Gee, thanks, but I’m actually not exceptional at all

I sometimes think one of the strongest barriers to equality is that when you’re trying to join a group you weren’t born into, you have to either smile and nod while listening to the crap those people say about the group you were born into, or stand up for yourself and your people and alienate [...]

Ableist language in the name of this site?

[ETA: the site name referred to in this post is "Blind Privilege", which was the original name of this site and domain. After this post, I changed both the site and domain name to "What Privilege?"] Three years ago, I started this site. I’d heard “blinded by privilege” in a few places, and came up [...]

Abuse cycles – from macrocosm to microcosm

If you observe an abuse cycle in a family – e.g., “Mom abuses her kids because her dad abused her because his mom abused him” – you’re lucky if you can trace it back more than a few generations. Which always leaves me wondering: where did it begin? And how? Did this family have one [...]

Universal health care does not mean forcing Americans to buy insurance

I generally avoid political topics, but once in a while, one of them is such a damn good example of privilege that I’m left thinking: what the fuck? All the universal health care plans being yapped about at length by various committees within Congress (I could’ve sworn the Constitution outlined a clear procedure for proposing [...]

One privilege Christians don’t always realize they have

This is a typical conversation between a Christian and a non-believer: Christian: Abortion/homosexuality/[insert incredibly incindiary topic here] is blah blah blah. Atheist/agnotic: (smiles and nods) We smile and nod because we know Christian beliefs are respected and other beliefs are not so much, and if we say something precisely as offensive/inane in response, we will [...]

Future topics

No, I haven’t forgotten this site. I’ve been slowly making my way through a nightmare recently, and believe me, elements of what I’ve gone through will end up here, as there is a lot of privilege involved. But due to what I’ve gone through, it may be a while before I have the headspace and [...]

That positive outlook

The other day I got a fortune cookie which said: Your happiness is entertwined with your outlook on life. For the first time in my life, that sentiment did not piss me off. In the past, it always did because it blithely dismisses the fact that if you don’t have much power over your own [...]

Every government is a pyramid, or why I’m an anarchist

As a child, I believed the US – and many other nations – really were intended to benefit every citizen who made an effort, and what caused them to privilege some groups over others were flaws in the system. Then around age eleven, I came to believe the systems themselves were really designed to create [...]

No, customer service workers do not have it easy

Every once in a while, one of my fellow Americans blows my mind with her assumption that customer service workers get insurance, paid sick days and paid vacation, and at least $10/hour. These assumptions are often of no consequence, but on some occasions they’re offered in justification of why no one should be trying to [...]

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