Title: Invisible Power and Privilege | The Fearless Heart
Headings: Invisible Power and Privilege
Invisible Power and Privilege
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Content: This creates a gap in experience which is usually excruciating for members of both groups. Privilege and Group Dynamics
Considering how invisible privilege can be to those who have it, and yet how apparent to those who don’t, it is no surprise that creating truly diverse groups and organizations is the exception rather than the norm. Here’s one classic form this struggle takes. Whenever I am in any group in which the question of diversity arises there will almost invariably be a well-meaning white person who will express some version of “Why can’t we all just get along and forget our differences. We’re all human, after all, aren’t we?” The gap between this experience and the pervasive, acute, and unending barrage of discrimination, lack of access to material resources, and encounters with the authorities takes more effort to bridge than most people have energy for, especially those who are already worn out by such ongoing challenge of just making it through the day every day. Even if nothing gets said, the gap in experience remains enormous, all the while being known to one group and not to the other. In addition to the gap in experience in terms of understanding what happens, the different training that different groups receive, itself part of the gap in access to resources, recreates societal dynamics within the group. White people, men, and people with class privilege are more likely to speak in groups and to have their opinions taken seriously than people of color, women, or lower class people, respectively. As one particularly painful example, when a jury is selected, the likeliest person to be chosen as foreman, and I use that word in this way deliberately, is the white male with the highest education in the room.