There is a wise axiom that we should never judge someone until "we have walked a mile in their shoes." The first step is awareness. Awareness brings insight; insight creates increased understanding and compassion.

One of the challenges of privilege is that it is hardest to recognize by the people who are enjoying the privilege. In the last several years, I have strived to become more aware and sensitive to the privileges I have unknowingly enjoyed throughout my life.

The purpose of this insight is not to create guilt, but to increase awareness and sensitivity to those who struggle on the other side of these privileges. Through awareness, we can have more compassion for why those who are different from us respond as they do. I share them with you, in hopes of inspiring your own self-reflection on what privileges you enjoy, and how we all might be more compassionate and understanding to each other.

Obviously, there are privileges on the other side of the coin, and it would be worthwhile to explore those sometime. However, the purpose of this writing is to explore how I can be more compassionate, not to complain about how I may have been "shorted." I will leave exploring the other sides of these issues to those who want to explore their own privileges.

Male Privilege

This is something I stress a lot with my young male clients. Often times, we can look at the opposite sex and wonder why they act the way they do. The opposite sex is not as mysterious as we (both male and female) sometimes believe.
As a male, I have come to realize that I enjoy the following privileges:

• When going on a first date, I have never had conflictual feelings that my date may be the love of my life, or may end up being a threat to my personal safety (date rape, domestic violence, etc.) My biggest risk is getting my heart broken, not my nose.
• As a male over 6 feet tall, I have no problem in walking down the streets of most cities late at night without fear of being.
• I can go to a public place and mingle in traffic without continually being hit upon, propositioned or leered at.
• I enjoy the respect of talking to the opposite sex and never having to feel uncomfortable because the person I am talking to is focused on my body, instead of looking me in the eye when I talk to them. Females often times (not always) do not get this respect.

White Privilege

Growing up in a very "white bread" neighborhood, I lived a very sheltered and naïve life. In my neighborhood, cultural diversity was the color of people eyes and hair. I was in high school before I met my first African American person. Ironically enough he became one of my best friends.

Like many people, I did not believe that I was prejudice, but I was. My attitude was that everyone was the same as me. Because the people I knew of color (African American, Native American, Asian, Hispanic, etc.) were so enculturated into the "white" society, I believed that everyone was a Caucasian with different skin color. I learned this is an equally prejudiced view.

A powerful eye-opening experience for me was whenever I would go with my adopted son to the store. I was amazed and disappointed how differently Fernando and I were treated than when I went to the same store with Rob (my other son). When Fernando and I would go into a store, he would often be met with looks of distrust and suspicion. He would have store employees follow him throughout the store. This never occurred with Rob. The looks Fernando received from some of some store employees were infuriating to me as his father. I wanted to grab them by the front of the shirt and shake them. How dare they treat my son that way! Imagine what it would be like to be met with that same disrespectful, distrusting, (sometimes hateful) look, just because of the melanoma level in your skin.

While we have made some progress in overcoming racial prejudice, there are still many privileges Caucasians have today. For example:

• I have never been by the police because of my race. (I know of many people that cannot say this)
• I have never been stopped while walking through an upper-economic neighborhood, and asked what I was doing in that neighborhood.
• I have never had store clerks give me rude looks and follow me around a store, treating me like a criminal (except of course when I am with my bi-racial adopted son).

Heterosexual Privilege

While there has been some progress in recognizing and honoring the rights of people with people with alternative sexual orientation, this is still one of the most blatant areas of prejudice and discrimination in our society today. As a heterosexual, some of the privileges I enjoy are:

• I have been able to pursue people that I am attracted to without having to explain when and where I "decided" to be heterosexual.
• I can choose to marry someone that I love and have that marriage recognized and protected by the laws of the land.
• I can walk hand-in-hand, put my arm around them, or even
snuggle with my sweetheart in public in any city in the country without getting dirty looks, rude comments, or being asked to leave.
• I can safely go with my sweetheart for a moonlit romantic walk anywhere without fear of being the victim of a hate crime.

Religious Privilege

While I do not subscribe to any organized religion, I recognize the privileges I enjoy for not belonging to a "suspected" religion." Over the last several years, I have worked with a number of families whose religions are different from the typical religions of our country (Muslim, Buddhist, Shiite, Kurds, etc.) Many of these families fled their countries due to the discrimination they received from the governments that our society views as "threatening." Yet, because of their skin color, style of dress, tunic, etc. they are met with hatred and prejudice, called names, sent death threats, etc. Some of the privileges I enjoy are:

• I can walk down the street without having passing cars yell at me to "go home terrorist!"
• I can share criticisms of our government, or share humorous antidotes with people without being viewed as a threat to my country (USA).
• I can walk around a public place without being stared at, shot hateful looks, called a "towel-head," etc. (I know of a elderly grandmother who, while at the store to buy some milk for her grandchildren, had a young man walk up to her, spit in her face, and swear at her.)

What privileges can you think of that you enjoy? I would love to see reposts with your own insights as to what privileges you enjoy. Rather than post comments of how we have been wronged, perhaps we can look deeper and see what privileges we have enjoyed without even being aware of them.

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