activism – UB Visions

By: Amber Khan, Class 6

Privilege is something that is always around us, but may make us feel uncomfortable. However, if someone calls for you to check your privilege, and you are getting offended, you may not have the right idea about what privilege is.

As apart of my spring project for Leadershape, I decided that I would dedicate a topic once a month to make a video with. The topic for this month is exactly that – Privilege!

Just because you are privileged does not mean you are a bad person, and believe it or not – every single one of us is privileged. Every human in this world is privileged. Just having the wifi, means of connecting to this page to read this means you have privilege. Let alone having the ability to see and read — these are all privileges.

Here some things that does not equate to being privileged: being a bad person, having everything handed to you on a silver platter, that you don’t work for what you have, being one without struggle, not being a hard worker, an asshole.

Obtaining privilege is not about you asking for something and receiving it, but rather the way life has worked out, you was given these benefits that you didn’t necessary ask to be given or not to be given. We have to recognize that we benefit from these privileges and that I as a human being should act as a mender between the gap between those who are the ones affected by it. This is because every human deserves a right that another human being has obtained simply from existing and how life has played out for them.

Now you may think: but I don’t FEEL privileged? but just because you are privileged does not mean you haven’t felt or experienced oppression in different ways. Privilege and oppression can come in more form than one. Being told you have privilege gives you an advantage in achieving things and that can be surprising, annoying, and frustrating because it sounds like it’s putting down one’s struggles and it actually goes against everything we’ve been taught. We have not been taught to identify and understand our privileges. Privilege is about individuals being terrible people and thats why it’s happened, it’s more-so about an entire system that favors some groups while putting others down.

Talking about privilege isn’t supposed to be comfortable. Feeling the discomfort is what can help you aware yourself of the inequality and realize it in situations when you’re supporting it. Every human has an identity that benefits them in some way from the exploitation of another group, so not wanting to accept your privilege helps keep oppression in place.

Educate yourself on what privilege, or access you have. and do your thang as a earthling and make it happen.

Check your privilege through this activity that we did at the Leadershape Spring retreat, linked below!

http://www.differencematters.info/uploads/pdf/privilege-beads-exercise.pdf

By: Amber Khan, Class 6

Hello!

My name is Amber Khan, I’m a super antsy person who loves people and cats. I’m also a business student at UB, specializing in entrepreneurship.

I was recommended by my friend to join leadershape as she explained it to be a life-changing experience, I didn’t actually understand until it was the last day of this 6-day retreat, and I was bawling tears into the shoulders of my family cluster members(Shout out to BAWS NERDS!), and fellow leadershapers. They were all apart of the intense and eye opening week.

Fellow leadershapers worked on mentorship programs, abandoned houses in baltimore, food desserts, environmental issues, all such passionate members all wanting to create a better community for something bigger than themselves.

As I got to focusing on my vision I realized that everything I wanted to do could be achieved in what I already had access to. My skill: video-making. I’ve been doing it since I was thirteen years old, practicing on clips that I would record, helping and following my older brother around while being behind camera. Later, I started getting in front of the camera and making fun videos in my free time.

Eventually I decided to create Youtube videos where I would post about random topics without a schedule, just getting them done when I could.

Upon realizing that my focus for leadershape would be talking about community issues, shedding light on areas where ignorance may linger, and genuinely answering questions that people may have, I decided to combine this into my video-making.

Luckily when I realized that this is what I would wanna do, I went ahead and made my first vision video that happened to during the time of Ramadan, so I ended up making a video answering questions that I had gotten about many of misconceptions about Ramadan and Fasting during this month, so I made my “What Is Ramadan?” video linked below.

Soon after I realized that there was a politician leading a group of people in the country with a twisted agenda, I had to address this.
My video called “I’M AMERICAN” is made addressing some of the thoughts and comments I found to be faulty. The link is below.

My third video in the leadershape series is my newest. This addressed the issue of me being bullied my whole life, and luckily I’m friends with one of the people that happened to bully me throughout my 7-12 grade years in school. I felt like it was more beneficial to have both perspectives from not only the person who got bullied but the person bullying as well. Not just to hear what one was going through but to see two sides of the story. This is also linked below.

Overall, I’m glad that my vision of slowly breaking down barriers and seeing issues topics from a different light started coming to life. I’m excited to continue this series for as long as I can, and ultimately incorporate this vision of mine in whatever else I accomplish in the video making world.

Tag: activism

What is privilege?

My Vision: One Love