Working Your Issues of Privilege
A workshop for people in privileged groups who want to overcome the fear, shame and guilt that keeps them from being as helpful as they could be
If you don't "clean up" your issues about your privilege, you will make social change work all about you
If you're in a privileged group, and you care about social justice, seeing injustice is painful.
And when you learn that your group has caused this injustice, and that you have benefitted from it, you're likely to feel fear, shame and guilt about being who and what you are.
Those are big, scary feelings.
And they are feelings you will have an existential need to resolve. It's not trivial. And it can't wait.
If you don't "clean up" these issues, and come to peace with your privilege, you will unconsciously make yourself the center of attention to heal your own pain.
We know this happens because marginalized people say it happens
They've even had to come up with a word for it: "Decentering."
They have to ask allies to “decenter” themselves, because their experience is, allies keep trying to make themselves the center of attention.
Allies don't mean to do this. But if you have pain and upset about your privilege, you will be unconsciously driven to heal that pain.
With the best of intentions, you'll make it about you.
And people in marginalized groups will have to ask you to decenter yourself (or just grit their teeth and ignore it. Again).
You don't do your best work when you're feeling scared, ashamed, and guilty
It would be great if feeling bad was helpful, because it’s so easy and natural to feel bad, when you face what your group has done in the world.
And it can feel cleansing to really feel bad about yourself, to really get into feeling terrible about how bad your group has been. Have you ever done that, gotten into really feeling so very bad? And it maybe felt kind of purifying?
Or have you even felt like feeling bad is the penance you're paying for your group's impact on the world? Like if you want to prove you are a caring person, you feel shame, guilt, and fear?
But the problem is, torturing yourself doesn't help.
In fact, it makes everything "all about you."
The truth is, you don't do your best work in the world when you're feeling scared, ashamed, and guilty. You end up trying to fix those bad feelings, whether that's your intention or not. You make it about you. You can't help it.
In response to injustice, most people
Inflate or Collapse
Most people in privileged groups have exactly zero training in how to respond to the fear, shame and guilt that gets triggered when they face the injustices of the world.
And because of that, when people in privileged groups learn about social injustices, they either inflate or collapse, because they don’t know what else to do:
Inflators
“Inflators” inflate into a prideful place and dismiss the entire conversation.
It’s as if they say, “The past is the past, I don’t benefit from it in any unfair ways, I refuse this whole conversation.”
Collapsers
“Collapsers” find themselves agreeing with any shaming voices that come up when they learn about injustice.
They collapse into shame, guilt, and fear.
It’s as if they say, “I apologize. Please forgive me. I’ll do whatever you say so I can feel better.”
And you should know—Most privileged people who work for social change are Collapsers
Feeling bad about your privilege doesn't make you helpful. It just makes you needy
When you collapse, you put other people (let's be honest, marginalized people) in charge of your self-esteem. You get needy for marginalized people’s approval in order to feel okay, and that demand unconsciously comes across to them.
Have you ever felt that? The need to have marginalized people’s approval in order to feel better about yourself?
Well feeling that way is a really bad sign, because it places an unfair burden people who already are extra-burdened by society.
Now they have to make you feel better, too.
This is what they mean by "allies make themselves the center of the conversation."
And it's not their job to fix that.
Nobody means to put that burden on marginalized people, but we do it when we feel scared, ashamed, or guilty about who and what we are.
At the “working the issues of privilege” workshop, you’ll discover how you inflate or collapse in the face of injustice. You’ll start to see how this response gets in the way of you being as helpful as you could be.
How the 4-hour, online class works
Step 1: You'll discover what triggers those unhelpful bad feelings
Through a series of questions and small-group sharing, you’ll discover exactly what circumstances lead you to unhelpful bad feelings.
Step 2: You'll explore how you respond to those triggers
You’ll see how you inflate or (more likely) collapse in the face of these triggers, and start to see how these responses sometimes get in the way of you being as helpful as you could be—and even drives you to make social change work about you.
Step 3: You'll bring healing to the parts of you that believe that you must feel bad in order to be a good person, or to make a difference
When you bring healing to the parts of you that have been believing you must feel ashamed, guilty, and afraid, you'll stop being controlled by being upset. You'll be able to work to help the world, without inadvertently making social change work about healing your pain.
When you have the skill of facing injustice without inflating or collapsing:
You’ll skip the drama
You’ll let go of any feelings of being on trial, and will actually be able to do the work of helping.
You’ll stop being needy
for approval and validation from marginalized people who already have enough on their plates
You’ll take “clean” action
to create social justice, rather than action tainted by guilt, shame, or neediness
You’ll be an agent of change
in a way that doesn’t make you either a “savior,” or someone looking for redemption
What this workshop is NOT
This workshop is not a discussion of whether the various social change movements are right or wrong.
This is not a discussion of
•Critical Theory •Critical Race Theory •Radical Feminism •Intersectionality •Multi-Culturalism •Trans Activism ...and so on.
This workshop is an honest exploration of how you feel in response to those movements. And we’ll be looking at how those feelings impact your ability to make a difference in the world.
How to participate in the workshop
The workshop takes place Saturday, August 20th, 2022. The workshop takes place on Zoom, from Noon central time to no later than 4pm central time. Because this is the first time I'll be running this workshop it'll be a bit experimental, so I've discounted the price to $50. I am limiting the number of participants on this first time to keep the group small.
Step 1: Click the button below to sign up
After you sign up, you'll be sent reminder info about the class and the Zoom class link
Step 2: Log in on Zoom at the class time
Because people will be sharing personal stuff, there will not be a recording or replay of the class.
Step 3: Participate and give feedback
The class will start at noon central time and end by 4pm.