And So It Goes

A couple of months ago the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami had a series of discussions about 'white privilege".  I'm not a big fan of the word privlege, be cause I think advantage is more accurate. The following is an outline of the more common aspects of 'white privilege".

• Citizenship - Simply being born in this country affords you certain privileges non-citizens will never access.
• Class - Being born into a financially stable family can help guarantee your health, happiness, safety, education, intelligence, and future opportunities.
• Sexual Orientation - By being born straight, every state in this country affords you privileges that non-straight folks have to fight the Supreme Court for.
• Sex - By being born male, you can assume that you can walk through a parking garage without worrying you'll be raped and that a defense attorney will then blame it on what you were wearing.
• Ability - By being born able bodied, you probably don't have to plan your life around handicap access, braille, or other special needs.
• Gender - By being born cisgendered, you aren't worried that the restroom or locker room you use will invoke public outrage.
• As you can see, belonging to one or more category of Privilege, especially being a Straight White Middle Class Able-Bodied Male, can be like winning a lottery you didn't even know you were playing. But this is not to imply that any form of privilege is exactly the same as another or that people lacking in one area of privilege understand what it's like to be lacking in other areas. Race discrimination is not equal to Sex Discrimination and so forth.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote about a handicapper general that made us all equal, dancers carried extra weight, smart folks had implanted devises that scrambled thoughts, and the beautiful wore masks. When a couple escaped their, weights, mind altering devises, and masks it was something to behold. Unfortunately the handicapper general had to come out with a gun to shoot a couple that were free to search for truth, beauty and love. Dystopian for sure but... 

Boy would I like a UU talk back session about "white privilege" and Harrison Bergeron written by Vonnegut, who is one of the go to UU authors of modern times.