Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label privilege

A Rose

Here’s the thing about privilege – it can be used in a positive way. Privilege has always been around.  Some people have forever had privilege.  We didn’t have a name for it when I was growing up, but it was there.  Those of us who had our own bedrooms as a kid – privilege.  Families who got to go out to eat at restaurants instead of eating tv dinners night after night – privilege.  Students who had their choice of university regardless of the cost – privilege. And I think I have understood the concept of it for quite a while, before I had a label for it, but called it “ luck ”.   Like, “We are so lucky that we get to travel a lot”.   Or “It sure is lucky we have a hybrid car because gas is so expensive!”.   But now I understand that those things often don’t happen because of luck.   They happen because of privilege – something I have through no work of my own, but society has “gifted” me.   So, whenever I can, I try to use my pri...

Swarm the Senate

I am privileged. Oh man, am I privileged. Not only do I have healthy food to eat, I have a grocery store I can walk to to buy it. I have a car and gas in the tank. I have a roof over my head.   A cozy bed (with a warm electric blanket!).   I have shoes (many pairs to choose from) and clothes to wear. I GET that I am privileged.   But days like today, oh man.   I am reminded how truly sheltered and naïve I am. I am an “armchair warrior”.   I talk the talk.   I hang the signs on my front gate.   But when push comes to shove… My sister Sherry and I joined an event called “Swarm the Senate” today.   It is a group of people (it seems mostly women) who have been showing up at the Hart Senate Office building in Washington DC at noon for the last 12 days.   They are peacefully demonstrating, demanding that trump be removed from office.   I had been wanting to go but hadn’t made time to do it.   Wit...