Coming to realize my experience with unpacking privilege is unusual. I grew up knowing damn well I was privileged. Knew that some things which work out fine for me would never have flied if I was in my latina immigrant mother’s position. Knew that my struggles were barely anything with the deck so stacked so heavily in my favor. For me, racial justice was never a matter of learning to question everything I took for granted. I learned about a lot of additional ways the deck was stacked as I got older, but those were details. Never a fundamental restructuring of reality.
Instead, what I had to unlearn was the fucking idea that life is an Olympic sport. It isn’t. My successes are not getting graded on an effort curve against all the people for whom they are harder. I cannot fix other people having disadvantages in getting what they need by refusing to use my comparative advantages to get what I need. Indeed, I should often be USING. MY. UNFAIR. ADVANTAGES. to get people what they need when they can’t get it themselves. Fixing the system that keeps them unable to do so is a long term project, and they’ve got lives in the meantime.