We are coming from different perspectives. You are talking about individual privilege and I agree with you completely. However, when I questioned the idea of individual privilege, I found it wanting and turned my attention elsewhere.

While I did a poor job of it, I was talking about systems (like the healthcare, education, financial, economic, governing, urban-planning and land-use systems to name just a few).

You and I are complete strangers and yet the same systems that govern my life, govern yours. Since we are different people, we cope differently. However, both of us are living under the same systems — no one can escape them.

Systems create the playing field you and I are living on. Our systems are as corrupt as they are corrupting. Our systems are corrupting us, because they are not level, not fair, not just, not moral, not balanced and not right. Unfortunately, we can see the results, we can see what they create and what they cause, but we cannot see the systems themselves. As a result, we blame other people, or ourselves, for things the system is responsible for — not us.

Privilege corrupted our systems. Privilege was injected into our systems; and made them sick. Like a virus, privilege moved through our systems and into our lives. The more we have to interact with systems, the more acutely we feel the dis-ease they carry. I remember my mother sitting at the welfare office, applying for food stamps. The lady helping her was rude and unkind, but my mother remained polite. When we left, I was so angry, so hurt and so embarrassed, I wanted to know why my mother had let that woman treat her that way. Mama said, it was not her fault and explained systems to me.

That simple understanding enabled me to “see” what had been invisible to me. Over time, I learned to sort out people, from the system. Eventually, systems impacted my work so negatively, I began studying the systems that govern land-use, urban-planning and community development. Only when I truly understood those systems, was it possible to make change.

I mean no disrespect to you, but I have no interest in privilege as a personal matter. Systemic racism is as real and irrefutable as all the other “isms” infecting our systems (especially privilege).

I cannot prove my theory, but I hold on to it tightly. If we clean corruption out of our systems, they will stop corrupting us.