TRANSCRIPT
I’m going to speak about the subject of privilege. I have thought about doing a video on this for a long time, actually. I think over the years, I’ve actually tried to make this video a few times and trust turned off the camera part way through. I felt by it, maybe I’ll do the same now. We’ll see. If you’re watching this, presumably I am going forward with it.
Well, I think a big part of why I want to avoid this subject, or have avoided it so much, is it’s become such a big topic in society. There’s all this baggage attached to what is labeled as privilege and often what is privilege. I see it differently, and that’s why I think I feel motivated to speak about this subject.
I’ve also had that label of privilege stuck on me as a sort of weaponized thing. I’ve been attacked because of my privilege or what people perceive my privilege to be. My natural reaction, and I think a lot of people’s natural reaction, is when they get attacked over something to withdraw and become defensive or to not want to speak about it. I certainly can understand that. So here goes.
Privilege. Privilege for me, well yes, obviously I have certain privileges and I see them here in America. I have a place to live. I have friends. My race certainly makes it easier to be privileged in this society in a lot of ways. Being white, there is certainly some male privilege that I’ve experienced in a lot of different ways also.
What other privileges? A big one I see when I travel around the world is my United States passport. It opens a lot of doors. Other people can’t get into certain countries or have to pay exorbitant visa fees to get into countries, etc., etc. My passport isn’t the best. I’ve seen other people be able to cross borders when I can’t get across those borders because of the privilege of their passport.
Also, educational privilege. Financial privilege as the result of my education, being able to do different jobs and be sort of outside of the system in some way and still be able to function. All definite signs of my privilege. The privilege also of, while still having a good mind related to my youth. I think yes, I’m in my 50s now, but my brain’s still working well. I consider that an incredible privilege. My memory is still working. I really appreciate that ability to learn languages, some musical gift that is a kind of privilege. Any gift I think that any of us have, that is a privilege.
So probably in rather conventional societal form, I’m speaking about my privileges and acknowledging them up front because I do that in life. I think it’s not a bad thing to do to be very open about, yes, these are the privileges that I have. These are the gifts that life has given me.
The key is what differentiates me from a lot of people who I’ve heard talk about privilege, and especially people who have attacked me for having certain privileges, is the implication they’ve had when they attacked me for my privilege. They say I’m supposed to feel guilty. I don’t feel guilty because to me, feeling guilty means I’ve done something wrong. I’ve made an error. I’ve done something harmful. And privilege is just something that I’ve been given, a gift of life.
So for me, what I’ve seen is that everybody loves their privilege deep down. Everybody likes having whatever privileges they have, and everybody has some privileges. Nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to feel ashamed about. And this is the key thing for me: it’s what do we do with our privileges?
I think when people have privileges and they use them to harm others, they use them for troubled selfish means. And what I mean by troubled selfish means is that they use their privileges to further their false self, not the core of who they really are as a person, the essence of the beauty within them. But instead, use their privilege to think that they’re inherently better than others in some core fundamental way, that they use to step on other people, to exploit other people. Then yeah, feel guilty about that because that’s rotten. It’s how they use their privilege that becomes the problem, not the fact that they have it.
For me, and this is key, this is why I really don’t feel guilty about my privilege, is that I want to use my privilege for the common good. Yes, for the good of my true self. And what I mean by that is the true self, the core of me. I want to grow. I want to manifest. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to work out my traumas. I want to use my brain. I want to use my inner core of emotional strength. I want to use my time, my freedom. I want to use my ability to think and write to figure out my history, to work out who I am, to turn my finger onto the people who harmed me and say, “You harmed me.” It takes a lot of strength to do that. It’s a real privilege to have the strength, in my case, and I’ve seen it for others, to be able to turn to our traumatizers and say, “Ah, not acceptable. Boundary.”
Now this is what happened. This is what you did to me. This is how it harmed me. And internally to begin to heal. Actually, above all other privileges that I have, I think that’s the number one that I have: my capacity to grow and heal. My capacity to become a better person, to become, you know, to look back and to see who I was, this troubled self-hating creature who turned around and hurt other people and did things that violated other people’s rights just like I was violated. I was a kid who was in many ways like my parents. I was a reflection of them. I was living in their circle and I was doing what they thought was right to me, and it wasn’t right.
