It's My Privilege

Dear Donald,

Good morning! I don’t really have any advice for you today – today’s letter is going to be more like an ancient Zen riddle with no answer. What is the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? If we lose our sense of privilege, does it undermine our identity and our feelings of safety and belonging? I want you to help me think this through, Donald, because I think that it’s important, and it may serve as a bridge between the Red and the Blue in these troubled times. I got this idea just last night from one of my smartest and kindest friends, and it’s still sort of swirling around in my head, so please be patient with me.

Privilege, by definition, is any advantage that you accrue by virtue of your identity rather than your achievements. If you’re born into a rich family, that’s a privilege – you didn’t earn rich parents, you just got lucky. But privilege is a loaded concept, and it can be very divisive. Let’s take me for example – I occupy a definite position of privilege. I’m white, educated, affluent, and I have a successful career. I’m a woman, which is a disadvantage in our society, but other than that, I am clearly part of an empowered demographic. So why do I sometimes bristle when people talk about my privilege?

It’s because I worked – hard – to get where I am today. Obviously I didn’t work to be white, but I like to think that I earned all the rest. I was largely raised by a single mother with a modest income. My father suffered from mental illness and wasn’t able to hold a stable job, so my mom was really the only breadwinner. Both my parents died when I was quite young, so I held down full time jobs throughout college and premedical training in order to support myself. I got scholarship assistance for medical school at Johns Hopkins – otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. So don’t tell me how “privileged” I am!

But here’s the thing, Donald: I REALLY AM. I never questioned whether I would go to college – it was a foregone conclusion. Becoming a doctor wasn’t a wild pipe dream for me – I saw people all around me achieving their goals, and it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to achieve mine. I had to work for a living, but I never worried about whether I could get a job or succeed in it once I did. I never had to worry about food, or clothing, or shelter, or being shot in my own neighborhood, or being arrested because of my race. My mom provided for me, my family and friends encouraged me, and I lived in a community where I saw examples of success all around me. These are privileges, and I would not be where I am today without them. However, I understand that for everyone who works hard and believes in the American meritocracy (which is not a thing – more on that later), our privilege can be hard to accept. It’s natural to believe that we earned what we have, and that we have a right to our power – even when we we don’t.

Privilege is also sometimes used as a cudgel to shut people down. Among liberals, people in positions of privilege are chastised for not doing enough to advance the interests of those without privilege. Then when we try to do something to help, we are chastised for doing it wrong. When we donate to causes we believe in, we’re denounced as “checkbook liberals.” When we wear safety pins, we’re branded as hypocrites making a meaningless gesture to make ourselves feel better. When we speak out, we’re “whitesplaining.” Instead of feeling empowered by our privilege, we feel attacked. And when this happens, we feel a LOSS of privilege – we feel our voices silenced, and our opinions discounted. We feel powerless, because we want to do something but we fear that anything we do will somehow be wrong. And it’s scary. Add that to the (mistaken) belief that we somehow earned our privilege through hard work and merit, and it feels downright unfair.

Is this what some of your supporters are feeling, Donald? Do they sense that there’s an expiration date on their privilege, and it’s coming up very soon? America is changing. The majority status of white people is steadily declining. Men are losing jobs to women. Religious diversity and secular humanism have reduced the influence of Christianity in society. Globalization of the economy has threatened the livelihoods of many workers. Does the changing world make your supporters feel threatened, afraid of losing their power and status? It seems to me that it would.

I’ve heard a lot of talk from white Christian men about their persecution in our society. I have historically rolled my eyes at this – is the ultimate privilege group really going to look me square in the face and whine about how disempowered they are? Please. But if I feel threatened by something as trivial as a social media wrist slap from a fellow liberal, what are they feeling right now? Loss of privilege HURTS. Feeling disempowered is frightening, particularly when you believe that you earned your power, and you are so accustomed to it that it has become part of the fabric of your identity. It is understandable that, in this situation, you would rally behind a candidate who promises to restore your power.

But here’s the thing, Donald: America is changing. We need to embrace the diversity of our population, and learn to view it as an asset rather than a threat. We need to stop empowering ourselves by disempowering others. Guarding our own privilege might seem like a good idea on the surface, but ultimately it just divides us, and divided we fall. America is not a zero-sum game, where one group wins and one group loses. If we want to “Make America Great Again,” we need to find a way to empower ALL of our citizens, and find a way to fairly share the ultimate privilege of being American.

Yours,

Jules