You’re Not A Bad Person: How Facing Privilege Can Be Liberating

When we have privilege, we can have access to resources resulting from legal or social norms related to membership in a group -- independent of any (in)action, awareness of the disparity, the potential benefits to us, or the costs to others. Unhelpful ways of engaging with privilege are: denial/invisibility, guilt/shame, defensiveness, and entitlement. Helpful ways of engaging are: owning privilege, learning about privilege, opening to feedback, and stewarding privilege for benefit of all. To be helpful we need to engage with necessary (rather than unnecessary) discomfort.