How comfortable are you with conflict on a scale of 1 to 10? One is “I will eat food that I did not order,” and ten is “let’s fight.” A few weeks back in a session, my friend Dr Jen Fry asked that question. She’s a 10 on conflict so she was bringing all the confidence, but I could sense the fear rise in the room. Maybe it was just me getting nervous for my own session later that day. Or, the dreaded conflict. 

I gave myself a 4 on the scale. I don’t like conflict, but I will not eat food I did not order. However, I’m not jumping into discomfort for fun. I’m probably not going to bring up something I expect to cause conflict if I’m not under the impression we are both willing to change our minds.

I find that conflict comes a little easier when it’s about recruiting than questions about my identity. I still remember the first time someone said, “I just don’t need pronouns.” I was proud of my snarky inner child because I didn’t shout, “I is a pronoun, you idiot.” No need to fight, just like I said in my post about how allies correct others earlier this week.

Alternatively, when people want to challenge if college should be a mandatory requirement - I am Dr Fry level 10. It happened after my session on that day. Long after I was home and my session was done, I got a notification. Out of curiosity, I logged in, only to see an angry message from an attendee. It was in response to my suggestion that college is a privilege, not a right. “I’m offended! I’m not privileged,” her message said. What followed were a list of circumstances she faced that no one should ever have to overcome: family addiction, poverty, and overworking to name a few.

I hesitated to respond. Like I said, I don’t like conflict - even if I can be a keyboard warrior. I also, at least partially, understand what happened inside of her when I used the word “privilege.” In my 20s if you told me I was privileged, I would be offended. Mad, even. I came from a family where my grandmother raised 3 kids alone in the 70s. My mother was a single parent. I’ve also had hard experiences no one should have to overcome and they made me believe I didn’t have it any easier than anyone else. 

Thanks to kind friends who were willing to challenge me, books that opened my eyes, and therapy to understand my hurt, I can see pretty clearly that privilege is not about money. It’s about a broken system. Things that have been broken long before any of us took our first breath. A system so broken that we gasp in shock at the outcomes and have to point fingers to separate ourselves. A system that turns us against each other when it’s none of our faults. 

Requiring degrees is the perfect example of a broken system perpetuated by privilege. For many years, only white people could get college degrees. Let me be even more specific: only white men could get college degrees. You don’t see any college degrees required for work until the Civil Rights Movement. We don’t need to guess why this happened. The law adjusted to create equity in workplaces and corporate America made the barrier to entry higher. This isn’t new or a historical issue. This is a problem being copied and pasted from ChatGPT and old templates right now. 

That paper ceiling created all those years ago still benefits the same people it did when no one else could walk through those university halls. It is a paper ceiling that stops thousands of qualified people who know how to do a job from being gainfully employed. That’s a problem. 

However, I didn’t say that. I typed what I wanted to say which was along the lines of: “This is a fact. Facts aren’t offensive. It’s data.” This was my first draft and not what I actually wanted to say. But I pressed enter to create a paragraph spacing and it sent my message. There I sat. Mortified. 

Now I have to face the conflict head on with the hope that they might change their minds. With the hope that all of us might someday know that privilege isn’t just about where we come from, it’s about how we can change the world, but only if we’re willing to go past our conflict comfort level.