Week Three: Privilege

Privilege is something that has existed and will exist (unfortunately) as an ongoing entity. It is a challenging and interesting exercise to speak of because it is something that I myself, am still figuring out. As a person who came from Houston, TX the oil and gas capital of the USA, the level of privilege that exists there is immense; wether it be race, sex, age, language, education, and even income. With that said, my own privilege being a white male in todays society has me "ranked" if you will in society as being on a higher rung up the social ladder. And then there are the people who say "oh no I don't see race" haha okay, as Peggy McIntosh pointed out for her own self realization, "I repeatedly forgot each of the realization on this list until I wrote it down." This is something that I can also second and continue to as I am constantly being reminded the more and more I grow in life. It is not something that is pointed out to you, but just happens in front of your very owns eyes, and these "happenings" become your world, your life, your privilege.

While I have always known preset privileges existed around us, up until these past few years I have just seen just how much of an un earned benefit someone gets in their life just by the acknowledgement of somebody's own identity. In closing I think this picture will do a fantastic job as a visual for my thoughts.

Sources/Additional Readings:
http://www.colorlines.com/articles/why-we-still-need-talk-about-privilege
http://media.wix.com/ugd/87d3d4_5bf06e65e2e94a7fb5f1852c9a249e03.pdf

Image:
http://www.justiceislove.org/power-and-privilege/