The Art of Reflection

Privilege. I have it. You have it. Now what?

I've come to realize that I've drilled the importance of self-reflection into this blog, but not once have I described what self-reflection is, or what it looks like in the context of privilege. I'm going to try to fix that as best as I can.

Self-reflection, in layman's terms, is "meditation or serious thought about one's character, actions, and motives." It's taking a moment in your life to pause and critically contemplate the nature of your life, your self, and your actions. In a culture where we are all about self-validation, all about instant gratification, and life is constantly on the go, go, go, we have reached a destitute poverty of self-reflectors. Its gotten to a point where we don't even know what it looks like anymore. We don't even know where to begin.

Is self-reflecting self questioning?

Is it investigating? Excavating?

How long does it take?

Ten minutes?

Ten years?

I think the answer varies from person to person, but reflection in the context of privilege, in my opinion, is mostly based on observations that lead to an irreversible sort of awareness. It's an everlasting process. With different experiences, you become aware of different kinds of privilege. For example, I'd never really thought of able-bodied privilege until I started writing for this blog.

The real challenge comes when we start to deny the privilege that we have discovered, when we blow off multiple observations we've made as irrelevant to the conversation of unconscious bias.

A great example of the self-reflection process can be read in this article from the Huffington Post.

Gloria Atanmo exemplifies what it is to critically dissect observed disparities and sort them into privileges she has, many of which (such as African-American Privilege) she'd never consider a privilege previously .

Self-reflection varies on the person of course. What is reflection to me, to Atanmo, or her editor, could be entirely different from somebody else's "aha!" moment in privilege.

So what is self-reflection to you? Have you had any big "aha" moments worth that completely shifted your understanding of privilege?

Feel free to share in the comments below!