Opinion: Privilege in modern day wellness
I wrote about the privilege of modern self care before, but never as articulate as Zadie Smith put it in an interview (2018) with Arnon Grunberg. She talks about the privilege of focusing on your existential identity while others still have to make room for their political identity. In other words, there is no room to question the existential: "Who am I? What will my place be in this world?" If you are still making the world around you aware that the physical you, the political you is just as valuable and deserves the same autonomous reality that they know for themselves.
There is no room for existential exploring of yourself or seeking purpose when you’re viewed and treated as a symbolic friend, a symbolic employee, even a symbolic president. If you are seen at best by your appearance and roots as a supporting role in the narrative. An exception to the rule. Even now. How much of the wokeness is really a changing perspective, how much is trend and how much is commerce? Or rather, how much is the black / colored person really writing her own story? And how much is still framed / edited by 'the other' who we collectively label as objective?
The same questions arise when I think of people who have a disability, or those who are ill, fat, or are somewhere on the lgbtq+ spectrum, or for someone who comes from a poor socio-economic background. For all of them (self included) there is a political limitation by which they are taken less serious and seen as less of an authority even on their own theme or culture. They are less heard, respected or taken into account in the (political) conversation. A limitation that is imposed by a small group (we collectively labeled as objective) when in reality the only thing that makes them objective is actually the autonomy they can carry out. An autonomy everyone has a birthright too, but not everyone has the privilege of experiencing in this lifetime.
No matter how I behave in the world, how pale I am, no matter how blonde my children are. I am a black woman because I am not 100% white. That is my political identity. That is my visible identity and therefore I am seen as such. All that I do is in some form or other put next to these ‘facts’ that make me.
I hope It’s a dialogue is a space where we rise above this political identity. A place where you can redefine, what is a woman? What is a black woman? What is a white woman? What is a mother? What is healthy? What is love? What is Freedom? What is it to you? It is time for nothing to stand between you and your SELF care.
