Social Justice Warrior Feels Like A Sham Because She’s Too Privileged

Jasmine Burton is a humanitarian design activist, but it hasn’t been easy. Over the past few years, she has “struggled to find” her “place in the fight for social justice.”

You see, she’s not oppressed and that’s a huge problem, because it makes her feel like a total poser.

She said she’s always been “angered by unfairness and injustices,” but after a group “privilege” exercise, she realized she was a total fraud.

It was 2013. I was a rising 4th year at the Georgia Institute of Technology and was about to embark on my first experience of being immersed in the social justice and health equity conversation through a CDC sponsored program called the Summer Public Health Scholars Program (SPHSP), an incredible summer program that seeks to engage college aged minorities in the public health dialogue.

Because of her “distinct lack the social justice vernacular” that “typically comes with the territory of attending a liberal arts college,” she considered herself an “outsider.”

“I felt small,” she wrote.

After she participated in her first privilege walk, she felt even smaller.

Our instructor lined everyone up at the end of a hallway and told us to stand side by side. She said, “It’s easy. Just follow the instructions.” My brain immediately referred back to my childhood self that was totally in love with everything related to camp — including camp games such as Good Morning Mr. Fox. I approached this activity like a game, and I wanted to win.

“Take one step forward if your parents went to college.”

“Take one step backward if you grew up not knowing if there would be food on the table.”

“Take one step forward if your parents tell you that they love you everyday.”

“Take one step backward if you didn’t have books in your house as a child.”

By the end of the exercise, she was away from the majority of the group, and that moment “changed her life.” She was isolated. She felt embarrassed and ashamed. Embarrassed and ashamed because she had food on the table growing up.

That was the moment that I physically realized that because of my background and because of my incredible communities of support, I was well positioned in life — ahead of some of my amazing peers that were much more accomplished, intelligent, and resilient than me,” she wrote. “And it wasn’t fair. I completely broke. On the phone with my mom crying, I tried to put into words just how unfair it was. I felt like a sham — trying to engage in the fight for social justice and health equity despite not experiencing nearly as much struggle or pain as my peers.

OMG. She CRIED about this, you guys. Tears were shed. For real.

I felt that the discrimination and injustices that I grew up combating would never compare to that of my peers. And this is just in America! How could I even begin to advocate and push the needle of change on the global stage if I am always perceived as a privileged American who will never understand?

She later realized that she needed to stop focusing on “other-ness” and instead “focus on how we are a part of a global family.”

I hate that term. “Global family.”

I find it amazing how these people make everything it about them. Burton actually turned herself into a victim (that took exceptional skill, I must say) for being “too privileged.”

Stop. That’s crap. I hate that mentality. No one should feel bad for having parents who love them or going to college or having dinner on the table. If that’s something we truly want for others, we shouldn’t feel guilty for having those things ourselves.

But no worries. Burton is totes focusing on our “common human-ness,” now, so it’s all good.