Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. The intention of this blog had always been to present a positive and uplifting message generally based around my passion for fitness, fatherhood, and flying, and to avoid politics. However, given current events, I thought I would add my thoughts on privilege.
Let’s start the discussion with a definition. Privilege is a special right advantage or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
I don’t believe I have the knowledge or the experienced position requires to discuss race and the inner workings of privilege that go with it. Instead I will tell you a story about a realization of a privilege I was previously unaware of.
It was 2009 and I was in an aviation safety and security class, working towards my Masters degree, with an interesting assignment. Our professor was an airline pilot on a leave of absence from his airline after the great recession. He was teaching as an adjunct professor in addition to running an aviation safety and security consulting company with contracts all over the globe.
The assignment was to identify potential holes in the aviation security of a local airport, and how those holes could be exploited. The professor wanted us to think like those groups who would perpetrate such acts in order to prevent against them.
I thought it was an interesting and valuable exercise, assigned by an intelligent and credible professor, and I went home after class and got started. To me, it seemed like a natural way to assess vulnerability. Whenever I was trying to break down a wrestling technique the best way to understand it was to try to counter it. It seemed like we were doing the same thing with the assignment, just with higher stakes and more on the line.
So I was surprised when I got an email ahead of the next class saying that the assignment would no longer be required, but would be an optional in class discussion instead of a paper.
One of the international students had reached out to the professor and raised his concerns. Putting his name on a written document that discussed breaching airport security, even if it was a purely academic exercise, was perilous to his ability to remain in the country.
This wasn’t something I had even considered. And I think therein lies the privilege. We were both at the same school, in the same class, working on the same assignment, so this wasn’t a case of different starting points. But this international student, (not that it matters, but a fair skinned European) was burdened by anxiety and concern that didn’t even occur to me.
What is the weight of that concern and anxiety? What toll does it take? How many of his choices or actions had to be put through that filter? On the other side, how liberating is it to not carry around that stress? To be able to act mostly free of concern of the potential outcomes? How many choices have I made unburdened by those fears?
I don’t think these are quantifiable questions, but rather are low stakes examples of the privilege I never realized I had. This blog is not and has never been a place for answers, but rather a place for self reflection and hopefully inspiration for the same in you the reader. So, I will leave you with these words from Max Ehrmann, in the hope that we can all look at ourselves and what privilege we may have.
“If you compare yourself with others you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
