I am a white middle class cisgender heterosexual Christian woman. Other than gender biases, my life is completely full of privilege. But somehow this has become construed by society as something that makes me inherently ignorant and incapable of understanding certain things. It is assumed that due to the color of my skin, my sexuality, or my socioeconomic status, I cannot understand or empathize with the struggles of those with less privilege than I. And imagine if I had a Y chromosome instead of another X. I assume by that point, my views on equality would be thrown out the window based on details about my life that I have little control over.
Yes, I was born white. I was born a woman. I was born heterosexual. And I was born into a middle class family in Kansas. My dad is an engineer and for much of my childhood my mom stayed at home. I experienced a stereotypical American upbringing. These are things I cannot change about my life. But I often feel as though these things are what are shutting me out of conversations on critical social issues.
Of course, there are always people who are listening to what I have to say, but I know that there are individuals of color, members or the LGBT community, etc. that are more than willing to blow aside my opinions before I even project them based on my appearance, anatomy, and environment. And I'm not belittling the experiences of the people in these communities. Often times, there are men and women with similar backgrounds to myself that claim to be fighting for these people when truly furthering their own agendas. But I think it's dangerous to assume this is the norm. There are important contributions to movements that can be made by people not in the community behind the movement. I am also aware that my views and opinions may not be perfect for the movements in these communities. But that should warrant teaching, not shunning.
I think what's damaging here is the general lack of patience with those who differ in views. Instead of engaging in meaningful discourse, opinions are disregarded and attacked. And I'm not innocent of this, I'm insanely stubborn when it comes to what I believe. I'd rather fight for my own opinion than listen to others who may be more correct than I am. If we were to take a step back and actually digest what we are being told rather than going into an instant combat mode to fight against differing opinions, not only would disagreement be more pleasant but cooperation would be more common.
Truth is given in pieces. No one person has all of it, no matter how much we assume we do. By discounting individuals based on external characteristics, we are missing out on pieces of truth that we may not encounter otherwise. Some people have larger pieces of truth than others and sometimes the truth we have overlaps with the truth someone else has. And sometimes we have a piece of truth that no one else can claim. Imagine a world in which everyone held their truth close to their hearts, never sharing or listening to others. In this world, there is no progress because there is no understanding or cooperation. People hold fast to what they know without considering alternatives or extensions to their knowledge. Truth is never organized or combined to create beauty or peace. Now imagine a world in which people acknowledge the truth they have and the fact that it's only a small portion of a whole. In this world, people share their truths with others and listen to what is shared with them. People discuss their truths to find connections and solutions. There is progress because we recognize both our owns strengths and shortcomings as well as the strengths and shortcomings of others. We are less judgmental because we know that no matter how small or different a person may be, they have truth that we don't and we can grow from a relationship with them. We work together to find as much of a whole truth as we can in order to benefit everyone in the community. I know that this is the world I would rather live in and I know that it would take a lot of change on personal and communal levels to achieve.
I think this is a piece of truth that I have and I hope that sharing it empowers and influences change, even on a small scale. And I would encourage others to never be afraid of sharing what they believe, because you have truth and you'll never know what kind of power it has until you share it.
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