Occasional online expressions of gratitude were insufficient.
If there's one thing I like to be pissed off about, it's the ways in which people with privilege fail to make proper use of it. It's frustrating-- there are things that I think powerful corporations and rich guys ought to do in order to be decent human beings and make the world a better place. At the same time, I don't believe that having the government step in and forcibly, say, redistribute wealth is okay, either.
The world would be a better place if those big rich guys behaved decently. How to fix that? It's a puzzler.
But then it occurs to me that there's a related problem I can fix.
I am a teacher in a small town area. I'm not filthy rich, but I make a good wage, particularly compared to the people whose taxes pay my wages. I sent my kids to college. I have one of the marks of privilege, which is that I have screwed some things up in my life but have not had my life derailed because of it.
I am living with privilege.
If I want to have a conversation about how people with privilege should behave, I can start by talking to my mirror. So, that's the goal here.
If anyone reads this, it will be because they stumbled across it or because somewhere down the line I decide that I've accumulated enough good stuff to share it. In the meantime, I want to weekly, mindfully address my own challenge-- how do I live with my own privilege in a mindful and responsible fashion:?
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