Privilege

What does it mean to have privilege?

I am a volunteer that doesn't make much money and can't afford anything extravagant. BUT, I have a house with my own room, groceries, health insurance - everything taken care of. I don't need anything else. I am also able to take myself out of this in 6 months. It's not like I'm living in this perpetual downward spiral where I look at myself in the mirror every morning and try to think of reasons why I'm proud to be part of my race. I'm a temporary guest of this poverty, one foot in the movie and the other in the audience watching. Or maybe it's 1/4 and 3/4 ratio. That might still be too generous.

Not that life is an easy journey, or that everything's always been peachy. I have been so blessed with the family I am part of and the education I've gotten in my life. With these advantages I am able to make choices. I used to think that options weren't something I wanted a lot of, because that just makes it harder to decide in the end. But I am so fortunate to be able to decide something that will affect my life even if it's as insignificant as what I want to wear in the morning.

I can choose.

I am affected by and learn from the people I am surround by at work, in the neighborhood, in the city. I've had some run-ins with locals and my first thoughts used to be and sometimes still are "you are crazy," or "why do you act this way?" And I can only conclude that it's part of their nature, of survival. I don't have to look in the mirror and think of reasons why I'm proud to be a white person, it's just second nature, something I don't have to think twice about.

Oh, life. Why must you be the way you are?

I am lucky to be the individual that I am. No one can choose who or when they will be born. I am learning how privileged I truly am.