The Magnificent, Terrible Power of Privilege
And how we can lose what we think we’re entitled to
Sawubona.
This morning, just before I started my daily schedule of write/exercise/write/exercise, I read the following very important article by Dr Mehmet Yildiz:
To my mind this is the highest and best expression of what privilege is. You are privileged to be reading this (not that this is such a great piece of writing, but hey, you’re at least partially upright). Far too many didn’t wake up today. If the impact of that isn’t clear, if you and I don’t understand how immensely fortunate we are to still be in this body, we might be missing an extraordinary lesson in humility and gratitude.
I am grateful to Dr. Y to be reminded of how fortunate I am, that we all are, to have this community, to be uplifted, challenged and supported by smart, funny, capable people.
This article is about a darker aspect of privilege, and what our times are both causing, revealing, and challenging us to consider at a broader, societal level.
I promised not to opine about the Conditions directly, but I will write about related issues, because these things touch all of us. ALL of us.
First, let’s define the term:
Privilege:
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
In many cases, we assign privileges to ourselves. We deserve this, that or the other. It is also an unfortunate aspect of our humanity that a great many of us- if not all- decided at some level that some of us, deserve more than the Other Guy.
That may be by right of more money, a bigger and more muscled body, greater beauty, lineage and title, skin color, country of origin, bigger gun, implicit or explicit power, you name your superiority argument.
Class status, caste and other aspects can determine who doesn’t and who does have the privilege of a decent place to live, access to healthcare and clean water, and in these times, who gets to escape to nicer places to wait out the virus.
Good writers are casting a Klieg light on how humans see privileges.
One of our Illumination writers the other day noted that Africa had just been hit. If you travel extensively, and I have, I know first-hand what that means. It is simply incomprehensible. If you are privileged, as am I, to be in a nice, warm house, with full cupboards, exercise equipment, sources of entertainment and healthcare through the VA should I need it, then the situation billions face right now has got to land in your gut. I have extended family from Myanmar to Thailand to Mafia Island to Kenya to Tanzania to Ethiopia. Some of them are in ill health and they live ten to a room with nothing more than hope, faith and an aspirin. Not privileged.
I wear a Coptic Christian cross around my neck not as a believer, but because it’s a gift from an Ethiopian family in Lalibela. The parents are old, delicate, a brother struggles from the effects of a series of strokes in his twenties. They live crammed into a tiny home. They are in extreme danger.
Class systems and privilege in everyday life
If you’ve ever flown, you’ve seen the implicit class system at work. Most airlines (even the superb and fun Southwest) have a deeply-entrenched class system, driven by money. First Class and extreme frequent fliers board first, get the best seats, food, and treatment. The hoi polloi are loaded on like cattle and often treated as such. We are crammed into tiny seats (even as we all get bigger), given peanuts, if that, and have to pay for better seats, luggage and any basic minor conveniences. Someday, watch this space, we’ll have to pay to pee.
At one point in America, we did have to pay to pee, for the crime of being a woman.
You may think that’s funny. Many, many years ago women’s toilets had a pay-to-pee setup on the door. No dime? No relief. Men could walk outside and piss at will. Women had to pony up money for the privilege of relieving themselves. Who came up with the idea? Walt Disney. Yeah. That guy. That requirement is still in place in many poor countries, where you have to pay for two sheets of TP to use in a filthy squat toilet. And you’re happy to do it.
Caste Systems
India’s caste system is among the most brutal in the world. While there is resistance to it, it is an horrific example of institutionalized injustice:
There is no such thing as equality anywhere, if for no other reason than humans have an addiction to wanting to feel superior to someone else. Anyone else.
We aren’t much better in America. Our history of genocide and institutionalized racism is in its own way, just as bad. The way we strip women of any color of their rights and privileges simply because they are women is an embarrassment in what we like to think is the greatest country in the world. The way we strip Black men and Brown men of their futures through mass incarceration, well.
Some years back the extraordinary George Carlin did a very important piece on rights. Warning: Carlin’s worse than I am with language:
How is our Condition creating both awareness and throwing light on privilege, both real and assumed?
