The Role of Context in Human Privilege

It’s very easy to recognize the impact of context on privilege when we consider royal families, but the picture gets a bit blurry when we look at ourselves. Since the dawn of human existence, people have been positioning themselves to create an advantage that will improve their chances of survival. Initially, it was strength. It evolved into the ability to acquire resources. Over time, if you manipulated your world better than others, you could put your people in a “higher” position than other people. You might be the king or queen. Others might be your servants or slaves. After centuries, if your people were not deposed, your great, great, great grandchildren may reap the benefits of your strength and cunning without having done anything to earn it.

The royalty example is what spawned the concept of the Great American Experiment. Having been abused by royal privilege, many colonists in North America decided to throw off the bondage of privilege by birthright that was being lorded over them by a king who had not earned his position by any means other than being born into a context very much different than that of the colonists. Today, we are 250 years removed from the events that led to the creation of the USA. But the privilege of context persists. My context is different than that of many others. Perhaps the one aspect of the American context that differs today from many other contexts, is our opportunity to rewrite our context. But even doing a contextual reboot is easier for some than it is for others.

I spent the first 12 years of my life in a 2 bedroom, 800 square foot house in a low income area of Los Angeles County California. It would have been easy to maintain that context for the entirety of my life. But my parents decided that my 2 brothers, 1 sister, and I would need to rewrite our context. Being white, Anglo-Saxon Americans, that was entirely possible. It was hard work, but our world changed dramatically. Many of our neighbors, who were of Mexican heritage, had a much more difficult time. It wasn’t that they didn’t want a rewrite, but because of the color of their skin and their accent, it was easy to remind them where they belonged. I now, at age 70, realize the advantage we had. We could blend into the dominant culture of upper middle class, suburban Midwest culture, and nobody knew our origins. In the mid 1960s very few blacks or Latinos could do that. I accept and acknowledge the fact that I had a privilege many others did not.

If I want to really be a Legacy Leader, I must be able to be fully empathetic of those I would like to lead. I cannot do that unless I accept and acknowledge the context of the lives of others. By asking people to just get over it and get on with the business at hand, prevents me from having true empathy for what they are dealing with. If I can’t help them more effectively deal with their context, their ability to perform will be diminished. If that happens, we all lose! As Kent Roberts used to tell me, all the time, “context is everything!“