Soapbox Privilege

Privilege comes in all different shapes and sizes. Sometimes we don’t even realize when we’re displaying it because it’s something that has always existed for us or currently easily exists. One of these privileges that a lot of us take for granted is having a voice that we can use. I don’t mean this in the typical way someone might reference the use of our voices. I mean this in the sense that some of us don’t acknowledge that we have circumstances that allow us to be able to speak up about whatever we’re moved to speak on…. and others do not.

Growing up in a highly dysfunctional, abusive, and toxic home has made me more than familiar with not being able to use my own voice the way I want to. Children already don’t get much autonomy over themselves as it is but when you have a tyrannical parent and another parent who’s afraid to stand up to the tyrant, it worsens. In my early childhood, I shared some things with a friend that were happening at home. When my father found out, I was severely punished, told to never tell family business again and was threatened with more abuse if I disobeyed. I was often reminded that what happened in our home was to stay in our home; if any of it got out and it was determined that we had anything to do with it, there would be severe consequences. In case you the reader need more specific information, he was threatening to beat us and remove access to things we enjoyed doing for “telling HIS business.”

There’s more instances of this but I won’t belabor the point. I was stripped of my voice at an early age and other adults reinforced my father’s behavior when they said things like, “his house, his rules” and “that’s none of my business.” There was no real support if I was to defy his warnings so I closed my mouth and counted down the days to my freedom of speech.

However, when you’ve been conditioned to silence yourself, you don’t always speak up the way you thought you would once you are “free”. Once I felt like I could speak, my opinions ran like diarrhea. I wrote while I was a child but I limited the things I shared in my journal because my father would find ways to read it. I had a lock on one of my diaries but I wasn’t allowed to use it because then he couldn’t read my thoughts. Apparently, I wasn’t even allowed to tell pen and paper how I felt and what I was going through. As an adult, I blogged. I wrote about anything and everything I wanted to, at times, posting up to 3 blogs a day. It felt good to use my voice and speak about the things I was aware of. I was finally able to use the privilege that I’d been denied for so long.

So, yes, I stood on a lot of soapboxes, overflowing with opinions. I did make a concerted effort to not go on and on about things I was more ignorant than knowledgeable of; I can’t honestly say I hit that mark every time. I might have also been that person who lambasted others for not speaking up about important things going on… momentarily forgetting that they could have been the younger version of me.

I’d get reminders here and there of what it felt like to be silenced, through the men I dated. If they were asked by anyone if they were involved with me, I’d be questioned… “are you telling my business?”… or flat out told, “don’t tell my business to nobody”, as if I wasn’t part of the experiences they were actually having with me. It was NEVER MY BUSINESS to tell; always theirs. Just like with my father, there were consequences if they thought I was talking. I didn’t experience any physically violent consequences from these particular men but affection and access were withdrawn at times, to teach me to obey. Now when I hear someone say similar, I know it’s a glaring red flag to walk away, not to sit and wait for their necessary to occur.

So, all of this runs through my head when things happen in society that I might want to talk about… and then I also remember what has happened over the last 30 years of my working life for speaking up.

There will ALWAYS be people who shame others for not using their voice. Full stop. They usually don’t take into consideration the full gamut of WHY, simply because THEY CAN. Yet, we’re not all the same. Every time I spoke up at work about something that was unfair, unethical, and even illegal, there was some retaliation. Sometimes it came in the form of making it difficult for me to do my job everyday, sometimes I was laid off (after some time had passed so it wouldn’t look like retaliation), and other times raises, promotions, and bonuses were withheld.

I have integrity to my beliefs so I stand up for them; I also stand up for others and even some of those people have remained silent and watched me suffer the consequences of defending them. I’m all too familiar with the loss involved with speaking up. There’s no fund standing by waiting to give me the money I lost every time I was laid off for speaking up. There’s no housing resource waiting to assist me in finding a home for me and my child if I lose my current housing. The dealership will repossess my vehicle if I don’t pay them every month. They don’t care about any lack of income due to me “doing the right thing.”

And what I’ve come to know is, everyone who pushes others to speak up, they won’t be present to assist you with your needs when your voice causes you immediate loss. They’ll do all of the performative things that cost them nothing but anything outside of that? All of a sudden, they have their own lives to live. They have to take care of themselves before they take care of anyone else. And your choice to speak up was just that, a choice, not the necessity they presented it as so you can be heralded a “good person”.

I’m not saying this to discourage ANYONE from speaking up. Please, shout to the rooftops if you feel so inclined. However, I think it’s worth remembering in our moments of passionate activism, that everyone can play different roles. Some people will be the megaphones while others are the gremlins in the system. Some will be on the frontlines pushing for freedom and others will be behind the scenes doing the unseen work. Some of us will be having public conversations daily, and others will be having private conversations to push the needle of understanding further along for those of us who need the time and patience the frontline cannot afford to extend.

So, in our soapboxes of privilege I hope we remember that our voices resonate best when they’re unified. We don’t have to divide our efforts up into pushes for everyone to show up the same. Show up how you can. Encourage others to do what they can but please, let us not cause more harm. The society we live in has no problem already doing that to all of us.