To share in a cause is to share in the risk
To speak or not to speak? Well, I‘m going for it because, my fellow people of privilege, I see you. You don’t know how to say or do something supportive in the fight against inequality without putting yourself at risk of either censure or discomfort. Will I be accused of virtue signalling? Tokenism? Political incorrectness? Whitesplaining? You’re probably looking at hypocritical brands and leaders making a public spectacle of themselves and thinking ‘please shut up, we all know you have and will do nothing real’…and you fear being accused of the same. Maybe you just want to learn and not drown out the voices that you know are more worthy than yours. Maybe you think this reinvigorated movement doesn’t apply to you because you have protested many times before and don’t relate to people you consider to be bigots, often argue with them against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, and you might consider your social circle to be (relatively) diverse. Maybe you think people who share their personal thoughts publicly (particularly on professional platforms) are insufferable attention seekers. I get it. But the truth is that in this old and bloody war against inequality, people with privilege have to start taking a far greater share of the risk in one way or another, recognising that a risk of discomfort and re-evaluation is a meagre little risk in comparison to the risk most people have to take everyday to navigate a world that wasn’t designed to value them by default. If we don’t start risking more, we simply won’t win fast enough and as a collective, and winning faster should be our only option.
Winning is going to involve sustained and unrelenting action until the hierarchies we benefit from are toppled, the legislation we benefit from is changed and our bias can’t hide in the nuance we have created, where gaslighting and stereotyping are treated as acts of sabotage and all of us are required to perpetually educate ourselves on our own bias and the part we play (without complaining of fatigue) and to reflect those learnings back in the language we use and the actions we take in our everyday lives. It’s also important to know that at no time will you be done with the evolution of your character at the behest of the movement towards a better society, so being defensive is a pointless waste of time. Right now, we the privileged are going to have to risk more to accelerate that movement. Using hashtags, sharing content and publicly stating support generates groundswell in our elite little communities, but it’s also like expecting a medal for taking part in a battle without actually fighting.
Truth is, we don’t have to share anything on social media. We don’t even have to march in a protest or put ourselves at physical risk. But we do all have to find a way to risk breaking the old and forging the new even if we may be a casualty of that change. At a minimum, we need to use our familiarity with the language of prosperity and our influence with the status quo to fight every day in every job and every industry until nobody really has to fight anymore. Don’t just give people compliments on their potential, actively train them to do your job. Don’t just meet employment targets, outperform and redesign them to be better. Don’t just ask your favourite and cheapest suppliers to change their ways, stop hiring them if they don’t. Don’t just grumble, lodge complaints on the record and leverage a legal system that is designed to work in your favour. Don’t just have a heated conversation with discriminatory employers, take your desirable skills elsewhere. Don’t just think about a new product or service, design or fund it. Don’t just design solutions around people you know, actively recruit diverse panels to inform the worlds you control.
Sometimes, through this process, you will also risk your prosperity because power can demand the kind of collusion and compliance you should no longer grant. So, lower your expectations and really think about what you can get by on while maintaining both your wellbeing and your integrity. And always, always, always educate yourself. Taking a risk for what is right makes you an active part of a war you know to be righteous, where you shouldn’t just be cheering from the sidelines. This is what privilege is actually supposed to be used for; don’t waste your unfair advantage to greenlight an unfair world through your inaction and addiction to comfort.
I hope to see you on the battlefield, preferably on the same side.
