5 Stages of Grief +1

The NRA and Charlton Heston gifted us the slogan, “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” Replace “gun” with “privilege” and I can’t think of a better way to describe how Americans feel about our culture of privilege and the prospect of losing it.

Privilege exists, not because of anything we have done or failed to do. Instead, privilege reflects how society assigns disparate value to all of us based on social identities and how we, consciously or unconsciously, assign value to ourselves. With that value comes certain benefits, freedoms, and advantages. Even the most well-intended, self-aware person struggles with the mere mention of relinquishing their privilege because they mainly see it as a sacrifice on behalf of someone else (Who knows if they deserve it right?) and although it may feel like the right thing to do, it still feels like the death of something we love.

The possible loss of privilege can evoke responses similar to five stages of grief[1] that are non-linear, interconnected, and often revisited. The stages are: 1. Denial, 2. Anger, 3. Bargaining, 4. Depression, and 5. Acceptance. To those five, I’m adding one more stage: 0. Unawareness.

In “Why I Won’t Give you Ten Tips to Manage Your Privilege” I describe privilege as, “If you’re floating on your back, you only have one view — the sky. You rarely glance away to see or engage with others in the pool. Why would you? You have very little awareness of the currents in motion beneath the surface or feel the gravity that pulls down others in the pool around you. Similar to fish, it’s unlikely you are even aware that your current existence is within water, much less that you are wet.” Most people are clueless about their privilege even if they sense it from time to time. They are blissfully unaware until there is the possibility they might “lose” it. In response to that perceived threat, their first instinct is to deny privilege exists.

More times than I can count, people confronted with their privilege, deny they have it and automatically point to their individual efforts. While hard work and personal choice determine our destiny, so do the privilege and oppression that create the context for our lives. They also determine how hard we each work to succeed or survive and our ability to recover from life’s challenges.

In addition to denying privilege, people get angry talking about it because they believe the discussion calls into question their hard work and personal agency. Once angry, those same people disengage from the larger discussion about systemic privilege and they will likely revisit that anger in subsequent conversations.

If people get past their anger, they usually want to keep their privilege intact while simultaneously “helping” people who experience oppression. This type of bargain doesn’t work because privilege and oppression are inextricably linked. If someone has privilege, then someone is oppressed and vice versa. There is no way around it while maintaining the status quo.

I doubt many people have gotten to the depression and acceptance stages because society has yet to rescind privilege or oppression — much less the social advantage and disadvantage[2] with which they are both entangled. Depression reflects the sense of loss we feel. Let’s face it. Who likes to lose anyone or anything? According to Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kanheman, we all have a naturally high aversion to losing, even more than we do to making a comparable gain. Our loss aversion ratio is about 3:1 — meaning that we need to gain three times the value of whatever we stand to lose for the loss to be emotionally acceptable. [3]

As I said in “Why I Won’t Give You Ten Tips to Manage Your Privilege” — privilege is not all it’s cracked up to be. It positions us to be numb to the oppression of others, perpetuates inequities that are counter to human nature, encourages a savior mentality, gets in the way of relationships, and it fails to prepare us for adversity. Until we can effectively make the case that privilege puts us at a disadvantage and that divesting our privilege adds intrinsic and extrinsic value to our lives, we won’t make progress towards ending the growing social polarization in America.

It’s time to start making a case to ourselves and others who share our privilege — in whatever form (e.g., gender, class, age, race, education, etc.). In the spirit of Dr. Kanheman’s 3:1 ratio, let’s begin with three simple ideas.

We made this culture of privilege, therefore we can and should unmake it.

Ending the culture of privilege:

1. Positions people to solve their own problems — permanently relieving us of our savior mentality and role.

2. Will multiply opportunities to engage in genuine relationships without fear or prejudice, expand our personal and professional networks, and enrich our human experience.

3. Will allow each of us to stand unwaveringly on our hard-earned accomplishments knowing that without the benefits of privilege we will be more resilient when faced with adversity.

Now is the time to practice making the case for what we gain when we “lose” our privilege. My mother always said that to receive, you must let go of whatever you’re holding onto first — whether that is to release it, share it, or give it. In this case, would you rather let go of your death grip on privilege to become the best possible version of you or would you rather wait until your privilege is pried from your cold dead hands? Either way, privilege as we have known it will not remain the same. You will grieve when you “lose” it and oddly enough, you will survive and be better because of that loss — we all will.

Helpful? Like it? Hit the ❤!

[1] Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

[2] Burke, N. S. (2016, October 6). Why I Won’t Give You Teen Tips to Manage Your Privilege. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@natalie4health/why-i-wont-give-you-ten-tips-to-manage-your-privilege-9ba16cf31671#.erid25onr

[3] Shaw, Colin (2013, July 18) Why We Hate Losing, Retrieved from https://beyondphilosophy.com/why-we-hate-losing/

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