Check your Privilege:
What does it mean when someone remarks on your ‘privilege’ or asks you to ‘check your privilege’? Privilege in this instance refers to the multiple ways that institutions and society automatically favor you as a result of your race, class, gender, sexuality and other classifications based on systems of oppression. It is not about you personally but about the advantages you may have over others because of a history of institutional power and subjugation of certain communities or groups of people.
This doesn’t mean that you haven’t suffered or experienced disadvantages or particular forms of systematic violence in life. It just means that in specific instances, we all are more privileged than some depending on the topic at hand and it is important to accept this, just listen to, and understand those that have experience and lived a form of systematic violence that we have not.
Buzzfeed has provided a simplified test to understand where you fall on the spectrum and why:
