06-05-2018, 12:42 PM
(06-05-2018, 11:55 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Having a privilege is not evil nor elitist.
Owning a car is a privilege, but it doesn't make you bad or good, it's what you choose to do with that privilege that matters. If you refuse to acknowledge it as an advantage, and act as though others who don't have that advantage don't exist, or are bad because of their actions that result from not having a car, that's not a good thing.
(…)
When people get all defensive about their privileges being pointed out, it's an indicator that they feel guilty about them, which just isn't right...I feel no guilt about the many privileges I enjoy being a straight white male in North America, but it does open my eyes to the fact that other's don't have those advantages, and that I should seek to enable others who lack them to succeed as I am able to, partly through my own abilities, but also through the advantages I was born with.
I'm somewhat uncomfortable about all the "privilege" discussion recently. Apparently I have the privilege of being a male (although not everyone would view that as a privilege). I have the privilege of owning a car, although I don't use it often. I have the privilege of a home. I have the privilege of undivorced parents I have the privilege of a bicycle. I have the privilege of a paid non-minimum wage job. I have the privilege of eyeglasses. I have the privilege of government-paid health care (although my taxes certainly do contribute to that). I have the privilege of speaking fluent English (though not the privilege of speaking it as a first language). I have the privilege of literacy. I have the privilege of having been born in a first-world country. I have the privilege of living near an LRT stop. I have the privilege of a mobile phone. I have the privilege of being able to vote at free elections. And so on ...
What's my point with this list? Basically anything good that someone else does not have can be a "privilege". But that word has a an overloaded meaning, and often people imply that you should be sorry for your privilege and/or compensate in some way for having it.
Of course this is now way off topic for the LRT thread, and I regret having taken away everyone's privilege of focusing on LRT discussions in this thread.
