The Privilege Walk

The privilege walk exercise is used to showcase a few social issues that affect our communities every day. The exercise uses several questions or statements that, if true, the person must take a step forward or back depending on their answer, yes or no. The question ranges from many society biases that are often considered privileges if someone next to you of different race, income status, gender, or religious affiliation does not have the same opportunity that you earned. Privileges are often referred to the freedom of socioeconomic issues that could hinder your life plan or goals. Once the exercise is finished you might see where everyone’s stance is in the process of life. From social science research, we can determine where the average socioeconomic statuses of individuals might fall within a certain problem of societal issue.

For example, one question might be if one or both parents graduated from higher education including associates, bachelors, masters, and professional degrees? The individuals that take a step forward are assumed to have an upper hand in life experiences because they invested money to understand certain sectors of our economic community. Another question might be, do you come from a military family that moved around the country or abroad? Some aspects of this could be positive in the ability to have formal respect for authority and positive military influenced habits.

While these examples are useful for some people, it is often the individuals that don’t take a step forward that need more attention and guidance while enabling a self-determination decision. Becoming aware of cultural biases is important to give fair and equal judgement throughout all aspects of our local community. Showing compassion and empathy to people that might not have certain privileges earned is critical in promoting fair and equal treatment of our community members.

What is Privilege? - As/Is