Exploring The Shortcomings That Come With My Privilege
Let me paint a picture — an upper caste, Hindu, cis-gender young man growing up in a patriarchal household as the only son with all the benefits, messages and privileges that identity accorded him decides to follow his dreams (which is a privilege) and work for social change. I didn’t know it then, how my various privileged identities made me unaware to the complexity of issues in our society. I was deeply moved by the plight of the poor; I was searching for meaning and purpose in own life and working in social change seemed like the calling. With just two years of a volunteering experience, I believed my commitment, intelligence and hard work were enough to solve complex challenges of children in poverty with speed and ease. There was an air of all-knowing around me and an urgency to solve challenges today. I could not have been more wrong.
It has taken me years to break out of this inflated sense of me and my capabilities and accept with humility that the challenges are complex, inter-sectional and multi-layered. Moreover, the sector does not need heroes but a coming together of collective efforts of multiple visible and invisible actors. A few experiences along the way have been crucial to create this mindset change.
In 2004, when the Tsunami hit parts of Asia including India, we as an organization were compelled to respond. A group of us arrived in a small seaside village in Tamil Nadu and were overwhelmed with the extent of the devastation. The role we chose was to support children overcome the trauma of this disaster with art and play. We went with grand plans of what the community needed, just to discard them.
As we spent a week in the local village and listened to the stories of loss, suffering and grief, we realized we were called upon to be more and do more. After initial resistance from us we listened to the community elders, and they guided us with what was most urgent and important for the community. We accepted the local wisdom and realized that the community, while stricken in poverty, was wise and intelligent and we need to trust their counsel.
Centering our work around children, we organized food and drinking water for the community. We cleaned the school premises which was strewn with dead fish and animals mixed with salty sea water and fallen trees. We hoped that solving these challenges will also help children recover and heal sooner. We created listening spaces under the stars for elders, parents and children to just share their pain and sorrow, find a release, maybe some closure. We worked with children to help them overcome the fear of the very sea which was their best friend and playground earlier. It took us nearly a year of work, visiting for a week or less every month to rebuild the children’s confidence to go back to the sea that had taken so much from their life.
We also saw an example of an agency that didn’t listen to the community. In between, one of our trips, an International organization had sent a representative with a specific mandate to build toilets in the community. They had 10-days to complete the project. They, on their own without consultation with the community, decided to use the school playground to build a set of concrete, western toilets that looked appealing, took photographs and left. When we visited next, we saw the toilets were abandoned and unused. In conversations with the community elders, it became obvious the representatives had come to complete a checkmark in their to-do list and not really solve the challenges of the community. The community did need toilets but not a concrete one, definitely not a western one. The concrete toilet already had leakages because the sea-water had still not subsided, and the ground was wet and eroded which meant it was not prudent to build a concrete structure and the icing on the cake was that the toilet had no water and drainage outlet making it unusable.
This was a huge lesson for me. Never to engage with this work from a sense of authority, expertise vs local wisdom or just a job to be completed or from my own myopic understanding of what communities need. I learnt to respect the wisdom and agency of the community and learnt to listen, build trust and respond to what they need.
At another time, I was working with a young man of 11-years who had dropped out of school, had become a petty thief and had learnt to own that identity. In my privileged and limited lens, I brought my prejudices and biases to my relationship with him. I attempted to put him back in school without first understanding that he dropped out of school because he was getting beaten at school and he needed to be around to take care of his 5-year old sister who was left alone while his mother was at work. I attempted to get him out of thieving without realizing that his mother didn’t feed him and he stole so that he can get some money to feed himself and his sister. When his daily life was already filled with such complexity and there were societal barriers and structural inequities preventing him from surviving, who am I to judge the choices and decisions this young man is making.
Yet another time, at a camp with adolescent street boys designed to help them get out of substance abuse, our privileged lens told us that substance abuse was bad for these boys. During one of the reflection circles, a young boy spoke his truth. He said that he eats his meals out of stinking garbage bins, sleeps on street corners or park benches with the risk of being beaten up by the police or bullied by the older boys. The drugs help him numb his senses to stench, garbage, beatings, abuse so he could live another day.
Today, I am still an upper caste, Hindu, cis-gender man and I ask myself ‘what does then an upper caste, Hindu, cis-gender man with an internalized savior syndrome do?’ I am still exploring the answer. But one thing I am sure of, that this journey is not about saving anyone anymore. It is now my journey of unpacking my privilege and unlearning my narratives. To accept that my privilege and the skills and allowances that come with it is the problem and not the solution. To learn to step back and listen rather than jump to solve. To hold and not judge the other realities that are not mine. And to listen, acknowledge, accept and honor the other truths that are out there.
PS: I changed the word ‘Blind Spots’ to ‘Shortcomings’ because someone helped me realize that using the language of ‘blind’ in a context where I am pointing out to something I missed / some aspect of my personality or knowledge that I would want to correct can be harmful for those with disabilities.