The letter G or H. I chose G for Gods and H for Help.
This post inspired by the level of SJW (Social Justice Work) terminology that appears to be needed in this country.
The institutionalized systems in this country are set up to favour some over others and this is what is meant by having (institutionalized) privilege. The people favoured the most are male, white, hetero, able-bodied folks. Everyone else is not as high up the helping ladder of society as they are. We all can be privileged in one area and not in another. This is called intersectionality. This does not erase the privilege we have. Dismantling these systems so everyone truly starts on a level paying is the ideal. But we’re dealing with humans here, so the second level ideal is mitigating as much as possible the effects of privilege in our everyday lives, from the micro-aggressions to the macro-aggressions. See the handy links below for longer explanations of terms I have used. Use the comments sections to tell me how wrong you think I am without having read the links.
Basic and clear definition of privilege and male privilege
Why an Ally’s job is to Listen
White feminism (yep, it’s a thing)
Please refrain from usage of the popular memes around this topic, including, but not limited to: #notallmen #notallwhitepeople #notallcops. For an explanation of why see this public Facebook post.
LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 
Reblogged this on Siren Afire and commented:
I really like that Bone is straight and to the point about this topic, and does not make this post about herself – she keeps the focus on the issues. As they say, don’t look at the finger, look at what it is pointing at (admittedly, “they” say it more eloquently than that.)
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Thanks for the links- I’m familiar but a lot of people aren’t, and I think it’s ironic how elitist so many activist type groups are in terms of expecting everyone to have a college education or the equivalent in terms of book-learning. I have a degree in political science (graduated in 2007) and been very involved in activisty stuff but I still can only half-understand a lot of the “SJ” bloggers. BTW, I think “white feminism” could be more properly described as something like “country club feminism” (or corporate board room feminism?) it excludes people by class, disability, and education not just race.
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People who aren’t in the country club crowd still benefit from white privilege, though. And the systems of oppression are diverse and there are intersections. But not everyone has all of them so I prefer separate terms even though shorthand is easier.
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Yes, but even in the “intersectional” analysis, it seems as if race is always treated as the most important, and disability & class are left out of the picture, and poor/working class esp. rural white people. I’ve had various conversations about race that I wouldn’t have been able to have if I didn’t make clear I grok the class issues and such. Try educating working class rural Heathens about “privilege” and you learn this stuff the hard way.
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Race is the easiest for obvious reasons to be the go-to example, but that is why speaking of intersectional issues is so important to me. Especially when it comes to poor/working poor and disabilities because it is easy to hear the term privilege as having things rather than “here’s the ladder, success is at the top, and which rung you start from varies by a diverse set parameters.” It has never been an easy conversation, but the ladder analogy has been very helpful to me to broach intersection. Along with using the word oppression in addition to privilege.
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