A privileged position is comfortable and it is easy to accept it as an everyday norm. And for those privileged enough there is an absence of any contrasting experience.
The only true understanding of privilege can happen if it is taken away. After which every encounter with the world is devoid of its protection.
Even more important is to recognize that the absence of privilege is not a singular event but an ongoing state.
Invalidation and micro-aggressions are daily experiences for some people. And even though they are termed 'micro' their cumulative effect is anything but. Overtime they erode a person's sense of self worth and belonging.
So perhaps unidentified privilege is worse than hate. Because it aids, abets and normalizes.
This reminds me of a favorite quote:
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." — Elie Wiesel
To be privileged is not shameful in itself. To be unaware of it, perhaps, is where the real harm begins. Because unexamined comfort has a way of becoming a kind of armor, letting us mistake our fortune for our virtue, and our ease for the natural order of things. The armor is invisible to the one wearing it. It is only the person standing outside of it who feels the weight of its edges.
The work, then, is not guilt. Guilt is easy, and it changes nothing. The work is attention. Noticing the room you entered, the voice you were handed, the door that opened without asking for your name. Noticing who was not in the room, and why. And then, in small and continual ways, refusing to look away.
Because privilege, once truly seen, loses some of its silent power. It becomes a thing you can choose what to do with. You can keep it, and use it well, or open the door you walked through a little wider than it was opened for you.
The opposite of privilege is not poverty. The opposite of privilege is awareness. And awareness, unlike comfort, can be shared.