Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Analysis

Privilege, by definition, is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. It is being tall, being male, being rich, being white. All these adjectives come with their own set of advantages that others may never experience. As Scalzi emphasizes in his article, Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is, being a straight white male in any of the western world is like playing your favorite game on easy. You will be given more in the beginning and every step along the way will be easier than if you were playing on a higher difficulty. Now this higher difficulty does not come with all the added benefits in the beginning and each step of the way is a lot harder to overcome. These higher difficulties could

be considered a “Poor Single Mother”, “Crippled White Veteran”, “Gay Minority Female” or “Illegal Minority Male”. The hardest part about understanding privilege is realizing that two people are not equal because they are both male or both tall, they are different because he has two parents and you have one.
Intersectionality is a simple word to describe this complex idea that many social justice issues overlap one another. Whether it involves gender, race, sexual orientation, citizenship, class, education, physical or mental ability, people do not simply face just one but many advantages and disadvantages. “This concept of intersectionality recognizes that people can be privileged in some ways and definitely not privileged in others.” (Crosley).
I am privileged to have been born a white United States citizen with two hard working middle class parents. I was privileged to have free public education available. I am privileged to be an able-bodied person. I have been privileged with many job opportunities. There are so many ways that I am privileged and luckily fewer ways that I am not.
I am not privileged to have been born into wealth.