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We Come From Different Places
But that doesn’t mean we do not have common notions and goals.
I am a middle-aged, white, cis-gendered straight man. I am starting out with this because I want to make it clear that I recognize that with that comes a certain level of privilege it’s important to both recognize and acknowledge.
I grew up in a middle-class home in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Though it was a single-parent home, with my mom and my sister, and though we were among the few Jewish people in the area, it was a loving home.
My father was still in the picture, although he did live halfway across the country from us. However, this meant that as a child and into my teens I had the privilege to travel, explore places with family all over the United States, and had a pretty comfortable life. I was very fortunate in that I can honestly say that overall I had it fairly easy.
Why am I sharing this with you? Because I want to be clear about where I come from. Recently, I was reading an article by Jessica Wildfire about Lazy Self-Help, and I wanted to be upfront and clear about what place I am coming from. She’s wise in pointing out that far too many of the self-help gurus out there fail to entirely recognize or acknowledge their own privilege or background and its differences from where others may come from.
