When I was a child, mom used to take me (and later, my little sister and me) to church. We were raised Lutheran, and raised in a very small church; my confirmation class had three people in it, including myself. I continued attending church until I graduated from high school, mostly because it was normal in our house and because I was a part of the choir, which I loved.
I stopped going to church at age 17, and haven’t been since, with unfortunate exception for religious funerals.
However, this morning I was watching some documentaries (my solution for boredom during my bouts of insomnia), including one (mediocre) called “The One Percent” and one (outstanding), “The Black Power Mixtape”, thinking about privilege. In a lot of ways, privilege is like the old story of talents.
Your skin color, your class at birth, your family of origin – these are things over which we have no control. We do have control over what we do, especially those born into privileged classes, racial strata etc. If you are born white, you can’t change and decide to be born black. You can choose to use your privilege to give opportunity to people who may not otherwise have a voice.
People who think this way need to burn for justice. We need to speak louder, use our place and our voices to amplify those marginalized by oppression. We need to remember our history and learn the lessons of Malcolm X, of Attica prison, of the Soledad brothers, of Angela Davis, of bell hooks. This is not anti-American. This is pro-American people.
When our time here is done, and we are asked what we have done to make this world better with our privilege and talents, how will you answer?
Okay, the title is way more important sounding than this post will be, but bear with me.
Last weekend I was in another state and became very ill. Severely ill. Like, three days of nastiness. While the cause of my disgusting escapades is still unclear (most likely alcohol + woman times + flu), the whole thing got me thinking about sickness and who is in charge of you when you’re sick.
Now, this is fine advice. And probably accurate; being sick is amazingly dehydrating. But it’s not really a great idea to pour a couple glasses of water into an empty, heaving, already queasy stomach. Despite my insistance that water was not really sounding that great and that slamming a glass or two wasn’t the best idea, this friend insisted (and narrowly avoiding it coming right back up).
Grossness of that story aside, it bothered me that this friend didn’t listen to me, emphatically telling him this advice was maybe not the greatest for me at this point in time. Why did he insist? Why didn’t he ask my preferences? Why didn’t he listen even after I was violently ill after following this advice?