Stay Woke

About 100 people are sitting, six to a table, in a cavernous room. They are participating in a workshop. A man and a woman stand at the front of the room. They are the facilitators.

The workshop is about privilege and power. The crowd is made up entirely of public servants, so the topic is something they know a bit about. This does not keep the facilitators from treating the crowd like they don't know anything.

A black, middle-aged woman in the audience raises her hand to ask a question about the definition of privilege projected on two large screens at the front of the room. The definition says privilege is "unearned and unasked for." She says, "I'm an assistant deputy minister and I am aware my privilege - but I worked to get where I am."

One of the facilitators assures the woman that she should not conflate "privilege" with "status." 

I wonder why not.

I also wonder what the point of the workshop is. Painfully earnest seminars on understanding ones privilege seem a bit out of step with the rest of the world, where privilege is staging its most recent comeback.

These days, the mentally ill are back to being crazy and twenty-six-year olds are appointed to plum positions they are not qualified to hold. After an anomalous period when women were in charge of some of Canada's provinces, the reins of power have been returned to the hands of their rightful owners.

I attended the workshop because I have lots of room in my calendar. - I also thought I might learn something, which I did: a new word, cisgender.

I'd heard the term before. It struck me as one of those words that doesn't connote its own meaning (like quotidian, for example) -- but was too lazy to look it up. Now I don't have to.

A couple of days after the workshop, I got an e-mail from the facilitators inviting me to another workshop, this time on anti-racism. I'm still mulling it over whether I'll go or not.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen