Privilege

When discussing privilege, the aim should be to realize each other’s experiences as equally real and valid, with a sense of context and history.

A mainstream Christian who claims religious discrimination because someone wished them Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas rightfully offends a Jewish person whose business was grafittied with swastikas and death threats, or a Muslim woman wearing hijab who was surrounded by drunks and shoved and kicked and had a gun pulled on her or was pissed on.

A nondisabled person who complains of reverse discrimination because there are six handicapped spaces in front of Walmart that he has no access to is being an ass.

And I have been in scary situations as a white person, but the police never once assumed that I was a threat to them in routine interactions with me, and I have no one in my entire family who has ever experienced any kind of violence at their hands, no matter our behavior. (They have assumed that my autistic son was defiantly noncompliant for simply not understanding them immediately and acting exactly as they expected, which is absolutely horrifying, but they did LISTEN to me as a white person in a way that I have not seen them grant to people of color trying to explain the same situation.)

Can anyone fire you from your job without excuse or recourse simply for who you are? Because some lgbt people have to deal with that level of discrimination and difficulty.

ETC.

So, is my life all roses and lollipops? No, but I do acknowledge that I have more privilege than some, and that it makes a real difference in our lives.