Privilege is not an insult. It is not a belittlement, it’s not an assault on your character and it is not meant to make you feel guilty when you haven’t done anything wrong. When someone tells you that you have privilege, they’re not saying that you have never struggled. They’re telling you that you have not shared a specific struggle. Now, I get why someone would be insulted at being told they’re privileged. Hell, when I was first confronted about my privileges, I was offended. “Who are you to tell me that I have not struggled?” I thought. But now I know that’s not what they meant.
My dad frequently tells me, “If the worst thing that ever happens to you is that you go to bed without dinner, then that is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you”. It seems redundant, but what he means is that unless you have an experience, you can’t truly relate to someone who has. You cannot compare suffering, in whatever form it takes. If someone tells you “I suffer from an eating disorder”, you do not have the privilege of telling them that you can relate unless you too have suffered from an eating disorder. Even if you’ve suffered from other forms of self-harm, they are not the same. You may sympathize, you may be supportive, but you have the privilege of never battling an eating disorder; which is a good thing.
Caption: We need to support equality in all its forms.
It is okay to accept your privilege and own it. I get told almost every time I mention my ethnicity that I’m not really Hispanic because my skin isn’t dark enough or my Spanish isn’t fluent enough, so I don’t know what it is like to be a Hispanic American. They’re not wrong. I will never know the experiences of having a darker pigment, or of not being understood because of my accent or of having to obtain citizenship in a new country. I have the privilege of being white (for all intents and purposes) and that’s okay. So when my Hispanic friends discuss lingual miscommunications or being called a maid, I’ve learned to let them vent. I won’t ever be asked to grab ice in a hotel, or be asked to speak clearer in a meeting. I have that privilege, and that’s okay.
So when someone points out your privilege to you, try not to get upset. It’s likely they’re not coming from a malicious place, but from injustices that have been dealt. Try to listen to what they have to say, because you might learn something.