relational privilege & the value of listening

[Image description: Anthony Williams, a brown-skinned man with a mustache and short beard, wearing a blue t-shirt and a purple bandana with yellow sunflowers, puckers his lips and inflates his cheeks with wide eyes at the camera]

Privilege is relational. For example…

1. I, as a Black man, benefit more from a man-centric society than Black women benefit fromour shared society.
2. I, as a queer man, benefit less from a hetero-centric society than straight people benefit from our shared society.
3. I, as a cis man, benefit more from a cis-centric society than trans people benefit from our shared society.
4. I, as a depressed & anxious person, benefit less from an ableist society than people without mental health disabilities benefit from our shared society.

Privilege is relational, and everyone of us has some privilege when compared to other people. That could be age, race, class, gender, gender expression, status, sexual identity, physical location, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, tasting, and on and on. None of these various dimensions “cancel each other out,” nor do they justify “oppression olympics”

I win because I’m a man, I lose because I’m Black, I win because I’m cis, I lose because I’m queer, I win because I’m American, I lose because I’m disabled. And on and on and on.

These multiple identities intersect to shape the way I move through the world, much like everyone’s individual identities shape their daily lives. But identity politics are never an automatic guarantee that a person is going to be more sympathetic to the plight of others. In my case, I’ve been a really poor ally for the majority of my life, despite all these boxes I check. People would tell me their stories. I responded, mid-way through their stories. Some conversations, like those with family or old friends, can function well like this. However we have to be cognizant of these behaviors and how we default to this social script. Sharing related stories is an easy way to further a conversation with someone else, but so often it centers our own story instead of really listening to what the other person has to say.

Imagine that someone Black says “I hate it when non-Black people say the n-word,” and someone responds with “yeah I know, people call me ‘faggot’ and it really bothers me.” That first person is probably venting, and often just wants to be heard. That person wants to know that someone is listening. The second person, in an effort to sympathize, shares their own related, yet different experience. Again, this is okay, however this response is not always solicited and is often not warranted. In fact, it can feel to the first person that the second person was not truly listening. However, if the first person points this out then the second person may get defensive. If you’re like me, you’ve been both the first and the second person and you will be many more times in your life.

I don’t practice intentional listening and I want to improve. I catch myself waiting for someone to finish what they’re saying so that I can pop in with my own funny or tragic story. Yet in doing so, I’m thinking about my own story instead of truly listening and being there for the other person. As someone with many overlapping identities, I have a lot of stories that I could share. I always want to relate — particularly to trauma — with my own stories of anti-Blackness, queerantagonism, or struggles with depression. In some cases it is helpful to share, but in other cases? I can wait.

Questions, comments, suggestions or corrections? Leave them here on medium or hit me up on Twitter (@anthoknees).