I remembered something the other day. I had revamped my Couchsurfing profile in the morning, and one of the (optional) questions was for ethnicity. I declined to answer, as I normally do when asked that question on a form, but seeing that surely contributed to the revelation I had later on: It’s easy to forget the privilege of being white, or being male, or being from the upper-middle class. Everything is a little easier for being any one of those things, and while a combination of all three doesn’t hand the world to you on a silver platter, it means that you start the game off with a serious societal advantage. There’s a certain amount of guilt and discomfort that goes along with recognizing such privilege, and some people I know have thought a lot more about it than I have. But because I don’t think about it frequently, I always appreciate being reminded of the privilege, because most of all it makes me grateful. What are your thoughts about privilege?
