Privilege is the option to go about your day knowing that toeing the line will be enough to protect you. The rest of us who are visibly different, who are tagged “the other”, don’t have that option. The question is if you have privilege, what do you do with it? - ThreadSky

dchungyalpa.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Privilege is the option to go about your day knowing that toeing the line will be enough to protect you. The rest of us who are visibly different, who are tagged “the other”, don’t have that option. The question is if you have privilege, what do you do with it?

Reposted from Courtney Milan

As long as you don’t threaten the state—or the state doesn’t decide you’ve threatened it because you’re the wrong race, religion, sexual orientation, gender presentation, or if you’re friends with or related to people who meet these criteria—you will go about your day.

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hamlet10.bsky.social•7 days ago

What those of us with privilege need to understand is that line is moving rapidly. We may think we are safe, but we will be asked for more moral compromises every day. And each compromise makes the next harder to resist, until we are a nation of Lyndsey Graham’s, all competing to suck up.

thepopper.bsky.social•7 days ago

"We may think we are safe..."

I don't.

dchungyalpa.bsky.social•7 days ago

In 2017, THREE white male (former) friends/ colleagues urged me to speak up and organize because they couldn’t speak up or protest because they had too much to lose. They were appalled but had their hands tied. 2 were men who occupied significantly powerful positions in the env movement/ orgs.

dchungyalpa.bsky.social•7 days ago

I was at that time partially employed and free lancing. And of course a brown immigrant woman. One of them really went all in, arguing that my identity and lack of job, gave me the authentic freedom to speak. Essentially because I had so little to lose.

dchungyalpa.bsky.social•7 days ago

It was an astonishing and eye-opening moment. I finally accepted just how much the environmental movement is gripped in the hands of white patriarchy cosplaying as revolution.

dchungyalpa.bsky.social•7 days ago

It taught me to discern when sentimentality masquerades as empathy and avoid the heck out of people who don’t know the difference. It taught me to always look for consistency between behavior and rhetoric. It taught me to trust and lean on my own and no other. I am grateful for the lesson.

dchungyalpa.bsky.social•7 days ago

I will say this. Courage is not a frenzied battle charge, it is not a performance to prove something to others. It is the determination and will to act according to your values because you cannot otherwise face yourself. It resides in your heart, not your brain, and it grows the more you use it.

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