anymore. When someone says that you are speaking from a place of privilege, they are simply saying that this is not your lived experience, so you don’t understand where they’re coming from. It is not to say that you do not have hardships in your life; it’s saying that this particular aspect of your identity doesn’t cause you an added burden. So next time you hear the word privilege take a breath and try to hear what is being said. Comments are closed.
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