Privilege, rank and entitlement!
I never thought of myself as someone having rank, privilege or entitled as a white woman living in Canada.
I came from a lower-middle-class rural background and at one point had to go on social assistance/welfare, with my small baby daughter. Over the years I also suffered sexual harassment and bullying at the beginning of my career and harassment, discrimination during the remaining years.
Having experienced several years of workplace bullying and other violence I decided to take university classes, become educated on reasons why people bully, why conflict resolution scares people and nothing gets resolved, why people think they have the right to abuse others. Why people are considered ‘the other’? These were burning questions. The motive was to learn and improve communication, seek to understand human behaviours including my own patterns. Could this training and education be of benefit? Yes absolutely. I had wrongly been assuming that everybody else was suffering the same fate in their workplace as female officers.
In 2008, I took a class at the University of Winnipeg and the professors explained and deconstructed the definition of white privilege and how it works.
Imagine going to a store and being followed around by staff as if you have already committed a crime, imagine not getting hired because of the colour of your skin or how you identify, imagine being stopped by the police all the time for no reason other than the colour of your skin, race or where you live. Imagine not being allowed into certain colleges or public spaces because of the colour of your skin or race? Imagine being bullied at school or in the workplace because of your gender?
You see, having been bullied and abused in my workplace never thought I had any rank, any privilege or any power to speak up. This is what happens to victims of bullying and abuse at home or in the workplace. Worn down emotionally and physically.
The professors broke it down and explained white privilege, rank and privilege. People experiencing and living every day, year after year under this cloud of no privilege, no rank and no power is, in my opinion, a slow death sentence of the human spirit. It was only then that I realized as a white woman, my status and privilege allowed me into avenues of expression and redress that are not open to women of colour who also may have lower economic status.
That was a powerful moment not only understanding it but having my eyes clearly opened to see how disadvantaged many minority women and men, who experience the same treatment have less voice and less power.
I had decided from here on forward I will help those who feel powerless find their voice, find their safe place in society. Those professors allowed the students to see beyond our own experiences and have enabled me to now share lessons about empowerment.
If we fail to learn from our past then sadly these patterns get repeated. We all have our own life lens and experiences that have moulded our attitudes and beliefs. If we can remove the coloured lens, the gendered lens, the race lens, ‘the other’ lens then all of society can achieve their life goals. My hope is that everyone has the same opportunities in life. To feel safe at home and in the workplace. To be valued as an individual and freedoms to be in the public spaces free of harassment
“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” Mother Teresa