Privileged. That is what Macalester students are, or, I should say, that is what I hear from those people affiliated with Macalester who write for and to The Mac Weekly. But what does that mean, being privileged?

The right to write bad arguments in the student newspaper seems to be a privilege widely used. From justifying objections to some inequality or unfair situation on campus, to rebuking and jumping down the throats of those who voice their discontent, the term “privilege” is bandied about on the pages of this newspaper to warrant almost any view or course of action. Semester after semester I read that either I am privileged by merely attending Macalester College and therefore I should accept unpleasant consequences and never feel behind the eight ball, or that I am privileged and therefore I have some duty or obligation to those who are not, or both. Frankly, I think this state of affairs is absurd. The words and advice of Samuel Johnson should be marked by all prospective public complainers: “It is not sufficiently considered how much he assumes who dares to claim the privilege of complaining; for as every man has, in his own opinion, a full share of the miseries of life, he is inclined to consider all clamorous uneasiness as part of impatience rather than affiliation and to ask what merit has the man to show by which he has acquired a right to repine at the distribution of nature.”

Now, let us say I am privileged for the very reason that I get to go to Macalester and others do not. Why stop there? Am I not just as privileged by the fact that I graduated high school? If this is so, then am I not just as privileged by the fact that I am an American who has the opportunity to do these things? While we’re adding up my privileges, why not add both my “maleness” and my “whiteness” to this privilege-quotient of mine? Having this opinion piece published, is not that proof of privilege?

Having said this, why should I-or you, or any other Macalester student-be somehow persuaded that the price of privilege is what you say it is, or what those people (you know who you are) affiliated with Macalester who write for and to The Mac Weekly say it is? Why should the power and opportunity, which stands on privilege, be so accursed? Indeed, who among us would deny that personal power and opportunity are two things, among many others, that we wish to safeguard and sustain?

I bet you are thinking that nothing is more lamentable that hearing a Macalester student tell-it-like-it-is about living in privilege? I utterly agree, and I say to you: “more power to ya!” If the term “privilege” is to have any meaning, it must not refer exclusively to the benefits of occupying this or that office of life. Privileges, my friends, are freely granted. I did well in high school and was granted admission to Macalester. I sat down and wrote this piece and it was voluntarily published by the over-worked and under-paid Weekly staff. As for the privileges I was granted that relate to my nationality, gender and race I cannot deny; but I also cannot trace the long, twisted road back to the source of such an unfair state of affairs. What we all can do, however, is think for ourselves and grant others the privilege of doing so too.