SUMMARY KEYWORDS

privilege, opportunity, guilty, feel, ally, episodes, typical, clean running water, identify, morning, hot water, hot shower, impactful, extend, corporate clients, runneth, capital, people, pretty, ended

00:03

privilege is all around you. It shows up in your clothes where you live, the places you frequent your network capital, and even how you spend your money. It’s useless until you recognize it. So it’s time to stop feeling guilty, and figure out how to use your privilege to make an impact. Welcome to guilty privilege.

00:28

Hey, my name is Amber Cabral and welcome to Guilty Privilege, guilt and privilege. Two words that I think ended up together even though they don’t really have to be. So I want to talk to you in this initial episode about why I chose that name, what these words mean, and what you can expect in episodes going forward. Privilege is often seen as a bad thing, which is how we ended up with this title for the podcasts. But in fact, is something that we can find really useful if we know how to apply it. So let me start with just a really simple definition of privilege that I use with my corporate clients. So you know exactly what it means. Privilege is really simple. It is rights advantages, or opportunities that are accessible to or granted to some group of people, or person. That’s it. It doesn’t mean that you’re better doesn’t mean that you’re worse. Everybody has some privilege. And I’ll give you an example of that. And this is an example I use all the time. Did you wake up this morning with hot clean running water? Did you think about it? Did you wonder if it was going to be there? likely your answer is no. You woke up, you made your morning coffee, you took your hot shower, you didn’t even think twice. But having hot water is a privilege. There’s a significant amount of people on this planet that do not have access to clean water, let alone hot, clean and running. And so when we think about privilege, particularly as you go through this season, and you listen to these episodes with all of these guests, what I want you to consider is the possibility that there’s a chance for you to use your privilege for something really impactful. privilege means that we have an abundance of something so much, so we don’t even have to think about it. Just like you didn’t think about your hot water this morning. And what privilege gives us an opportunity to do is be an ally. Now what ally ship means is that I am willing to take the privilege that I have that I’ve identified, and I’m willing to extend that privilege to someone else, I’m willing to get to know them understand their story, build some empathy for them, and say, you know, I’ve got a little bit extra, my cup runneth over. I have privilege in this space. And I can therefore extend it to you so that you have the opportunity to have access to something you might not otherwise have the chance to get access to. That’s really what we’re talking about. Now, when we get to the guilt part, it gets a little tough to talk about privilege, because what happens is, we feel maybe a little ashamed. Sometimes people also just have a hard time identifying their own privilege. And all of these complex emotions make privilege hard to talk about. But I want to simplify all of the feelings around it first, none of the feelings are really impactful. We all have some privilege as we discussed earlier. But if you happen to be feeling a little bit guilty, I want you to remember that your privilege actually gives you power, it creates an opportunity for you to extend it to someone else as an ally. So it’s not a reason to feel guilty. It’s an opportunity for you to be impactful. If you’re having a hard time identifying your privilege. Here’s a question you can ask yourself. What about me? Or my experience is typical? Do you have a pretty typical name? Did you have a pretty typical upbringing? Did you grow up in a pretty typical family maybe even live in a community where you speak the language that is typical? Do you think about any of those things, if it feels pretty normal, and normal in quotations, because we all know we’re different. Likely there’s an opportunity there for you to identify where you potentially have some privileges. And so when we can identify those, it gives us a chance to think about who might be having an experience different than the one we’re having. Because we don’t have to think about these things. But those folks do. So as you’re listening to these episodes, and you’re thinking about the context, the conversations, the way equity and privilege and Ally ship are going to show up in these discussions. The thing I want you to come back to is, what is the privilege that you have? And is it useful for you to feel guilty about it? Or is it better for you to think about the ways that you can show up and be more impactful with that privilege instead?