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Learning Our Own Lessons: One teachers privilege diaryBy Krista Hunt

Its September. As I board the subway, I am not going to the university to begin a new

semester teaching; instead, I am headed to see my doctor. Due to health issues, I had totake a semester off, and focus on learning to get well. At loose ends as school beganwithout me, I decided to do something I had never done: engage in one of my ownassignments - the privilege diary. 1 Just as I believe that students need to be listened to

because they have lots to teach us, teachers also need to spend more time learning andtaking on the challenges and risks that we ask of our students. What follows is myattempt to practice what I teach.

This assignment challenges learners to look at how race, class, gender, sexuality, ability,citizenship, etc. are always operating and interlocking on many levels in our lives. Thisincludes instances where we are privileged, as well as instances where we see privilege

operating, but are in a marginalized position. When it is challenging to see how, say, raceis operating in a given situation, learners need to ask some critical questions. For instance,is it difficult to see race operating because we have been taught not to see our privileged

position, as in white people not seeing themselves as ethnic or racialized? Such blank spots are gaps in knowledge resulting from our social location. 2 Therefore, thisassignment challenges us to think critically about our blank spots, or the things we have

been conditioned not to understand. And we are all privileged and oppressed in variousand opposing ways. I am a woman and have a disability (marginalized positions insociety), but I am also white, middle class, and in a heterosexual relationship (all

privileged positions). What this assignment does is ask us to critically examine our lives,how they are shaped by unearned privileges and multiple forms of power, and present thechallenge to take action.

As I sit in another doctors office and catch myself complaining about all the hours I have been spending in waiting rooms lately, I challenge myself to reflect on my privileges andthe ways that race, class, gender, sexuality, status and ability interlock to privilege someof us at the expense of others.

Most patients in these waiting rooms are white and middle class; the doctors are white,rich and predominantly male. Being a doctor myself (PhD) contributes to my ability tohave my concerns taken seriously and to access other experts. However, my gender andage can be a disadvantage, exemplified by a male neurologist calling me sweetheart

1 Many thanks to Farrah Chanda Aslam, Michelle Herbert, Safia Jaffer, Prabhjot Kaur, Nikohl Moncrieffe,Jennifer Nash, Samantha Peters, Amy Raposo, Genevieve Ritchie, Thijiba Sinnithamby, Karen Spring, andKaren Sue - former students who challenged me with their critical feedback.

2 Samantha Peters comments that I talk about disability and yet use the ableist term blindspot, whichconsiders sight as the only way to gain critical knowledge. Anzaldua cited in Vivian A. May and Beth A.Ferri, Fixated on Ability: Questioning Ableist Metaphors in Feminist Theories of Resistance, ProseStudies, Vol. 27, No. 1&2 April-August 2005, pp. 134.

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y I live on first nations landy I have the right, mobility and time to protesty The language used here is accessibley The people who have the microphone look like mey I feel mobile and safe camping here

Approximately thirty people participated. Samantha and other women started anindigenous and women of colour caucus. As an ally, I was encouraged to drop off articleswritten by black and indigenous women about activism. More workshop ideas are beingdiscussed in addition to the conversations it opened up with other occupiers.

What I have learned from my students is that we cannot look at the big problems in our lives, and the inequalities that lead to and structure these problems, without asking thefollowing question: what power do I have to make change? I have also learned fromreflecting on the politics of healthcare at this moment in my life is that asking and

answering critical questions about privilege and oppression is what is needed to heal usand address the inequalities that threaten everything and everyone. Imagine if we couldopen our minds to not just learning from experts, but from people all over the worldwho are making change for social justice in collective and creative ways. Then we wouldreally start learning something, which is what ultimately threatens those in positions of

privilege .

Link to longer article??