Privilege

​PRIVILEGE

I'm not sure anything ever revealed the privilege I've had in my life more than my trip to Honduras last summer. When I came back from that trip, I struggled. Much of that struggle was rooted in owning up to some basic privileges I have in my life that other people don't have.

A friend shared these words yesterday. I've been thinking about them.

"If I am not aware of the barriers you face, then I won't see them, much less be motivated to remove them." (Robin DiAngelo)

When you step into people's barrier filled worlds that you've never stepped into before, when you see them for the first time, privilege slaps you in the face.

It slaps you on one cheek and says, see the barriers here in Honduras you've had the privilege of being blind to. Then, just as you've recovered from the sting of that slap, it slaps you on the other cheek and stares at you and asks, what other barriers do people have that you have the privilege of being unaware of?

Since coming back from Honduras, I've discovered one of the best measuring sticks of my own personal awareness about my privilege is my outrage.

What are the things that outrage me? What barriers do I see people trying to put up in my life I feel entitled to live without? Entitled enough to make me outraged.

Yesterday, the Governor of Virginia mandated that starting Friday, we all have to wear masks in public. And there was quite a bit of outrage - to put it mildly. I guess it caught me off guard a bit. Many people feel like they are entitled to not have the barrier of wearing a mask built into their lives, so the threat of that barrier angered them.

And to be clear, everyone is entitled to their anger and outrage at any barrier they so choose.

I just personally couldn't go there. First and foremost, I have a hard time believing a Governor who has delivered hundreds if not thousands of babies and who has served our country in the military is suddenly asking me to wear a mask because he has a plan to hurt or discomfort me. That's just my own personal logic on that one. Naive or not.

But much more than that, a black man was killed in Minneapolis this week when police officers put their knees on a man's neck and kept it there even though the man said he couldn't breathe. No, all cops are not bad. But for too long, I've had the privilege of not being in a black man's shoes and the privilege of not seeing that these "incidents" happen to black men in this country with a far greater frequency than they do men privilege to be white like me.

I've had the privilege of being outraged at my own barriers at the expense of not being outraged at others.

I've had the privilege of being outraged at issues in my life that pale in comparison to the reality that hundreds of millions of people in this world have barriers to eating a meal today. Have barriers to medical attention while I go to physical therapy for 2 months because my back is bothering me. I've had the privilege of walking through the world without fear or anxiety or any concern whatsoever riding on the color of my skin.

And you know what I personally discovered about myself when I came back from Honduras - I was using a lot of outrage about the barriers in my life to protect me from having to even take a peek over the barriers imprisoning so many other people's lives.

And I went on to discover, personally, life is far more rewarding when you get busy helping people break down the very real barriers in their lives than it is being outraged at barriers I've had the privilege of believing or imagining were somehow threatening to mine.