Understanding Privilege

What is privilege? Today I defined this word precisely. During Dr. Dawson’s class today, we talked about this topic and in the beginning, one thing was certain: privileges are out our control and they don’t define who we are. However, they do give us the starting point. Dr. Dawson showed a video with an obvious example of how privileges work. A big number of young people stand in one line to race. A man starts to name different privileges and the people for whom those are true take two steps forward. By the end of the list of privileges, every single person has a different location (someone is in the front and someone is far in the back). And THIS is when young people start to race. Obviously, the ones in the front have an advantage and they are most likely to win the race, but it doesn’t mean that the people in the back can’t or shouldn’t race.

This is a spectacular metaphor for how privilege works in our life. What I think is important for all of us to remember is that we should acknowledge and appreciate the privileges we have and try to understand and help others who were not given the start that we were given.

Today we got to meet some underprivileged kids in the North Neighborhood House and make their day a little better and have fun together. This experience made me understand how privileged I am and how important it is to help others. I am really thankful for participating in this amazing program, which makes me think and learn a lot every single day.