One of the most difficult concepts for me in coming to understand my own privilege (PDF file) is the idea that you can have privilege in society and still be miserable. I don’t even have much of anything to complain about from society’s standpoint—I was born a white, mid-to-upper-middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, reasonably-conventionally-attractive male. (I had never even heard the word “cisgender” until about two years ago, and my iPhone autocorrect still doesn’t seem to know it.) The only areas where I might lack privilege (atheism and mental health) are not immediately apparent to people who don’t know me, and haven’t seriously impacted my life (mostly because of the areas where I am privileged).

Whatever struggles I have had in my life, I’ve always had the benefit of financial support, access to good health care, and everything else that comes with the various categories I listed above. I’m not saying this to brag, but rather to say that I’m very, very lucky, and to illustrate that the challenge for me and others like me, when it comes to privilege, is understanding and acknowledging all the ways it has helped me while doing what I can to make things better (or at least not make them worse.) This mostly involves shutting up and listening.

A blog post by Gina Crosley-Corcoran entitled “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person…” (h/t Elizabeth) captures the seeming conflict between white privilege and actual lived experience:

This is not said to make white people feel guilty about their privilege. It’s not your fault you were born with white skin and experience these privileges. BUT, whether you realize it or not, you DO benefit from it, and it IS your fault if you don’t maintain awareness of that fact.

She addresses intersectionality, by which an individual may have privilege in one way and be oppressed in another. A person can suffer from racial, sex, gender, class, or any number of different types of discrimination and still experience white privilege. The key thing for white people to remember is that this is not something we need to be defensive about.

As you can see, belonging to one or more category of Privilege, especially being a Straight White Middle Class Able-Bodied Male, can be like winning a lottery you didn’t even know you were playing. But this is not to imply that any form of privilege is exactly the same as another or that people lacking in one area of privilege understand what it’s like to be lacking in other areas. Race discrimination is not equal to Sex Discrimination and so forth.

And listen, recognizing Privilege doesn’t mean suffering guilt or shame for your lot in life. Nobody’s saying that Straight White Middle Class Able-Bodied Males are all a bunch of assholes who don’t work hard for what they have. Recognizing Privilege simply means being aware that some people have to work much harder just to experience the things you take for granted (if they ever can experience them at all.)

I hope this helps. Now go forth and gain awareness. I’ll be trying to do the same.