privilege

On the way home the other day I saw a deer standing by the side of the road at 2 pm, in broad daylight(this is unusual.) When my car passed by, it didn't run, but only moved three feet off the pavement. I slowed to look more closely and realized that the deer was unable to put any weight on its front leg and could only hop a step at a time. I knew it was likely that the deer would survive only a few days or weeks, before starving or being killed by predators. (My husband said it would be fine, and it probably hadn't adjusted to three-legged running yet, but I think he was just trying to make me feel better.)
This experience made me consider my own status in the world. How would I feel to be a sick or dying animal, in the winter woods? Did the deer understand its chances of survival? Was it scared? And then I thought: How lucky I am to have good health, a warm place to sleep, and plenty of food to eat! Many humans don't even have access to these essentials. I admit that I don't stop often enough to consider the privileges in my life, but the gratitude I feel has a great deal to do with the choices I've made, and why social justice is so important to me. I recognized early on that I was blessed to have been born into a stable, loving, educated, cultured, and somewhat affluent family. We didn't have lots of money to throw around, but my parents worked extra hard to offer me every opportunity available to us. Whether I deserved these gifts or not, they were given to me -- I was not forced to earn them. Of course I feel that I've earned my own accomplishments, but not without the boost of my upbringing, social privileges, and education.
I would say that it's not uncommon for many of us to give thanks for good helath, happy families, steady income, or other of life's blessings. But how often are the hidden privileges of being white acknowledged and appreciated? Or the privileges of being male? Or of being straight? (I question whether appreciate is even the best word to use, but I can't think of another one at the moment. Should we APPRECIATE a systematic oppression which puts others at a disadvantage?) Even after some of the readings we've done, I wonder how many of us white folks are going to go in the drugstore and give a quiet little thanks for the opportunity to buy bandages that match our skin color or hair products that suit our hair texture. But until things really change, maybe we should. What if men frequently felt the threat to personal safety while walking alone at night, or the negative consequences of wearing a "too-short" skirt? What if all straight people felt the necessity of glancing around the room before kissing their loved ones in public? How would that change your daily life? And what might you try to do about it?
I can agree that acts of outright racism and sexism and homophobia are probably on the decline. What I'm afraid will happen, though, is that we will slip into a state of complacency, where we feel we've won the battle because the "flames" have all been put out. We can pretend to ignore embedded oppression, but the fire still smolders underneath. There is no one person or group to blame, no one to point the finger at, and this makes for a much more difficult opponent. Our collective awareness must be heightened -- we need to pay attention to the small and large injustices alike -- in order to continue the quest to win the war. We've made progress, yes, but it's not over yet. Pay attention to your blessings, and fight for the right of others to share them with you.