“It’s a hard world to get a break in.
All the good things have been taken.”
“Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’…”
If your daddy’s rich, you’ve got wealth privilege. If your ma is good lookin’, hopefully you inherited her looks as well as the privilege that goes with beauty.
“‘Privilege’ comes from Latin privilegium, meaning a law for just one person, and means a benefit enjoyed by an individual or group beyond what's available to others.” – Google definition
THREE CHEERS FOR PRIVILEGE! – Black, White, Red, Brown, male, female, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, youth or senior citizen – whatever kind of privilege you’ve got, whatever gives you a leg up in this world, good for you! Whatever allows you to gain admission to the college of your choice, to get a table at a restaurant, front-row seats, a job interview, a job, a raise, a promotion, an agent, a publisher, a gig, a position on the team, a date, a callback from an audition, a credit line, a mortgage, a gold card – whether it’s earned or inherited, the luck of the genes or the luck of the draw or your family pulling strings, talent, hard work, dedication, or something else entirely. Perhaps the Goddess Fortuna smiles on you and that’s the source of your privilege.
Privilege comes in all different colors, beliefs, shapes and sizes. There’s tall people privilege. Rich people privilege. Privilege based on lineage and land. Privilege based on education, ivy league or otherwise. Privilege for celebrities, entertainers, tenured professors, medical doctors, lawyers, authors, CEOs, media personalities, athletes, and, of course, there’s always Beautiful People Privilege.
Yes, skin color can be a source of privilege. So can eye color or hair color.
Who you know, what you know, what you have, what you do, what you’ve done and how you’ve done it can all be the basis of privilege. It can be about how you look, how you talk, how you act. Privilege has many sources and takes many forms. Privilege can come simply from being born at the right time, in the right place, to the right parents. That’s true of Sasha and Malia Obama. That’s true of Ivanka Trump. That’s true of Hunter Biden.
U.S. citizenship is a privilege that the vast majority of Americans did not earn. It is a gift we were given by virtue of being born in the United States. If you’re tall, that’s because of your parents. If you’re handsome or beautiful, that’s at least in part because of your parents. If you’re smart, your parents had something to do with that too.
If you have privilege, own it, relish it, use it! There is nothing to feel ashamed of because the world has opened a door for you that isn’t open for everyone. If you have privilege, there is no need to apologize for it. There is nothing inherently wrong with privilege. Some privilege is earned. Some isn’t. And whether privilege is earned or not, it always has existed and always will exist, in one form or another, based on one set of criteria or another. As long as intelligence, creativity, talent, ability, beauty, health, strength, wealth, power, humor, compassion, insight, luck, and – oh yes – sex appeal, are unevenly distributed among homo sapiens, some will have more privilege than others.