Plenty of examples;
The privileged are heading out to resort areas, spreading the virus, where there is little infrastructure to deal with the damage.
The privileged are leaving big cities like lemmings, spreading out all over America, like Typhoid Mary, in many cases, asymptomatic for now. And potentially leaving death and destruction in their wake.
People who think that because they are young, or old, or American, or whatever special sauce they think they have are spreading the virus because the rules don’t apply to then. They have rights, and those rights and privileges mean they don’t have to play by the rules.
But it’s bigger than that
And the privileged, which in many cases are those with power, are taking advantage of the privilege of that power, to strip rights and privileges all over the world under the guise of protecting the rest of us.
and this:
As for our own back yard, there’s this:
I would ask that each of us put what we seem to think are “God-given” rights and privileges some serious thought. Carlin’s scathing assessment of these unsubstantiated assumptions forces us to ask critical questions:
Who deserves what?
Who deserves to have food, shelter, water?
Who deserves to have adequate care?
Who gets what and why, based on what arbitrary or humanitarian standards?
You and I might ponder privileges, and take note of which of those so-called God-given privileges are stealthily being removed by immensely evil people taking advantage of this Condition. Because kindly, if they are indeed God-given, why are they so easily ripped away from us?
Indeed if such rights were universal than all countries would have them, all people would enjoy them, and the protection of those rights would be assumed. Of course they aren’t.
Kindly, if I may I pose an additional question:
Who should have the privilege of leading? influencing? determining aspects of our future and quality of life?
For where you and I can vote, we must.
VOTING IS A PRIVILEGE.
So is leading our respective countries, municipalities, and any other position that requires a Democratic majority vote.
That privilege is earned. Just as eyeballs on our stories, and the income we derive thereof, privileges are earned.
Smart, capable writers are informing us not only of what our Conditions are but what is happening at the same time to our countries, our world and all the creatures in it.
We have the privilege of life. With that life, the way I see it (and this doesn’t make me right) I believe that with that privilege comes great responsibility. Perhaps because I’m a military veteran, I think that being aware of what is being taken from us right under our noses is part of what it means to be a citizen in a free society, such as we may or may not be.
Trump loves oppressive regimes and dictators. If you don’t think what they are doing isn’t immensely attractive, please. Wanna see what repressive looks like? North Korea has nothing on this guy:
This is a voting year. If it is in your country, please vote. People have risked everything to move to countries where that sacred right isn’t just a privilege, but in some places, it’s the law to vote.
People have been jailed, murdered, crucified, bullied, beaten, tortured and far worse for the privilege of choosing who has the privilege to lead.
You may not agree with that. That of course is your perfect right. I’ve traveled to countries where people didn’t have that privilege. What those good people have to say about being able to self-determine, the chance to have a say in who sits at the top, might change you forever.
When all is said and done, and we assess where we are in whatever new world we inhabit, you and I might wish that we had indeed exercised that privilege.
If you and I want to retain rights and privileges,even the most basic, then I entreat you to exercise one of the most sacred:
VOTE.
Just, please. Vote.
And because I am determined to end this on a high note, I want to honor my friend Ann Litts who in piece yesterday pointed out a few things about privilege:
Nurses and doctors are starting to die. For the privilege of helping keep us alive.
She wrote:
I’m an ex-convict. I have AIDS. I’m a prostitute. I’m poor. I’m old. I’m a lesbian. I aborted my baby. I’m a teenage mom. I’m a victim of rape. I’m a drug addict. I’m an alcoholic. I’m a beggar. I have cancer. I have a contagious disease…but the nurse said — I’ll take care of you.” — Anonymous
It is our privilege to have nurses like Ann.
It is my privilege to call her friend.
And it is my privilege to write for, challenge, engage, poke the ribs of and invite the members of my Medium community to take stock. Be grateful. Be watchful.
As I wrote in another article just this morning, choice is power. Please let’s choose to act to ensure that the word choice still means something in our future. You and can act. We can talk to each other. Inform each other. And encourage each other to remain vigilant, informed, engaged, and when the time comes, vote.
Let’s please consider taking those privileges seriously.
Shikoba.
