Privilege (sometimes referred to as unearned privilege) refers to the advantages a person has based on their status in society with regard to race, class, sexual orientation, gender, age, and/or ability. These privileges are not granted based on an individuals merit, or their conscious choices, but are bestowed on those born into a society with systems of structural oppression. Privilege is the other side of oppression, so the unearned benefits that one group enjoys are always the direct result of another group's pain and hardship. White privilege, for example, benefits white people born into a white supremacist society with better access to education, less risk of harassment by police and better access to housing.
For those positioned with privilege in society, we cannot simply choose to divest of our privilege as it does not come as the result of conscious choices. However, God does call us into her work of liberation and this invitation is a gift. This gift, when freely received, obliterates completely our privileged identities, wedding us to God and to the oppressed in God's work of liberation. As James Cone says in A Black Theology of Liberation Knowing God means being on the side of the oppressed, becoming one with them and participating in the goal of liberation. We must become black with God! |
Anarchy for All: Expanding the Horizons of Practice Beyond Privilege. At the 2010 anarchism and Christianity conference in Portland, the open forum Layla AbdelRahim, Nekeisha Alayna Alexis, Wes Howard-Brook and John Zerzan discuss the structural and epistemological problems that hinder the voices and acts of resistance from those who are oppressed—especially people of color—from inhabiting a place at the table within anarchist theory and discourse.
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