As many beautifully-snarky people have pointed out in recent years, it’s getting harder and harder to be White, male, heterosexual, and/or cisgender in this country these days without having to occasionally think about one or more of these identities in ways that might make us uncomfortable. (Full disclosure: I am all of those things listed in the previous sentence.) I have the utmost faith that we can handle it, though, and that we will emerge better for it.

I only recently (i.e. in the past 4-5 years) came to understand the extent to which I do not have to consider how my race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. affect my daily life. Other people do not have that luxury.

I’m not talking about any great epiphany that I had. Really, the most important thing that I have come to understand and accept is this: with respect to people whose lives are not like mine, I don’t understand their daily reality, and I will never fully understand. To put it another way, I get that I don’t get it.

I’ve had numerous discussions on social media and in real life (yes, IRL conversations do still happen, even with people who live glued to a computer like me) recently about how to recognize and understand our various forms of privilege, and how it can be difficult because of the way our society tends to view most of my attributes (White, male, etc.) as the “default” setting.

As a sort of confession, I used to be of the mindset that racism, sexism, etc. were not my fault, because I never owned slaves, I hadn’t even been born when Mad Men took place, and so on. It’s a seductive view for someone who wants to be on the right side of history while keeping a perfectly clear conscience, but it’s not true.

Racism, etc. might not be my fault (and no one ever actually said that I, personally, was to blame in any way), but I was born into and grew up in the system that America’s style of racism created, and I’ve done pretty well. It’s my responsibility to be aware of that, and to do what I can to oppose the system that keeps treating anyone who isn’t White, male, heterosexual, etc. as something other than the norm. I mess up all the time. I utterly and completely fail at it sometimes. That’s going to happen, but to paraphrase a motivational saying I heard, it’s not how many times you fall down that matters, it’s how many times you stand back up.

If I can impart any wisdom at this stage in my journey, it would be what I have learned about how to react when someone calls you out for something you said or did. (Here, I am addressing my fellow privileged people. Even if we don’t share one form of privilege, we might share another. Also, I’m mentioning racism and sexism here mostly as a shorthand, but there are many other forms of prejudice, power, and discrimination as well.)

People far too often react defensively when called out, even when called out politely. The way that some people have (mis)interpreted the relative success of efforts to fight racism, sexism, etc. in recently decades plays a big role in this.

In the post-Civil Rights Movement era, it’s easy for White people to convince themselves that “racism” is solely the domain of white hoods, burning crosses, swastikas, and so forth.

In a post-second-wave-feminism world, it’s easy for men to equate “sexism” exclusively with over-the-top caricatures of Mad Men-era chauvinism (which, incidentally, still exists to a far greater degree than anyone seems to want to acknowledge). Many people have always been willing to view rape as a crime only committed by easily-identifiable strangers lurking in dark alleys, and this affects how many people view other issues of sex and gender.

From that point of view, calling something someone said racist or sexist is often perceived as calling that person racist or sexist, which means they are calling them a bad person, which is an insult that must be answered. Every step of that analysis is mistaken, and we have to address it one step at a time. This is something I had to do for myself, and I regret to say that I often lack the patience to help others do it. Here, then, are my 8½ Rules of Privilege:

1. Calling a statement, action, idea, opinion, etc. racist or sexist is not the same thing as calling the person who made the statement, etc. a racist or a sexist. (Note the distinction in adjective versus noun usage in the two situations.)
2. “Racist” and “sexist” are not actually synonymous with the worst examples of racist and sexist thought and behavior—at least, not the way that people who aren’t defensive White people use those words.
3. Building on #2, these words should not be immediately interpreted as an insult or challenge.
4. Taking #2 and #3 into account, it sucks to be told that you said or did something wrong, especially when you’re genuinely trying to be an ally. That said, literally the worst thing that is likely to happen to you in this situation is that your feelings will be hurt. That doesn’t change the fact that you said or did something wrong.

Hopefully this can help people realize that these discussions are not personal, nor are they meant to impose guilt on any of us individually. From there, let’s move on to the next steps:

5. Having privilege, be it White, male, heterosexual, cisgender, etc., means needing to be open to hearing the experiences and perspectives of people who have lived a very different reality than you have. It’s not automatically an insult if someone calls you out.
6. “Privilege” just means that various structural advantages exist in our society that give certain people a leg up. It does not mean that anyone with privilege is destined for a charmed life. It does not mean that people without privilege are doomed to a life of victimhood.
7. As people with privilege, we have a certain obligation to learn , but no individual person without privilege has a duty to educate. This is why people who show up in discussions about one issue or another with some very basic questions that they insist must be answered can seem extremely annoying and disrespectful—and why they are sometimes greeted with hostility instead of the calm, respectful, easily-digestible answers they seem to expect. It’s 2015, and we have both Google and Tumblr. Use them.
8. Finally (for now), and perhaps most importantly, some people will violate #3 above, and use words like “racist,” “privilege,” etc. more for the purpose of attacking you than discussing an issue, but that doesn’t ultimately matter. It can be difficult to know when someone is genuinely attacking you, and when they’re just angry about hearing something that may seem like an original thought or question to you, but that they’ve heard a thousand times today. Two sub-rules:
1. Take the high road, and don’t respond as though it’s an insult. All sides of al issues, it is probably safe to say, have trolls. You don’t have to feed this one.
2. The existence of some people here and there who misuse the language of privilege, race, gender, etc. does not invalidate these principles. To put it another way, the fact that someone was mean to you on the internet does not mean that privilege does not exist.

(Adapted from a Facebook comment.)