On Privilege - It isn't all or nothing

Some that far too many people have a problem with is the idea of privilege. It isn't a get out of jail free card for a member of the privileged group. It is a sliding scale and you can be privileged in various degrees by being part of a particular in-group.

• If you are from a first world country you are privileged as compared to most folks in a third world country
• if you are rich and in any country you are privileged as compared to most folks in your country
• In North America and Europe and most of South and Central America
• if you are a white male you are privileged
• if you are male you are privileged
• if your parents were upper-middle class or better you are privileged
• if you are Christian you are privileged
• if you are heterosexual you are privileged
• if you went to an Ivy League university you are privileged (irrespective of your grades once there)

None of those things means that if you are not part of an in group you cannot possibly succeed. It just means it is harder and I see far too many people try to deny this reality because it makes them uncomfortable. I especially see this denial coming from so-called Centrist types (who oddly enough tend to come from privileged groups) because accepting it means that there actually isn't always a middle ground and sometimes there is shit that is simply wrong and needs to be fixed.