Intersections & Blind Spots
One of my mentors once asked me, “What do we do if we are blind to our blindness?” It was a conundrum that took me some time to wade through. The answer is to allow someone else to help us see what we cannot see. This requires both connection and humility, which are inherently vulnerable. We can see more when we look together through two or more viewpoints, but it can feel a bit tender to invite another perspective. This is often true when we’ve made art as well. Another word for this is to witness.
And yet, our privileges often fall into our blind spots, either through ignorance or because they land in the things-I-take-for-granted camp. At their ugliest, our privileges thrive due to a sense of entitlement, that arrogant, “I deserve this” (but others don’t) feeling. A sure tell-tale sign of having blind spots is the attitude or belief that you don’t have any.
Privilege goes well beyond us as individuals though and is reinforced through interpersonal dynamics, institutional biases and societal constructs. They are all around us, to the point that we almost stop seeing them. It’s also possible to unconsciously internalize subordination as well as domination. It can be hard to tell you’ve gotten wet if you’ve only spent time in the water.
One of the privileges of privilege is having the power to write the rules as well as the narrative, sometimes quite literally. Unfortunately, it’s far too easy to find recent examples of this (hello colonialism), whether around the world or in our neck of the woods. This reinforces the power imbalances and oppresses the voices that would call for change or tell a different story.
We can see the intersections of power and blind spots in the world of therapy too. There are dirty fingerprints of systemic bias throughout the field of psychology’s history whether it be Freud’s “frigid women” or the labelling of homosexuality as a disorder in the DSM until 1973. We see it in the straggling study of women’s health, the lack of services for trans and queer youth, and the absence of culturally-informed care for BIPOC communities. One size does not fit all.
When we zoom out to look at the systemic level, it’s easy to get overwhelmed or discouraged, to feel powerless to change this big machine. There is always space for growth however at the personal level. Thankfully, some tools have been developed to help us become more aware of our areas of power and privilege, and though they are not all-encompassing, they can provide a starting point.
Check out the Power & Privilege Wheel below to see where some of your own intersections lie:
How close to the center were you? Did anything surprise you? What’s missing from this wheel in your experience, either as an area of privilege or oppression? Did this wheel expose any of your blind spots?
There is a relationship between all these segments and it has to do with identity. You’ll notice that many of these aspects of identity are related to what we happen to receive in the birth lottery. All these different words represent our multitude of identities and the ways they intersect. Some are privileged, others are oppressed, but most of us are a combination. Generally speaking, we tend to be more self-aware of the parts of us that have felt oppressed than we are of the areas we have experienced privilege (because of those sneaky blind spots).
If you’d like to explore your intersecting identities more through an art prompt, you could creatively represent each aspect of yourself by working with a variety of art materials or pieces. You might start by selecting different imagery, symbols, shapes, or colours for each identity. Are there areas where your privileges or areas of oppression are in high contrast or visual tension with one another? You can experiment with placement, layers, size, proportion, position, foreground and background to continue reflecting on how these identities intersect and to express the relationships of power and privilege that you are exploring. How does it all fit together today? Has it changed at all over time?
We can do humanity a solid by developing awareness of our own intersecting identities and areas of privilege while learning more about one another’s experiences of oppression with humility and respect. It will be an iterative process as there will always be more to learn. As we seek out more perspectives, we can get a wider angle view. A gentle way to start can be by seeking out content and experiences that are very different from the usual inputs: whether books, blogs, podcasts, music, movies or documentaries. You’ll know you are stretching your comfort zone when you start to feel a little uncertain, maybe a bit more tentative with your reflections.
Lastly, I’ll just add one little closing comment as a therapist: becoming aware of areas of privilege or oppression can bring up feelings of guilt or shame. Guilt is only useful if we allow it to help us correct our harmful behaviour or make amends. Shame doesn’t help anyone and can actually contribute to more oppressive behaviour. Likewise, awareness of our privilege is not a reason to compare or invalidate our hardships or to beat ourselves up for not having an overflowing heart of gratitude every day. Part of being human is feeling all these complex emotions side by side and learning to approach both ourselves and one another with compassion.
