We are all living deep inside an oppressive legacy of social life organized around privilege, power, and difference. On some level, for example, most people know that gender is tied to a great deal of suffering and injustice, from discrimination and exclusion to violence and harassment to conflict between work and family roles. Millions of women are weary from the struggle simply to hang onto what's been gained, and many well-intentioned men do nothing because they can't see how to acknowledge what's going on without inviting guilt and blame simply for being male. The result is a knotted tangle of fear, anger, blame, defensiveness, guilt, pain, denial, ambivalence, and confusion. The more we pull at it, the tighter it gets.
Unraveling the knot of privilege begins with getting clear about what privilege really is, about what it's got to do with each of us, and about how everyone can see themselves as part of the process of change toward something better. Based on more than twenty years of work, I try to chart a course organized around three questions:
My most recent books, The Gender Knot and Privilege, Power, and Difference, are written from a deeply held belief that privilege and oppression are not inevitable features of human life and that the choices each of us make matter more than we can ever know. My work offers a practical, compassionate, and readable guide to understanding what we're stuck in and how to search for a way out.
Our House Is on Fire. A presentation given at an event hosted by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to announce its initiative to include race and racism in its long-term mission to aid and strengthen vulnerable children.
Photo: Mark Bennington