The Privilege Walk

A couple weeks ago, we did a kid of social experiment in English: The privilege walk.

The purpose of the privilege walk was to "encourage participants to become critical of their personal privileges associated with race, ethnicity, class, ability, religion and sexual orientation." According to the Ipas website "the purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how social identifiers that are out of participants’ control have affected their privilege and the rights of members of their community."

All the students in the class lined up against the wall and as each question was asked we were told to either walk a step forward or back. At the beginning of the question it took awhile for me to get off the wall and since I could not walk back some steps I remained on the wall. Finally when I moved forward, I felt good. It did not last for long though. I felt that each step I took forward I took two back with the following questions.

Some of the questions are as follows:
- If your primary ethnic identity is American, take one step forward. 
- If you were ever paid less or treated less fairly because of your gender, please take one step back
- If there were more than 50 books in your house growing up, take one step forward. 
- If one of your parents was laid off or unemployed involuntarily, take one step back.
- If your parents or guardians attended college, please take one step forward.
- If you were raised in an area where there was crime, drug activity, etc., please take one step back.
- If you studied the culture of your ancestors in school, take one step forward.

At the end of the exercise I felt myself further away from the most of the group. I was in the back of the class with only one other student. I actually knew her since middle school, so seeing her beside me eased the discomfort I felt not being where the other students were.

Students in each group got to together to discuss how they felt about the exercise and their reactions to some of the questions that were asked. I felt that if each student was blindfolded and we had begun the exercise in the middle of the class, there would have been different results. At first I felt ashamed, but then again I was well aware of my situation.

I did not grow up in a privileged environment nor did I have easy access to money in my household, but if there is one thing I did have, it was the opportunity for an education. I realized although everyone in the classroom ended up in different areas of the room, the fact was, we made it far enough to be in the same room. Meaning we had all made it through high school, and were now participating in activity together in the same English 1102 class in college.

I believe there is always the opportunity to be the exception; to go beyond your circumstance to amount to greater things and be that "success" story. It's never easy, but it's possible. Many people dealt with grave circumstances seldom make it out to "bigger" and "better" things. But I applaud myself for making it this far, no matter how I was dealt.

 Sample Privilege Walk Activity

* Circumstance- a condition, detail, part, or attribute, with respect to time, place, manner,agent, etc., that accompanies, determines, or modifies a fact or event.