Your privilege, our responsibility

Lately, I’ve been very aware of my privilege.

I’m white, healthy and above poverty level. All of those traits are an advantage in today’s America and in the world at large.

In contrast, a recent study by British nonprofit Save the Children found that global wealth and class inequality is at its highest in 20 years. When we have more resources than ever before to help those around us, the gap has inexplicably widened.
I may be part of the 99 percent here in America, but worldwide, I’m definitely in the top tier. As American citizens, we were all born into privilege that much of the world will never experience. We live in a country with a stable government where, although there are certainly obstacles, we have a great amount of freedom to pursue our goals and interests.

That freedom has led us here, to higher education.

As people who have the opportunity to attend college, it’s our duty to use our education not only to better ourselves, but also the world we’re entering.

Especially as a senior, I hear a lot about individual success and concerns about life after graduation. But one thing that’s hard to learn, especially in the microcosm of a college community, is how large the world is.

It can be overwhelming, so we sequester ourselves away in our small kingdoms of academia, concerning ourselves only with the people and events that are immediately in front of us.

We must remind ourselves that this is not the whole world. This campus, this town, this state and even this country are not the limits of the universe, as much as some of us may want them to be.

People are struggling, even in dreamland America. The whole world is struggling. Just look at the news.

When we use our education to better ourselves and to alleviate our own struggles, we cannot leave it at that.

We must expand our goal of success from individual to global. This is the mentality of a new, globalized generation of young people. To help our world, our future children and ourselves, we must help one another.

This is not the archaic white man’s burden or the misguided mission of well-intentioned first world citizens to “save” some post-colonial vision of poorer countries. It’s a different mentality.

When you’re on top, you must reach down and help others up after you.

As University students, downtrodden as we sometimes may feel, we’re on top. We cannot pull the ladder to success up after us.

If the global wealth and inequality gap widens, there will be terrible consequences for truly everyone. The current levels of socioeconomic inequality worldwide are unsustainable, and we all know it. For the good of everyone’s future children, we need to work together to fix our world.

So be aware of your privilege. Use it wisely and responsibly. We can no longer exist in a bubble of blissful ignorance. Big changes are undeniably coming, and the outside world will soon pop that bubble.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu