I feel like people are going to hate me for saying this, but I'm being genuine here. I try hard not to step on anyone's toes - I feel that every person's story and/or experience is valid. Here's mine.
I moved to a very progressive city about 10 years ago and started going to a liberal arts university about 4 years in. I am working on a psychology degree. My school, and the rest of the world, have been having the conversation about white privilege for the last few years. I have taken many classes including one called Diversity, Power, and Privilege, which focused a lot on issues of race and disability, as well as privilege that white people have in this country (USA). I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on the idea and I try to recognize situations where I might have privilege over other people.
The problem is, sometimes I find myself feeling extremely resentful of my so-called "privilege." I come from Kentucky - I have a white trash family that was riddled with abuse - sexual, physical, emotional, and verbal. My brother and I were tortured. My mom and her sisters before us were tortured. Our lineage is crawling with mental illness and incest and addiction and poverty. I myself have struggled with mental illness for over 20 years. I fight to stay alive every single day - I fight my own brain so that it will not cave in on itself. Is this really what privilege looks like? White skin doesn't always = opportunity. Every odd has been stacked against me for my entire life, except for the fact that my skin is white (My family and I are Lebanese, btw, but that's another story).
Anyway, I'm just having trouble reconciling this in my head. I don't like to play the victim. I'm not a victim. I'm tough as nails after what happened to me. But sometimes I feel a little resentful about my privilege.
That is all. Thanks for reading.
Submitted December 09, 2018 at 04:17AM by OkOther https://ift.tt/2QDUiGw
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