Children with cancer.
Parents of a child with cancer.
Bombing survivors.
Amputees.
Survivors of mass shootings.
People who lost a family member to a bombing, shooting, or any type of homicide.
People who use wheelchairs.
People with a visible disability of any sort.
Victims of domestic violence.
Victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, or sexual harassment.
Children who grew up with alcoholic, mentally ill, or violent parents.
Parents, especially mothers.
Caregivers of any sort.
Gay people, queer people, trans people.
Black people, indigenous people, Asian people, people of any race except for white.
What all of these categories of people have in common is that their suffering, their difficulties, and their challenges are recognized by our society.
I don’t belong to any of these categories of people.
I have suffered trauma, and it molded me into the person I am today. Not the kind of trauma that is recognized as such by society. Not the kind of trauma that consists of one big, memorable, horrific event. But rather the kind of trauma that occurs again and again, day in and day out. So many different aspects of me, so many things that I did and said, criticized and corrected. The way I did my hair, the way I washed my face, the way I put sunscreen on, the way I dressed, the shoes and socks I wore, the way I stood, the way I sat, the way I held my pencil, the way I played soccer and softball and volleyball, the way I talked, the words I chose, my hobbies and interests. The shame that this repeated criticism causes, the bitterness, the resentment, cannot be overstated. The exhaustion of having to change thing after thing after thing about myself, to go through life with a carefully constructed fake persona, and to painstakingly hide my true nature from others in order to avoid further criticism, is indescribable.
Society doesn’t acknowledge that I’ve suffered. Society doesn’t acknowledge the challenges and difficulties that I’ve faced. Society doesn’t care about my feelings. Society blames me for my own suffering, or fails to recognize that I’ve suffered at all.
People who fall into the above categories are lauded as heroes, saints, warriors, innocent victims. They are praised for their courage, their strength, their resilience. Society embraces them, comforts them, rallies around them. Charitable organizations are founded to help them.
I, on the other hand, am called a weirdo, a loser, a messed-up person. When I’ve dared to complain about, or question, the way that I’ve been treated, society’s response is some combination of:
- It’s not that bad.
- It’s not a big deal.
- Stop making such a big deal out of it.
- You need to be less sensitive.
- Everyone has to do things they don’t like sometimes.
- No one likes it, Marissa, but you just gotta do it. It’s just one of those things you have to do.
- It’s for your own good.
- This situation is the result of your own mistakes, your own irresponsibility, your own stupidity.
- This is what you should do differently to prevent that from happening in the future.
- You deserved it – you wouldn’t need to be criticized or corrected if you didn’t do things in such a messed-up and wrong way in the first place.
And lately: You are privileged. You have privilege.
Translation: You have no right to complain. You have no right to be upset about anything. Your suffering does not exist, and if it does exist, then it certainly does not matter. In fact, you deserve to suffer. You deserve to be made uncomfortable, because having your privilege pointed out to you is supposed to be uncomfortable.
Pardon my French, but fuck that.
I have suffered. I have experienced trauma.
I am not “privileged.”
I do not have “privilege.”
I’ve suffered just as much as anyone else, and my trauma is every bit as valid as anyone else’s.
It is unacceptable to tell me that someone else’s suffering is worse than mine, and any ideology that does so is an ideology that I will fight against until my last breath.
It is cruel and sadistic to tell me that I deserve to be made uncomfortable, that I deserve to have further suffering inflicted on me, merely because I belong to a politically unfavored demographic category.
And it is completely lacking in empathy to tell me that I should not complain or criticize, should not express my pain, but rather should “center” and “amplify” and “elevate” the voices of others. The voices of those who society has deemed worthy of compassion, of empathy, of help, of support. The voices of those who society believes, falsely, have suffered more than I have.
The ideology of privilege claims that some people’s suffering matters while other people’s suffering doesn’t. That some people deserve help and support, while other people deserve to have additional suffering inflicted. That some people’s viewpoints, perspectives, thoughts, and feelings matter while other people’s do not.
The ideology of privilege is vile, it is immoral, and it is despicable.
My suffering matters, period.
Period, not but.
There is no “but.”
It is not okay to tell me that I am “privileged,” that I should be grateful, that I should stop complaining, or that other people have it worse.
I deserve to have my pain recognized and acknowledged just as much as anyone else does. With a period, not with a but.
That is why I am so vehemently opposed to the concept of “privilege.”