The Race of Life

A privilege race. A means to separate the fortunate from the burdened. Here follows the rules of the race; a positive or negative statement is read and if applies to you, one steps forward for the positive statement and backwards for the negative, and if it doesn't apply, the individual stays put. A positive statement, for example, would be "take a step forward if you grew up in a house with more than fifty books" or "take a step forward if you grew up in a house in which your parents owned." And an example of a negative statement could be "step backwards if you grew up in a household with a single parent" or "take a step back if you had to work during high school." During our "race" I watched my classmates all marched on ahead and it was what I expected. When we had finished and I was dead last, a sense of pride overtook me. We were all at the Colorado School of Mines despite the lack of privilege on my part. I had felt that I won race I was meant to lose. And then Amara, insightful as ever, made me realize that I could take the most steps forward at another privilege race. I myself have certain privileges such as a roof over my head, clean water, Pepsi and FIFA and i thought of a person who could have no privileges and I wrote:

I didn't know I could be abandoned
That easily.
Even privilege has abandoned me.
Left me to rot and
Fend for myself.
Absence of privilege is a darkness
Breeding jealousy, pain and remorse.
Absence of privilege is a hole
Deep in the unforgiving earth
Filled to the top with the institutional concrete of oppression.
Alone and hungry, the absence of privilege means certain
Death.

Don Miguel Ruiz once said that we have a need to justify everything, to explain and understand everything, in order to feel safe. We have millions of questions that need answers because there are so many things that the reasoning mind cannot explain. It is not important if the answer is correct; just that the answer itself makes us feel safe. This is why we make assumptions. After our privilege race, I assumed that because I was brought up in the harshest conditions among all of us, I experienced the most injustice. Anyone can win the 'race of life' or rather the race of life is a personal one. The net of injustice is cast wide and society wrongs each and every individual at some point. At the end of our privilege race, I had felt that I won and thats all that mattered.