Acknowledgement of privilege

Before you attend the Solis Think Tank, we’d like to take a minute to talk about privilege.

The beautifully complex and interesting cultural makeup of our advocate and professional community speaks to intersectionality in practice. As you may know, understanding and navigating privilege is fundamental to this intersectionality in practice.

Privilege manifests in many ways, for all of us – be it through our skin colour, ethnic identity, gender, sexuality, martial status, age, socio-economic background, ability, neurodiversity and/or many, many more. 

We acknowledge that one’s experience of privilege can often be invisible, and that we can forget about our own privilege. 

This means that sometimes, it may take a kind and patient observer to point this out in a constructive way. 

We believe it is important to support each other to remind ourselves of how privilege might show up, and if you are aware – how we can collectively work at addressing the negative ways in which it might manifest in our work. This will also help to form a solid basis from which to move out of the Think Tank and into the world – to think about how we might leverage these learnings in order to address more structural and systemic challenges, and to become more conscious practitioners. 

We cannot be intersectional if we are not aware of the intersections – both of themselves and how they interact with each other, and the world around us. Taking a grounded moment to notice resistance, to notice ourselves becoming defensive or hesitant, also gives us an opportunity to become reflective and grow. 

We want to grow and be better at thinking critically about what is coming up, and trusting that we can go from there. We believe you have the right to do this in a safe, conscious, and understanding community. 

As facilitators, we will take a moment at the beginning of every Think Tank to gently remind community members of this conversation about privilege, and the rights and responsibilities we have in these safe spaces when it comes to acknowledging and navigating privilege. 

We have one ask – if you attend and feel that any of these conversations bring something up for you, if you felt defensive, hesitant, or even offended or hurt, or as though you were required to hold space for someone or something – please reach out to Niharika or Judy, or anyone else in the community you feel safe with. 

We are going to incorporate more of these conversations collectively, in order to lift the burden on individuals to have to navigate these by themselves. However, we acknowledge that given the complex and messy nature of this work, we are here to hold space and unpack with you as we move toward this collective growth and understanding.