The fact that I changed, the fact that I’ve become so much healthier, so much more self-loving, and as a result, loving of others, respectful of others, that is an incredible privilege, and I am proud of it. All the other privileges that I have in my life, I have used primarily to further this primary privilege. And so out in the world, I try to share what I have learned. I try to be loving. I work hard to be loving, to be generous, to be caring, to put my energy into nurturing the best of others, not enabling them.
Many people are so disconnected from their true self that the ways in which they want to be loved are ways that actually just harm their own true selves more. I don’t want to participate in this. Actually, that’s part of a privilege also, to be able to see, “Ah, this is enabling. This is actually nurturing true growth.” And I really work hard to try to focus on this side more. I do make mistakes sometimes. Sometimes I give in the wrong ways, but mostly I try to use my insight, the privilege of this insight, to nurture people more in this way.
And what I have come to when the subject of privilege comes up out in the world, and not infrequently it does, especially when I’m out in really, really poor countries where people have, on an overt level, so much less, not only externally but often internally too. What I say to myself, and if it comes up in conversation, is for me, with privilege comes responsibility. More privilege equals more responsibility. More responsibility to share, to share of the best of myself, to share love, insight, wisdom, nurturance, caring.
I think about this YouTube channel as like this. This is a reflection of my privilege. This is a reflection of the privilege that I have gained in my life to be able to share this. And I want to share it easily, openly, authentically, and for free. I don’t want ads on this channel. I don’t want to ask anything for anyone. If people want to give back to me, if people want to share something with me, great. There are ways of doing it. But the big thing that I want is to share a message, a freely given message to anyone who has access to YouTube, so I can make use of my life.
Because what I find also is having some of these privileges that I have, a big part of it is I want others to have them too, and a lot…
Of this, I recognize how rare some of these privileges are. The privilege to really grow, break out of the family system, become more honest, become more authentic, to have my voice back again. That voice which I lost for so long, that’s why I know it’s a privilege, because I didn’t have it for a long time, and now I do. And it’s like I want to use it. I want to help, but I also know it’s really hard.
Another thing is, back in the day, I think of my time in my early 20s. There was no internet, or it was just starting. There was no YouTube. I remember searching on the internet back in the 90s so much, looking for anything related to these ideas, reading psychology books all over the place and finding almost nothing. It’s like now, it’s like whoa, life has given me an opportunity. This is part of my responsibility.
If I was going to frame it negatively, I would say it’s almost a compulsion: share, share, share! Get it all out, get everything out there to be useful to others. And that feels great, but I want to get back. I think I don’t want to end on a negative note, but that’s just sort of where my mind went. I’m sorry.
That idea of labeling people with privilege in a sort of weaponized way, attacking people for their privilege, a lot of times it’s the external privileges: the race, the gender, the whatever, the money, the blah blah blah. That’s what I’ve seen. It doesn’t always, sometimes small exceptions where one’s race, one’s gender, where you even technically have the privilege thing can bring certain harm.
I’ve had some times when I’m traveling in certain places in the world where people say, “You can’t go there. You can’t go there because of your race. You will, you’re just an instant target. It’s too dangerous for you.” Well, if you were this color or that color or looked this way or that way, then you’d be welcome, but you’re not because of x, y, z. So I’ve seen that sometimes. It’s not always, but in some places, it’s like me being me externally doesn’t work so well.
But actually, I think really this is the minor thing. The really big thing that I wanted to say is the privilege of growing, the privilege of having insight, of becoming healthier, of becoming more emotionally connected. That’s the real privilege. And with this, I really do see it and I feel it. With this privilege, and I think fundamentally of all the other trickled down privileges, the more metaphorical privileges, the external ones that society likes to focus on, with all of these comes a responsibility to be better people, to be useful to others, to be useful in this world of such deprivation.
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