For Real Therapy Musing #11: Privilege Is What You Ignore

I want you to imagine that you have the most wonderfully comfortable pillow ever manufactured. Maybe it's one of those Casper pillows: white, soft, moderately expensive, appropriately tempered. Every night, you sleep on this soft, elegantly designed pillow, and for the most part, you sleep well. 

Indeed, like anyone else, there are occasions when job stress, anxiety, sleep apnea, depression, and/or possible biological inclination towards insomnia will keep you up at night. While there can be numerous external factors that interrupt your sleep, that pillow, the place you physically rest your head on, is never going to be a factor in determining how well you sleep. No matter how bad it gets, you can always count on this pillow to support you. Regardless of your politics, economic status, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, that pillow will symbolize comfort. This pillow is unique to you and the group by which you belong. You didn't have to buy, sacrifice, or do anything strenuous to earn this pillow. You inherited this pillow, and other people outside of your group do not have access to this pillow. 

For some of us, the majority, even, do not have a cushion-like this to rest our heads. Regardless of our actions, success, obedience, financial situation, education, nothing we do will ever allow us to earn the right to have this life-enhancing pillow. We have to sleep on a collection of assorted and varied pillows that we have found. We prop them up as best we can, and if we are lucky, we sleep, OK! If we're fortunate, we can have a day, a week, maybe even a month of decent sleep. Rest is not assured, guaranteed, or promised. At some point, the pillows we've meticulously organized are removed, taken, distorted, or stolen. 

Whenever I bear witness to the death and suffering of another Black body, regardless of guilt or innocence, at the hands of the state - I know I won't sleep well that night. Whenever I'm in the wrong social situation and a joke is made at the expense of another marginalized individual or me, I know I won't sleep well that night. Whenever I'm up for a job and didn't get the position because I just "wasn't what they were looking for", I know I won't sleep well that night. On top of all this, the same struggles that keep you up at night keep me up at night, too. Black and brown people are struggling with mental health issues at alarming rates. They are contending with unemployment and inadequate access to healthcare, food, and basic shelter. Forget even having a pillow, some sleep on a bare mattress without any support. Some do not make it home.

When I talk about the privileges that we embody, I envision it similarly to this pillow. No one would ever say their entire life is defined by a pillow, in the same manner that I don't imagine people are identifying themselves merely by their privilege. Maybe you didn't ask for this pillow; perhaps you didn't even realize you've been sleeping on it, and yet it's there. Your privilege allows you to feel comfortable in the world by fulfilling a necessary need on a fundamental level, and it is a padding that protects you.

Because it is such a surface-level need, you may not recognize your ignorance, avoidance, and lack of understanding of how others experience their lives. You view the pillow as something ornamental and not life-defining. When is the last time you were curious about the quality of someone's pillow? When is the last time you asked someone how well they are sleeping?

I choose to replace "privilege" with the word "pillow" because using the word "privilege" begets a particular defensive reaction. White people often engage this word with direct and indirect hostility: how can I have privilege when I have suffered? What is my privilege if I identify as queer? For BIPOC (Black Indigenous People Of Color), the question becomes even more complicated: how do I carry privilege in a culture that denies me this at every level? As a clinical psychologist, I hope to engage both in the individual and the collective dynamics that exist. Using this pillow metaphor, I hope to ground privilege as something that is often invisible but commonplace. If you have a bed, you have a pillow. Privilege asks: what kind of pillow do you have? Is it something that serves you and only those similar to you? Or does it deny someone else their rights, mortality, and pursuit of happiness? More bluntly, does your pillow (privilege) suffocate the life of others? 

Within the therapeutic work of clinical therapist and author, Resmaa Menakem, he perceives that the resistance white people encounter around privilege, race, and oppression is due to how our bodies react to the history of oppressive conditioning. White people struggle with the part they play in the history of abuse, trauma, and wounding. From a mental health perspective, the concept of "privilege" creates a disassociated and imaginary form of protection. It prioritizes comfort and the safety of an illusionary bubble so that you don't have to deal with the violence taking place in the world. This bubble bursts from time to time -- and we are seeing that play out within our cultural landscape today. 

Shock, surprise, shame, and guilt are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the consequences. From a therapeutic perspective, avoidance has a tremendous opportunity cost-related to growth, potential, and authenticity. Look at the many organizations that have fallen utterly ignorant to where our current cultural conversation is. Just bear witness to all the CEOs, visionaries, and leaders who have to exit their boards, leave their companies, and go on academic leave due to the short-sightedness of their own ignorant, racist, and bigoted belief systems. Borrowing the mantra from the MeToo movement, their time is up. Political pundits and Fox News would have you believe that this is the end of all human activity -- It isn't! Far from it! 

I have seen this time and time again within the micro-moments of my sessions. We are on the verge of profound spiritual, artistic, and cultural growth. Many of my clients come in with a desire to find "balance" within their lives. These messages echo with little to no perspective placed around the context in which we exist.

What is balance if it only serves to protect, maintain, and reinforce the status quo? 

What is fairness if we live in a society that is aggressively murdering, harming, and silencing the voices of others? 

We cannot honestly talk about lofty ideas of equality, justice, and balance until we can assure that an introverted, sensitive Black massage therapist can walk home from a convenience store without being murdered by police officers.

The acknowledgment of your privilege is an opportunity to engage the wholeness of your life consciously. It means asking more mindful questions about what the cost of your comfort is. It means increasing your curiosity regarding the lived experiences of those different from you. It means bursting the bubble of fantasy to live in a grounded reality that engages your body and mind. As a clinical psychologist, I am often in the position of questioning my own power dynamics. I do this because I never want to place my authority above the lived experiences of my clients. For this to work, I have to embody this value through my own actions. 

I ask direct questions and volunteer information as transparently as I can about my cultural identity. If I am working with a cisgender woman client, I ask them if it's OK to be working with a therapist who is a cisgender man. I take the time to remind them that consent is an active and engaging process. If there is ever a time where it feels uncomfortable, or I am genuinely missing the point, I ask that we make space to talk about it. I make sure that I have referrals, supports, and other community guard rails in place. Mindfulness teaches us that context is always shifting.

Standing and waiting around for a perfect moment to acknowledge your privilege isn't realistic. There is no ideal moment because this is not an exercise in precision; it is valuing intention and morality. The conversations I am imploring you to have also won't have a designated outcome or script that will assure maximum assurance. You might begin the conversation and feel a sense of discomfort, this is entirely reasonable and a strong indication that you are participating in a vulnerable moment.

Support represents the ability to engage, serve, and protect those who are vulnerable and do not have the same privilege. It means looking for novel ways to reframe your business to support those who are vulnerable. It means coming up with novel ways to engage audiences that might not have the same access. It means investing significant contribution in assisting those attempting to challenge and change the world for the better. It means sharing, relinquishing, and collaborating with organizations that wish to expand safer spaces for everyone.

By doing so, we begin to embrace an ever-changing world.