Hard work and privilege aren't opposites

I want to talk about privilege for a second because I keep seeing the same debate hashed out over and over again. On one side is "success requires hard work" on the other is "success requires privilege". It's not one or the other, it's both.

Even a moderate amount of success requires a lot of luck. Don't believe me? Consider the fact that the device you're reading this on would likely be considered witchcraft 300 years ago. Any success you have today is predicated on being born in the right place at the right time.

But success also requires a lot of hard work. I don't know a single successful person that hasn't had to work hard to get there (the same is not true of simply being rich). However, there's a lot of variance in the how hard. Sometimes we face headwinds and sometimes tailwinds.

A lot of those headwinds are structural. As a brown man born in the US, most of the success I've had in my life would only be possible in the last 30 years. As a man, I've had a much easier time of it. I would be in a very different spot without my y chromosome.

The problem is that once you've had to work hard, it's easy to forget the privilege that got you there. It's a bit like running a marathon. All you can see is that you've had to run 26 miles. You can't see all the people back at mile 1 that started the race with their legs tied.

It's really important to acknowledge that privilege. It's the only way we can start to level the playing field. If we don't call it out, it's easy for complacency and the bootstrap mentality to kick in. "Anyone can get here so why should I try and fix the system?"

I see a lot of the "sure I'm privileged, BUT I've had to work to get where I am". That "but" being critical, as if there's a fear that the first erases the second. It doesn't. That "but" is insidious and is dangerous instinct if you've gotten to a good place in life.

I've also seen the reverse start to happen. People trivializing success as simply a product of privilege. Minimizing stories of hard work and struggle. That's dangerous too. We need those stories for inspiration when we need to push through the pain.

There's another risk to perpetuating (unintentionally) the story that privilege and privilege alone leads to success. It can disempower those that are less lucky by teaching them success is out of their hands. It teaches people to accept their lot in life. That's wrong too.

Yes there are structural barriers, yes there's a tremendous amount of unfairness in the world. But, regardless of where you start in life, there's value to not giving up. There's value to not believing the internal voice saying you're not good enough, that you can't do it.

We don't need to tear others down to fix what's broken. We can address structural barriers without needing to minimize individual effort. It's ok to celebrate the hard work leading to success even if privilege plays an important role as well.

I hope we start to see more ANDs. We need to tell the story that it's not one or the other. We need to acknowledge the role privilege plays so we can level the playing field. We also need to celebrate the hard work necessary for success so people keep pushing.