#BlackLivesMatter - What I've learnt

Without any ambition of teaching anything to anyone, I want to share my personal, incomplete journey of self-education in case it inspires others to embark on similar journeys.

Also, as the conversations around oppression of minorities seem to have quieted down a lot, it feels like a great time to publish these reflections.

Last month, I told a Black friend that I wanted to learn and better understand the concepts of privilege and oppression.

Like many others, I naturally perceive myself as a member of the human race (there are no other races) and try not to treat people differently according to any social category they may belong to - I consider everyone as individuals with their own ideas and habits, and have always thought of issues like racism as an individual responsibility.

But society does have those social categories kind of built in - even in countries where laws seem to have addressed such injustices - so, like with many other issues we're facing (climate crisis, wealth distribution inequalities, etc.), I started wondering what kind of collective responsibility we have that I was failing to notice.

My friend sent me a number of resources to educate myself (see list at the bottom of this article). I'm a white, male, gay, upper class, able, atheist adult and I'd love to share the highlights of my learning so far.

Systems of oppression are interwoven into our institutions

I can see that Governments and company boards are male-dominated. I'm well aware that two gay men hold hands in public at their peril, even in the most liberal cities. But there are systems of oppression that are more subtle than that and, until I focused my attention on it, I hadn't realised how widespread and elusive they were.

For example, I was educated to suppress a large part of the world. I learnt History, Geography, Art and Science from a white European perspective. I ignore the history of African queens and kings; I use maps that show disproportionately bigger Europe and US; I define artists in terms of their European counterparts ("he's Middle East's Picasso"); and I have no memory of non European/North American inventions. I was educated to assume there's nothing worth learning about anyone else. If I were of non-white-European descent, I would have no idea about my parents' and grandparents' world.

Along the same lines, there is documented historical and ongoing inequality in every major social institution, including education, employment, government, healthcare, family, criminal justice, sport and leisure, etc.

At multiple points in history, the people in power needed to justify their oppressing behaviours towards the others, and used any possible excuse (gender, skin colour, sexual orientation, religious faith, etc.) to denigrate them and instil such disdain in society. While in many countries there are laws that guarantee more equality, culture and institutions are still pervaded by that disdain. The LGBT community, for example, regularly sees its efforts to gain equal rights under the law rearticulated as seeking "special rights."

It's tough to recognise our own privilege...

... because it's unearned and unasked for. We were born into it.

This Social Identity Worksheet has helped me realise how many social categories are out there. For each category, whether I like it or not, whether I'm aware of it or not, I have an identity that I haven't asked for. It's also helped me notice that such identities can be a source of privilege in certain circumstances - where they give me benefits I haven't earned - and a source of marginalisation in others - where they give me hardship that I don't deserve.

It was only last month that I got verbally abused in Central London for having a foreign accent - accent which, on the other hand, would give me unearned benefits in the country where I was born. Funnily enough, I did know that marginalisation due to someone's nationality was a form of oppression, but I hadn't realised that the same thing was, in the appropriate country, a form of unearned privilege.

I was biased towards spotting oppression without realising that the other side of the coin is privilege.

Even research about privilege itself is biased. Most of research on inequality has always focused on oppression, not on privilege.

So, yes, it's not easy to recognise one's own privilege.

We must give up the myth of meritocracy

Not all my experiences are the result of my hard work. Many of them (if not all) are the result of or have been enabled by my privileged status. This doesn't make them less pleasant or less worth celebrating and rejoicing for, nor does it make me a bad person, but denying my privileged status would reinforce inequality and wouldn't help my search for justice and equality.

The enduring myth of meritocracy makes it exceedingly difficult to see inequality as institutionalised.

Thinking that equality has been reached because the law says so is blind privilege and reduces social problems to individual problems. And this is exactly what I used to think, that racism and other forms of oppression are responsibility of the individual. But I don't think so any more: they're built in the society that we've created.

The very classification of the different social categories is not real but socially constructed: race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, religious belief, etc. are classification systems constructed by society.

Denying privilege is a common, self-protecting response

I see why it can be tough to acknowledge my own privilege. In a mainstream culture that often idolises meritocracy and worships allegedly self-made people, acknowledging my privilege equates to disparaging my hard work, my life achievements or even my whole self.

When I grew up, I was taught that if I succeed, it's my merit, and if I fail, it's my fault. No room for excuses. No room for oppression- or inequality-based disadvantages. If you introduce privilege in this scenario, my worth declines, my achievements lose meaning, and my whole identity crumbles.

No wonder I feel almost innate resistance to acknowledging privilege.

Helping the oppressed requires lessening the privileged

This might be the toughest one.

Simply put, privilege is "an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day" (White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh, 1989). Now, while this may sound clear, if not obvious, there's an important corollary that I'd never thought about.

To me (and possibly many others), equality has always meant that the others - the more oppressed ones - need to be able to have access to all the resources that I - the more privileged one - have access to, but I don't necessarily need to change. Now, is that so?

This invisible package of unearned assets that I bank on daily is a resource built on someone else's oppression.

If I really want to promote equality, not only do I need to influence society to change, I need to give up that invisible package of unearned assets myself. I do need to change. I need to stop protecting my unearned advantage and I do need to give up something.

If this concept puzzles you, read McIntosh's essay (staggeringly published more than 30 years ago).

Racism is a systemic problem, not a label for some individual's acts

I don't see myself as racist because I was taught to look for racism in my acts, not in the whole system I bank on every day.

Racism, as well as all the other types of oppression, is not the problem of oppressed minorities and individuals who commit more explicit acts of oppression. It is an issue of the society I contribute to and draw resources from daily.

In every situation, I'm either oppressed or privileged.

Thinking I can be a spectator outside of this game is an illusion. While I haven't chosen which role I'm playing, I'm always part of the game and, therefore, I have the responsibility as well as the power to do something about it.

What next?

These are some of the actions/steps that have been helping me empathise with individuals who are from underrepresented social groups, and change my behaviours.

• Reflect on situations where I was a minority. How did I feel?
• Look for diversity. Pick a person that is different to me and have a conversation with them. Learn about their lives and challenges.
• Think of each social category (skin colour, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, ability, economic class, language, national origin, etc.). What opinions or images do I carry about individuals from each group? Are they positive or negative? How did I acquire them? What steps can I take to eliminate my biases?
• Recognise the pain individuals are bringing with them to the workplace, to school, etc. (even simple things like going to the bathroom can generate anxiety in transgender individuals, for example). Stop to hear their perspective.
• Since I'm always partaking in the oppressed/privileged game, most (if not all) of my everyday actions and decisions favour either group, whether I realise it or not (what products/brands I buy, where, how I invest my savings, how I use my spare time, what jokes I make, etc.). This gives me the power to influence change. Every day, I can ask myself: How am I going to use my power toward social justice?
• Above, I wrote that I need to stop protecting my unearned advantage and I do need to give up something. This is the biggest action item on my list.

*****

Here are the links my friend shared with me (some of them I've quoted explicitly above):

• White Privilege
• Social Identities and Systems of Oppression
• A Point of View: How Many More Have to Die? What Each and Every One of Us Can Do
• Race & Workplace Trauma During the Age of #BlackLivesMatter - I particularly recommend this one to anyone looking for ideas on how to implement more empathetic policies in their workplace.