Springtime in the U.S. Oh, and Get Used to the Word "Privilege" Already

Spring.

Renewal... fresh air... new life...

...or just more of the same unending, low hum of horribleness that surrounds this country.  Yeah, that's it.  Today I'm going to talk about privilege.

Now is the time when those of us who have not been historically marginalized feel the heat.  I know people bristle at the word "privilege," thinking it means that those with that label don't work hard, or are terrible people.  That's the wrong way to look at it.

I live paycheck to paycheck, most of the time. We don't have a working washer right now and can't afford to replace the broken one.  I've worked since I was 12 (first in the family business, then for many, many non-family entities since 17).  I've had terrible health and medical bills, went through a terrible divorce, and faced the terrible reality of aging parents who needed care in a system that doesn't want to care for our Elders.

But I'm privileged.  You know why?  NONE of those things were made hard, or harder, because I'm white, straight, Scandinavian and raised middle class and Protestant Christian in Minnesota.  None of them.

All the laws (and the unequal application of them)?  Written by my people. They weren't thinking of me when they scrambled to protect themselves.  I'm one of them.

People don't cross the street when they see me approaching them.

People don't lock their car doors when they're stopped at a red light and I'm next to them, or I'm on the corner.

I don't get followed around in stores.

I was stopped by the police for a totally bogus reason ONCE, 20 years ago, but I'm 60 years old and I've been driving all these years with only that one stop (in an old car, wearing dirty sweats with my hair in a ponytail, coming home from school where I was painting sets, and I was pulled over AFTER the 55 mph speed limit sign as I left town--I knew where that sign was as I drove past it twice a day, every day, for years).  I know people who get stopped regularly.  Or stopped because they're driving an expensive car, but tHoSe PeOpLe DoN't HaVe NiCe CaRs.

I've never been red-lined out of a neighborhood when buying a house.

None of these are the disgusting, inhuman horrors that have been visited on Black and Brown peoples in this country since the first Europeans landed with a duffel bag and a signpost. These are current, modern, every day differences.  These are the hidden (and not-so-hidden) micro-aggressions that are baked into our society so well that many people in MY group refuse to see them.

Living under an administration like Trump II--authoritarian, longing to be fascist, corrupt, racist, Nationalist, inept, and stupid--makes even my people feel the heat. Some of us are dealing well.  Some of us are not.

All of us could take lessons from those who've been making incremental changes and being fought against every inch of the way, for hundreds of years.  Nothing happens overnight in a massive country like ours (by geography and population).  Look at the LGBTQ+ community's excellent changes that happened since I was in college forty years ago!  (And yes, even those gains are in trouble right now...) They did not happen overnight, even if they were no-brainers and SHOULD have happened.

Living in a pluralistic society has its drawbacks, and slowness is one of them.  BUT...in a Democracy, that's how it works.  And living in a pluralistic society is also beautiful, joyous, satisfying, ever changing, educational, and the best thing since sliced bread.  (I do not understand people who want to live only among people like themselves...how incredibly boring.)

But to make any of the changes we want, we privileged-in-several-ways folks have to learn to look to the veterans in how to push back, join forces, and put ourselves in the context of history.  And for God's sake, vote like we give a hoot about ANYBODY, including ourselves.

Midterms are coming up.  It's completely and totally up to all of us voters.

Want a REAL spring feeling?  Make November springlike with fresh air, fresh people shaking up Washington (and locally, wherever you are).  Spring Cleaning...if you're brave enough to stand up and do what you have to do.