Why I stopped talking about privilege

A woman of color's trip to Haiti, and how I stopped blaming others for their privilege - and blaming myself for my privilege

Citadelle Laferrière, Haiti: site for the only successful slave revolution in human history

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In fact, I never thought I'd write an article with this title, just about half a year ago.

In February 2024, I was in Haiti. The adventure traveler in me saw that Haiti was just next to the Dominican Republic, where I was enjoying beaches and coconuts - so, why not pay a visit?; The highly sensitive person in me was however utterly unprepared, and ended up completely overwhelmed.

The cold numbers of GDP per capita on Wikipedia turned into trash everywhere on the road, souvenir sellers begging us for money, and the high concentration of dust in the air that made me cough for weeks after.

Why did the very people who led the only successful slave revolution in history end up in so much poverty and mismanagement? Why did I stay in the nice tourist hotel up the hill, overlooking the beautiful beaches and the houses nearby - which were practically, slums? Why did I go on the trip, at all - was it consumerism, unethical, and a sign of - privilege?

I blamed myself, blamed the people around me, and blamed the world for being so unfair. For days after, I felt happiness was illegal. For weeks after, my nervous system was still recovering from everything I had seen.

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That was my biggest encounter to my own privilege so far. But before that, I was constantly blaming others for their privilege.

I'm a woman of color. I constantly felt that I was born "less than" white men. I had to worry about taking taxis alone at night, fight for equal pay, blame myself for not being "emotionally stable" enough with all the normal hormonal fluctuations, and ignore the gossips on why I wasn't married with kids when I was 25...

When I was in primary school, I already had the discussion with my mother, how we would like to be born in our next lives. One thing that we quickly reached consensus upon, is that we would like to be reborn as men. Living for yourself, no need to take on responsibilities or dress up to please others...

It all intensified when the movie Barbie came out. I watched another woman of color monologuing all that I had to experience, just because of the way I was born. I was very angry, but experienced pushbacks when I discussed this with some white men around me, and then felt even more disempowered.

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Is it all bad being a woman of color, or with all the conditions I was born with?

In fact, sometimes I even benefit from the fact that I'm a woman of color. I feel that some of my speaking engagements and features in communities might have happened, because having my face at the homepage shows the organizational commitment towards diversity and inclusion. Some of my clients might have come to me, because they find my background relatable. I probably had an easier time renting apartments, because many shared flats with women tenants do not want men as flatmates.

Also, I wasn't born in dire poverty like the majority of Haiti. I'm healthy. I was born to married parents - not without their own dramas, but they're still married to this day and like each other more and more. I'm (mostly) straight, (probably) neurotypical. And I'm very smart, determined, and hardworking, that took me to where I am today. So many blessings to count, isn't it?

Moreover, I keep hearing stories from "the privileged white men" that shift my perceptions.

Some of them were forced to take on familial or religious responsibilities and barred from pursuing careers they love, just because they're men. Some of them risk being drafted to the ongoing wars in the world. Some were from poor families, had health issues... Not to mention the "collective" male issues: Pressure to look muscular and "masculine". Difficulty connecting with emotions. Confusion in dating - yes, no matter how much I thought most men were just playboys looking for sex...

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A week after I left Haiti, I called my coach Galina, needing support for my completely messed up nervous system.

I told her how happiness felt illegal. She asked me: If you stop feeling happy now, are the street sellers in Haiti going to feel happier?

You know the answer, of course - No! It is not transferrable. In fact, if I don't feel happy and do not take care of myself: I will have less energy to talk about Haiti, and to subsequently raise awareness on the current situation.

Guilt is a terrible feeling. But it often comes from conditioned ideas: comparisons, and "should"s. I saw that I was born with "more" wealth and environmental stability than many Haitians, just by pure luck; and how much I hated seeing the suffering, as well as me questioning myself how I deserved all this, dragged me down heavily.

But the fact is: we need more people in the world, who have their own cups full, to give from overflow and therefore to make the world a better place. Not to see something terrible that we should aim at eliminating for everyone, but then deprive ourselves for happiness out of guilt.

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I was talking so much about the poverty, the trash, and the dust in Haiti. Galina also asked me, is this everything Haiti is about?

Again, simple answer - No! Haiti has incredible, abundant nature. If you haven't tried its food: it's SO tasty. Some very cheerful songs in Haitian Creole are in my playlists. It feels bizarre to me, but Haiti does send out contestants to Miss Universe and they look beautiful. Even just our tour guides: they are people with dignity, dreams, knowledge about their own country, and curiosity towards the outside world.

I was so overwhelmed, that all my attention was on the parts that exposed my own privilege. But there are so many dimensions to Haiti: it is indeed, one of the poorest and most dysfunctional countries in the world, but for many parts, people are still living their lives, with human experiences and emotions.

Same as "privileged white guys", who might not have been concerned of their drinks being spiked in parties, but very likely struggled with how big their muscles looked. Same as me as a woman of color, who needed to work extra hard to be taken seriously in the workplace, but never had to serve in the army, or know how it feels to not have a roof over my head.

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Much of the current discussions on privilege are based on comparison.

You were born taller? How unfair, you can get more girls than me! You were born in a poorer family? Oh I'm so sorry, I wish that I wasn't born richer than you...

We fell into the trap of comparing what we cannot change - very often, birth conditions - which inevitably leads to disempowerment. In addition, we assign labels like "better" or "worse" to arbitrary traits: taller or shorter, richer or poorer.

Taller people having an easier time on the dating market is a highly subjective beauty standard, that probably hasn't been around for the entire human history, and might change in the future. Is rich or poor the only criteria for assessing a family's integrity? Poor parents who teach their children all the love and virtue, compared to rich parents that are abusive and controlling... which parents would you rather have?

The life experiences of human beings are not comparable at all. By comparing, we diminish individual experiences into simplistic labels - worst of all, if we decide who's better and who's worse based on the labels, and fight against each other.

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"In my next life, I'd like to be a white man". "If my parents were richer, my life could have been easier".

By indulging in such thoughts, we attempt to escape the reality.

We know nothing about the next life. And there is no imagined scenarios of "coulda woulda shoulda".

We only live the life that we have, right now. This is the only reality.

By accepting and engaging with the reality, we take the power back into our own hands, and see the truth of our unique soul mission.

My point of this article is not to deny the racism, sexism, homophobia etc that do exist in the world. I am very much against all forms of discrimination, and have felt the pain as both a privileged and underprivileged person. But how do we achieve equality? Do we start by feeling bitter and blaming our "more privileged" friends, or feeling guilty and blaming ourselves for how we were born?

I'm here to say that only by embracing all parts of your real, individual, human experiences, and devoting your energy into the mission only you're given - that we can we achieve actual equality: a society where each individual finds peace within, knows that they're worthy themselves, and sees no point to compare themselves with others or to start wars.

This is why I stopped talking about privilege.

I stopped blaming the white men around me. I stopped constantly thinking about the desperate eyes of the souvenir sellers in Haiti and feeling heartbroken. No, I don't live under a rock, or have my emotions shut down: I simply focus my attention on what I'm supposed to bring to the world, take radical self-responsibility, and claim the power over my life back into my own hands. This way, there's one more self-sufficient person who has more than enough to give, and that is the beginning to changing the world for the better.

What do you think? ??