Love this refreshing blog by our Social Media specialist!  Aminat has joined our team through the Kickstart scheme and is inspiring us with her bubbly personality and original approach.  Would love your thoughts about her views on privilege.

BLOG BY AMINAT ADENUGA - SOCIAL MEDIA SPECIALIST AT BELONGING PIONEERS.

In this day and age race, gender, sexuality, music, fashion style and  the number of followers you have means a lot…  So does privilege and entitlement.

Being the only black girl in my primary and nursery school, surprisingly I never felt or understood the idea of ‘ White privilege’. But  growing up in a world where social media rules the world ‘White privilege’ is now portrayed as the only form of privilege that exists.

 What is privilege? Privilege for me is not about having luxury things, wealth, materialist things.

Privilege is having special rights and advantages, which could be anything and relate to any race.

We need to understand that every single person on this planet has some form of privilege:  the privilege to wake up in the morning, talk, walk, see, breath, touch, taste, smell, wave, eat, smile, cry and so much more.

A quote from Bob Marley when asked if he’s rich he stated: “possessions make you rich? I don’t have that type of riches, my riches are life forever.”

When asked to write a blog about privilege I needed some sort of inspiration. I typed into Google ‘blogs about privilege’ and as I guessed, the first 10 searches that came up were blogs relating  to ‘White privilege’.   This makes me wonder why society is focused only on White people’s privilege?

Why are people being allowed to be brainwashed with this idea that if you are any other Race you lack privilege and therefore you are less than?

What is white privilege?

Why is it so important?

Why is this the only form of privilege which people seem to know ?

We, as people, need to learn to educate ourselves and understand that privilege comes in so many different forms.

• Men in the UK get paid more than women in the same profession - PRIVILEGE
• Younger people are naturally tech savvy - PRIVILEGE
• Elderly people have amazing life stories to tell - PRIVILEGE
• Same sex marriage is legal in 29 countries - PRIVILEGE

There are so many forms of privilege!

I vote we forget this idea of white privilege which has created a divide on different races and allow ourselves to see that we all have privilege, we just need to understand and find it.

Which leads me to my final question.

What is your PRIVILEGE?