Point of Personal Privilege

I’d like to take a step back from my usual content and use this legislative procedure to talk about my own advantages in life.

In parliamentary speak, a point of personal privilege is an opportunity for a legislator can take time to speak on the floor whether or not it directly relates to the issue being considered. I feel like it is an apt title to discuss privilege, division, and the denial of the issues we face as Americans.

At this point, an empty legislative chamber is a productive legislative chamber.

I’ve grown up in the suburbs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for 40 years. I have never lived anywhere else, and the farthest I’ve lived from my hometown took less than a Friends episode to travel. In many ways, this has created its own unique bubble that I lived in, on top of my the many privileges I enjoy.
Now, gripping national crises have been known to find their way here, but they’ve never started here — at least not that I can remember.

I’ve been writing an article for a while now, but have had no interest to finalize it during these times. I had wanted to write about these issues that are paralyzing the nation, but I felt like it wasn’t the right time, and I would’ve left that I was trying to capitalize on personal and community tragedy, like so many others have been doing.

Minneapolis is not my city. I do not live here. But in a way it is still a home. If I listed some of my fondest memories of my life, of living in this state, many of them happened in the great city of Minneapolis.

In short, while this surprised none of us that lived here, it pained me in a way that I not ready to confront.

In our political lexicon, we have terms that fit well for the complicated problem trying to be described, but don’t fit the common or dictionary use of the term. Among others, ‘privilege’ is on this list, and I think does cause many to get defensive. I have always understood and accepted the privilege I own in many categories and am still forced into a defensive state when someone approaches it in such an abrasive manner.
This is often done by white allies like myself, which shouldn’t be surprising since they have all the passion in the world, with none of the direct experience or personal necessity that change requires. The best videos, even just recently, when it comes to privilege are always going to be posted by POC who have lived it and have an immense amount of empathy for their white allies and adversaries who might still be trying to learn. There have also been wonderful articles written about it with true empathy, and this has always been one of my favorite of all time.

One of many massive protest crowds around the United States

My experience with white privilege and how I know I have it when so many others deny it is very simply:

I don’t know it exists. Which, frankly, is how I know it exists.

This doesn’t just apply to white privilege — though I would argue it is easily the most aggressively beneficial privilege to possess. You can have economic privilege, gender privilege, orientation privilege, among many others.
Some privileges are based on demographics either. I would make the argument (and so would heaps of data) that being attractive or intelligent builds you a privilege that you are unable to see or understand. However, none of them is more impossible to escape in American than racial privilege.

I have never had a confrontation with an officer and suspected it was because of my skin color. When I am being trailed by a cop, my first instinct is always to figure out what dumb traffic violation did I just commit.
I also have an expectation that they will treat me with fairness, dignity, and judicial restraint. This has always happened without fail, even when I’ve had the pompous attitude to mouth off to them.

There are dozens of examples if you just sit back and listen.
Listen without judgment or defense.
There are nearly 8 billion people in this world and we all have unique experiences. We are used to always having our stories told — in the news media, in entertainment, or in the schools — so it can be very easy to dismiss a rational truth that doesn’t fit with what we’ve been taught. Until a deer gets to tell a story, history will always glorify the hunter.

Reach out to people you know with a different experience than you have and open up your mind to learn and empathize with their struggle. This doesn’t mean that you have to change your worldview or change how you believe the world should be in the future. But if you are not challenging the one experience you have lived your whole life — and this goes for everyone — then you’re not growing as a person.

Racism isn’t learned and anyone with kids has seen it firsthand.

No one is saying that your life isn’t hard.
No one is saying that you don’t struggle every day.
But, for us, our struggles in life will never be made worse based on who we are and that is a privilege that we will never be able to actually recognize, until much like faith, we choose to accept it based on the overwhelming testimony of so many others.

I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with this piece. My heart hurts. I am tired. I see people I care about in pain. And I see a narrative that is based in self preservation.
To give others what they have always deserved and what you have always had will not take something away from you. Inalienable freedom is not a finite resource.

Now is not a time for us to stand up and be heard.
Now is a time for us to stand up and listen.