What You Can Do With Your Privilege

Don’t shove it, don’t deny it, use your power for good

Are you white? Are you a man? Pretty? Straight? Able-bodied? Do you have power of any kind? Do you lead a family, a company, a classroom, a country? Do you have a cell phone? Some privileges are great and some small. Some are earned and some got by chance. But whatever your privilege, you can use it for good.

The number of black people dying at the hands of police — or people who think they’re police — in the United States is unacceptable. Can anyone deny that? The latest atrocity comes out of Minneapolis, where police interrupted a “forgery in process” (What was George Floyd doing? Drawing?) held a 46-year-old unarmed black man face down on the sidewalk until his nose bled, and put a knee on his neck until he passed out. He died soon after.

A group of citizens saw the abuse and tried to stop it. One filmed it on her phone and posted it on social media. Had she not done that, no one would know what really happened. The police didn’t mention the knee on the neck, the bleeding nose, the repeated cries of “I can’t breathe” in their report.

Police officers are privileged to hurt other people. They lie about what happens to protect that privilege, and themselves. But observers are also privileged.

We all have some privilege

Observers are privileged by technology, privileged by social media, to record what happens and spread the truth. They are privileged by having voices to speak up. Thank god that bystander didn’t slink away, frightened, to protect herself from those brutal men. Thank god she used her “free citizen” privilege.

Now things are happening about the death of George Floyd. People are protesting. Other people are listening, and it’s possible that bystander’s exercise of her small privilege will tip the scales of justice a tiny fraction toward Good.

In fact, it already has.

White mayor of Minneapolis Jacob Frey saw her video and immediately fired the police officer who kept his knee on Floyd’s neck and the three officers who stood by and watched as he did. That’s exactly what Frey should have done: fire the officers immediately — not put them on leave with pay, pending deliberation; not close ranks to protect members of his tribe. Frey used his privilege as a white man in power to fight injustice. That’s what privilege is good for.

Bystanders have blood on their hands

It’s an historical, spiritual and moral truth that bystanders must speak up when they see injustice, or Evil will prevail.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel knew it. “What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander,” he wrote in one of the 57 books he authored during his illustrious life.

Spiritual leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew it. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote in his brilliant Letter from Birmingham Jail. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Feminist thinker Kimberlé Crenshaw knew it when she invented the term “intersectionality” to describe how systems of power and oppression work together to harm all members of marginalized groups. So a black woman experiences misogyny differently than a white woman. So a blow to homophobia undermines Islamophobia too.

We are interdependent

I was reminded of our “inescapable network of mutuality” this morning when I read two stories in An Injustice!, a Medium publication I was glad to find.

White Women Need to Confront Their Complicity Regarding Systemic Oppression by Zuva

and

I Was That Girl by KC Compton.

Zuva’s headline speaks for itself: it’s an important reminder for white people like me (and Barbecue Becky, and Permit Patty, and the woman who called police and reported that she was being threatened when a black man asked her to leash her dog) to be aware of their privilege and make sure it’s not harming other people.

Compton’s story describes a horrific gang rape that occurred when she was an innocent teen and affected her for the rest of her life — that is still affecting her today. Had one single man in that blood clot of rapists (the new plural noun for rapist) had the courage to speak up, to protest the violation, things might have been different.

It’s hard to speak up. It puts your tribe membership in jeopardy, your ego in jeopardy, your body in danger, maybe even your life. But the surprising truth is, there are things worse than death.

Being Evil is worse than death.

Standing by and watching Evil operate is worse than death.

Here’s the truth. Had one single man stepped up to stop KC Compton’s gang rape? We would praise him as hero. We would call him courageous. We would say he made a noble sacrifice for a helpless human being.

But what that one man would know deep inside his human heart is that he didn’t do it only for KC Compton. He also did it for himself. He did it so he could sleep at night. So he could live a good life. So he could love himself, and therefore also love others. So he wouldn’t be an Evil man.

Benjamin Franklin understood that. “When you’re good to others, you’re best to yourself,” he wrote. And, “It is better to take many injuries than to give one.”

We are inherently good

Some people say that humankind is inherently Evil, so why bother struggling against it? That idea reached a crescendo after the horrific carnage of World Wars I and II. The theory found expression in books like Lord of the Flies and 1984 and “scientific proof” in studies like The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment.

But despite Western culture’s glorification of Evil, psychiatrists say that only 0.2 to 3 percent of us have antisocial personality disorder. And the real Lord of the Flies played out when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months and “made a pact never to quarrel.” Now some are saying we’re inherently Good.

The more ancient theory, and the basis of at least three of the world’s great religions, is that we have a choice; that in fact, the choice between Good and Evil is the central one that defines our lives.

And even if you aren’t religious, even if you don’t believe in Heaven and Hell, that choice — or those ongoing choices made daily — is still the most important one you’ll ever make.

So let’s assume you’ve chosen to be Good. Here’s the thing. It’s not enough to personally refrain from murdering, insulting, or assaulting others. It’s not enough to choose to be Good within your comfortable little bubble while Evil rampages around you.

They are privileged by technology, privileged by social media, to record what happens and spread the truth. They are privileged by having voices to speak up.

You also have to oppose Evil in others. You have to take out your phone. Post the video. File the complaint. Show up at the protest. You have make your voice heard.

Don’t imagine that you are powerless, your actions inconsequential. That’s a lame excuse. Have you heard about the effect of one butterfly’s wings? Did you notice what happened when many joined together in the #MeToo movement? Make no mistake. Your voice has great power. Your silence does, too.

Silence is what fuels “the banality of Evil” that allows atrocities like the Holocaust to occur. Silence is what gives free rein to hatemongers and evildoers as they wrest control of formerly free countries like Argentina and turn them into fascist states.

Now is the time to step up

Our world is in a precarious position right now. It seems that Mother Earth is trying to kill off the human species. (And can you blame her? We foul her air and water; destroy her plant and animal life; stand by and say nothing as She gets raped via fracking.) “Strongmen” leaders already run many countries and are rising to power in more. People fleeing those hellish landscapes are creating a worldwide refugee crisis while xenophobia spins out of control.

It all seems so hopeless.

But the global pandemic we’re in the midst of right now has pressed pause on the looming Apocalypse. It’s given us a moment to step off the churning wheel of destruction — to take a breath, look around, consider changing some destructive systems. To ponder our future as we shelter in place.

I first heard the term “imaginal cells” in this story in The Guardian by Rebecca Solnit. They’re what exists inside the chrysalis when a caterpillar is turning into a butterfly. Imaginal cells are no longer what they used to be, but not yet what they will become.

That’s what we all are now: imaginal cells. That’s the stage we’re living in: metamorphosis. But what will emerge from our chrysalis? We all have a chance to decide.

Because the truth is, we are privileged. If you’re reading this, you have a computer or a cell phone. You have Internet. You have Time. You can Read. I have no idea how many other privileges you might have, whether they are great or small, earned or gotten by chance. But I do know this — you can use your privilege. You can speak out for others, define your character, make your life matter.

You can tip the balance for Good.

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