Walk with me for a moment. Please think of a great injustice from history – a systemic denial of rights to a group.

There are a sad plenty to choose from – different issues, different groups denied, but they share common traits.

Likely the one you picked is memorable because of the battle for equality and justice it spurred. You remember, or have learned about, major events of that fight and the people of the denied group who were major players in it.

Their efforts were great and they should be honored for them. They wrote and spoke reason to any who would listen. Some of their eloquently worded reasonings have since become famous published works, still inspiring to read.

They asked for, then demanded, then fought for what was right. They demonstrated – quietly while seated, boycotting, striking – and loud loudly in the streets. They made sacrifices in order to be heard. Some even died in the fight.

Not every battle was successful, but some were. They at least gained some ground for those who came after them, and we thank them for that.

The positive changes we’ve seen would never have happened – or even been considered – without the work and sacrifice of these people – these people of the denied group who fought to bring about change.

But the other part of these victories – the other part of what was then and still is necessary – is sometimes forgotten. Mostly by the people who most need to remember it.

The injustices made more just, the rights won that were previously denied, were not, and would not have been won ONLY through the efforts of those denied those rights. Oppression is not lifted alone by those underneath it.

In any fight against the denial of justice and equality, it is vital that some of those in the privileged group recognize their privilege, admit the wrong, and join in the fight to make it right. Good people have done that. They aligned themselves with a group — whose very existence made theirs a privileged one — and fought beside them for equality.

Perhaps the most obvious example is the vote. Black men – and then 50 years later, all women – would never have been granted the right to vote without the consent of enough of those who already had it.

The same is true of any struggle for equal voice, freedom, decision-making power, rights of any kind, and just plain respect. Recently I heard a comedian I otherwise enjoy say in an interview – quite seriously, not as a joke – that women’s fight for equality is “their thing” – that the issue of women’s rights has nothing to do with him because he’s a man. Oh, but it does, Bill. It does.

People with privilege of any kind owe it to the society they are part of to recognize, examine, and question that privilege – because privilege cannot exist without oppression. They are two sides of the same coin. Our goal should be to have less of both, ideally none of either.

White privilege in the Jim Crow era existed because of the denial of rights to Blacks. If everyone had been drinking freely from any water fountain, eating in any restaurant, swimming together in public pools, moving around everywhere with the same degree of safety and security, all receiving the same educations and employment opportunities — then where’s the White privilege?

If women can get credit cards and loans in their own names (which they could not before 1974), if they get equal educational opportunities, equal consideration for employment, and equal pay for equal work (which they have not in the past), if they are considered adults in their own right instead of an appendage of a man, allowed to make adult decisions, their points of view heard and considered equally with those of men, including their vote — then, where’s the male privilege?

I’ll tell you where the male privilege is – still right here, just smaller than it used to be and not happy about it. The shrinking of male privilege has happened gradually over many years in direct proportion to the growth of women’s rights and equality. Now some men, with the help and support of some deluded women, are trying to grow it back. Because *“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

And the same is true of White privilege. Still right here, only lessened over many years, with some trying to restore it to its former “glory.”

I focused on only two groups in my examples, one of which is the only one where I am not a member of the privileged group. So, I realize it is not easy to know what to do about it. But I know the one step any and all of us can take is to ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of inequality and of privilege when it is ours. Own it. Admit it. It’s not everything, but it’s something. The denial of inequality in the face of someone experiencing it adds to the hurt. The denial of privilege helps it to continue. And the continuation of privilege is the continuation of oppression.

* I’ve seen this quotation attributed to different people. Not sure who should get credit, but it isn’t me. I just read it and saw the truth in it.