Throughout history, people have simplified the wonders around them to explain phenomenons they couldn’t understand. Yet by doing this, they tried to push further in oversimplifying individual’s lives weighing some more than others. The lighter one’s skin, the more power they expected. Obedient females who fit society 's beauty standards were adored while outspoken women were ridiculed. For thousands of years anyone who didn’t identify as cisgender or staight had their agency and lives stripped from them. So what is privilege? Essentially privilege is the “special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to one person or group of people”(Merriam-Webster). To some it shows up in beneficial ways but to others their unchosen fate
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When my family first came to the United States, we had nothing. Yet although I spent the first years of my life in a studio apartment sleeping on the ground, my dad managed to gain citizenship and by high school I lived in a town so ridiculously wealthy, it was placed sixth in the “Top Ten Snobbiest Cities in California”. I grew up around self made billionaires, attended an amazing public school, and had dedicated teachers and mentors pushing me towards a successful future. Ta-Nehisi Coates discussed in his memoir, Between the World and Me, how black children were required to be “twice as good” and essentially “accept half as much” (p.90-91). I never had to face this kind of fear and discrimination for my appearance in the town I grew up in. Yet despite that, I lived in a two bedroom house with six people. I had to take ESL classes because english was not our main language spoken at home and stayed hungry for days just so we could pay the mortgage. Sharing a room with all of my siblings made us all very close and when we did get to go out to eat dinners we appreciated it much more than any of my friends who ate out every night. The benefits and experiences I gained from these sacrifices my parents made were absolutely worth it in the
When my family first came to the United States, we had nothing. Yet although I spent the first years of my life in a studio apartment sleeping on the ground, my dad managed to gain citizenship and by high school I lived in a town so ridiculously wealthy, it was placed sixth in the “Top Ten Snobbiest Cities in California”. I grew up around self made billionaires, attended an amazing public school, and had dedicated teachers and mentors pushing me towards a successful future. Ta-Nehisi Coates discussed in his memoir, Between the World and Me, how black children were required to be “twice as good” and essentially “accept half as much” (p.90-91). I never had to face this kind of fear and discrimination for my appearance in the town I grew up in. Yet despite that, I lived in a two bedroom house with six people. I had to take ESL classes because english was not our main language spoken at home and stayed hungry for days just so we could pay the mortgage. Sharing a room with all of my siblings made us all very close and when we did get to go out to eat dinners we appreciated it much more than any of my friends who ate out every night. The benefits and experiences I gained from these sacrifices my parents made were absolutely worth it in the