September 2015
Privilege.
It is autumn again. The leaves are scraping against the ground as the wind moves them along and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the students are entering into their full rhythm.
Just a year ago that was me--
trying to take it all in.
Except you can never take it all in, not here.
There is too much to take it all in.
I can't help thinking about the privilege it is to be here.
Privilege.
A heavy and problematic subject.
Today though I don't write about the privilege that allows you to enter or the privileges you may have as you leave a prestigious institution like Harvard.
My thoughts are about the privilege of being here--not the before, not the after--though those are important issues to discuss. They are about how that privilege allows you to see the world differently. And how that can enable you to enable others.
Last year I took part in a class in which I was able to hear bits and pieces of life stories of Harvard students from the Kennedy School of Government, the School of Education, the School of Public Health, the School of Design, as well as MIT.
This is what I wrote after that experience:
Privilege.
It is autumn again. The leaves are scraping against the ground as the wind moves them along and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the students are entering into their full rhythm.
Just a year ago that was me--
trying to take it all in.
Except you can never take it all in, not here.
There is too much to take it all in.
I can't help thinking about the privilege it is to be here.
Privilege.
A heavy and problematic subject.
Today though I don't write about the privilege that allows you to enter or the privileges you may have as you leave a prestigious institution like Harvard.
My thoughts are about the privilege of being here--not the before, not the after--though those are important issues to discuss. They are about how that privilege allows you to see the world differently. And how that can enable you to enable others.
Last year I took part in a class in which I was able to hear bits and pieces of life stories of Harvard students from the Kennedy School of Government, the School of Education, the School of Public Health, the School of Design, as well as MIT.
This is what I wrote after that experience:
"I am not here with 'privileged' people in the way that you may think of them. My group of students includes a student of low socioeconomic background who left his trailer home to struggle as a first generation college student, a woman who was stopped multiple times at a ballot box in the United States because she was suspected not a citizen by racial profiling, a black man who had watched his father beat his mother after which he and his mother fled in the middle of the night, and a woman from Palestine who had seen men dragged through the streets of Gaza with blood running off of their bodies. This is not privilege. Yet, their decisions have led them to this 'privileged' institution. And I find it a privilege to be surrounded by these people."
I remember looking around the room at the people who had just shared their experiences. I shared what an honor it was to be with them.
The decisions they had made that led them to be able to make changes in the world.
The privilege of Harvard is being surrounded by a diverse group of people who have come against challenges and found ways to overcome them. The privilege is in learning their stories and allowing their stories to change your story.
I wish sometimes we could change the way we see privilege. Instead of seeing it as an imbalanced scale, could we rather look at it as a water source that can not only strengthen our growth, but also others' as well.
We talk about avoiding "deficit thinking" when considering the abilities and situations of various groups of people, but don't we have somewhat of a deficit thinking when it comes to privilege? That there is a limited amount to go around, and we've got to make sure everyone has the same amount?
Why do we only look at privilege in terms of something that helps us, instead of recognizing the potential privilege provides to not only help ourselves, but help others?
Instead of trying to even out the playing cards, can we use our playing cards to help others in the game?
What if you, and I, and all of us, looked at the privileges we have as a responsibility? A responsibility to lift others and expand their understanding through our own experiences, as my classmates did to me? A responsibility to help others obtain the advantages that we so greatly have benefited from?
Until we see privilege in this way, there will never be enough to go around.
I wish sometimes we could change the way we see privilege. Instead of seeing it as an imbalanced scale, could we rather look at it as a water source that can not only strengthen our growth, but also others' as well.
We talk about avoiding "deficit thinking" when considering the abilities and situations of various groups of people, but don't we have somewhat of a deficit thinking when it comes to privilege? That there is a limited amount to go around, and we've got to make sure everyone has the same amount?
Why do we only look at privilege in terms of something that helps us, instead of recognizing the potential privilege provides to not only help ourselves, but help others?
Instead of trying to even out the playing cards, can we use our playing cards to help others in the game?
What if you, and I, and all of us, looked at the privileges we have as a responsibility? A responsibility to lift others and expand their understanding through our own experiences, as my classmates did to me? A responsibility to help others obtain the advantages that we so greatly have benefited from?
Until we see privilege in this way, there will never be enough to go around.
