It struck me that I should probably explain two rather important words which form the basis for many ‘issue’ discussions: Privilege and intersectionality.

Especially the first one is vital – if one doesn’t understand privilege, how can one understand the mechanisms of oppression, prejudice and marginalization in all their different forms (racism, sexism, disablism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.)? But intersectionality is also rather important, not just to understand that people can be part of several marginalized groups at once, but that it’s also possible to be disadvantaged in certain areas while still discriminating or holding privilege against others. In discussions with friends, that often where I run into a wall: a poor white person might be economically disadvantaged in comparison to a rich person of colour, but they still have the advantages that come of having white skin.

I am in no way an expert (and am definitely still learning), but this is how I have come to understand these terms, including some links that were very helpful to myself:

Privilege: Advantages one has in comparison with others. Very often members of privileged groups are not even aware of these advantages, believing everyone to be the same. The impression that society offers the same chances to everyone, that we all are on a ‘level playing field’ is in itself a sign of privilege. For example, only white people have the privilege of being ‘colour-blind’, ie. ignoring people’s racial and ethnic backgrounds, because in our (Western, industrialized) society white is the norm. People of Colour (POC) will always be aware of race because they go through their lives being constantly reminded of the fact that they’re different from the norm. POC might have prejudices against white people (ie. hold onto generalized negative ideas), but they do not possess the power to turn these into mechanisms of oppression (racism = prejudice + power).

Even in many non-Western societies (as a result of historical, cultural and economic Western imperialism) the ‘default’ human being is white, male, able-bodied and heterosexual. Everyone who deviates from this norm inevitably faces some form of discrimination at some point in their life, even if often we don’t even notice, because we have internalized the “way things are” (ie. when the default pronoun used in a text is male or everyone assumes that a person’s partner is of the opposite sex).

Reading:
• Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh (pdf) – the classic text on race privilege, but it can easily be seen to also apply to other forms of privilege, for example in the contexts of gender, sexual orientation and disability
• What is male privilege? on Finally, Feminism
• Unpacking the invisible knapsack – straight privilege edition by The Angry Black Woman
• Disability 101: What is Able-Bodied or Abled Privilege? on Feminists with Disabilities

Intersectionality: The idea that people are members of more than one group and can therefore be affected by different sets of privilege and oppression. Ie. a person of colour who also has a disability has to deal with both racism and disablism in their life, but because they are cis* and heterosexual they wield cis and straight privilege. We all live intersections, and being aware of the different layers is important when it comes to interacting with members of other groups and of our own (for example feminist women of color often feel as if their voices aren’t being heard by the majority of white feminists, or in the LGBTQ community, where trans people sometimes feel marginalized).

Reading:
• Intersectionality on Wikipedia (yes, I know *g*)
• “Intersectionality” is a Big Fancy Word for My Life by Leaving Evidence, on intersectionality in the LGBTQ community
• Ewwww! You got your other issues in my feminism! on Feministe, about what makes a an issue feminist

((Did I make sense? Cover the basics more or less? Messed up somewhere? Let me know!))

*Cis: Cisgender is a term coined to describe the alignment of one’s biological sex and gender identity (for example a person born with female genitalia who identifies as female), mostly used among the trans community and their allies (see Trans 101 on The F-Word).