In an unequal society, there is an unjust distribution of resources among the people of a given society.

In an equal society, everyone possesses the same resources regardless of who they are or what their needs are.

Identity is who you are. In this context, we are referring to the different social categories that we all belong to. They can be chosen, realized, or born into, stable or shifting, and visible or invisible. Some identities are weighted differently for different people. They can be more or less important depending on your environment, your level of privilege in a certain category, and what you are mindful of.

Intersectionality

Coined by civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality is the interconnected nature of identity. Intersectionality realizes the overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Intersectionality allows us to recognize both visible and invisible identities. Many times, invisible identities go overlooked. When you look at someone it is sometimes easy to recognize things like race, but it is rarely easy to identify someone's ability or gender. You should never assume someone's experience based on what they look like on the outside. Many times, it is about what is going on underneath the surface.

Intersectionality allows us to look at the whole person not just their specific identities. We should not focus only on specific identities. We should also look at a person as a whole. We are all the summation of our experiences and identities, so we should take the time to understand others experiences and identities as well. Seldom do heterosexual women have the same understandings of gender as queer women, for example. Objectively, having multiple different identities make your world experiences vastly different from everyone who doesn’t share the same identities as you. This highlights how important it is to recognize all of one’s identities rather than each identity individually.

Intersectionality allows us to acknowledge the person outside of their identities. Something I think we all forget to do sometimes is to look at a person as a person. Yes, we are all made up of different identities and experiences, but we are all still human, and we are all deserving of compassion, empathy, and love regardless of our identities.

Tokenism and Colorblindness

Privilege and Oppression

Privilege is a special right, advantage, or immunity granted to an individual or group of people by nature of their identity. Privilege doesn’t necessarily make your life immune to worry or hardship, but it does give you unearned advantages specifically because of your identity. Privilege also does not make a person inherently bad, but it often is used as a tool to keep the oppressed oppressed.

Oppression is the unjust, malicious treatment of and control over a person or group of people by nature of their identity.

Here are some ways that we can use our privilege in a productive and positive way at HOBY and in other areas of your life:

• • Lead with empathy by understanding individual experiences, which typically encompass both privileged and marginalized identities.

  • Understand the relativity of privilege by bringing awareness to the intersectional nature of our identities. For example, a black cis-man and a white cis-woman have similar amounts of privilege in our society (by this I mean they have one privileged and one marginalized identity) but likely have incomparable life experiences based on the specific identities that they each hold.

  • Accept that systemic privilege hurts everyone by learning and teaching that a world created for and maintained by a select few rich white men is not a world that has the collective society’s interests in mind and leads to continued intense disadvantage for everyone.

  • Subvert systems of oppression by refusing to live with unchecked or unacknowledged privilege and fighting the urge to feel guilty or defensive when engaging in discussions of privilege.

  • Consider ways to equalize power by framing the dialogue on action and on steps toward liberation. Instead of telling others to check their privilege, ask how we can work together to understand our privilege and undermine oppression.