All we have to do is live up to this privilege of being American, to take our turn narrowing the gap between the American Creed, which binds us, and the American reality, which always disappoints us. The sense of American privilege fills us with gratitude and humility. But as several writers, including Phoebe Maltz Bovy, have argued, this concept of negative privilege doesn’t seem to lead to productive social change. They are about new groups previously outside the system busting their way in and taking possession of the great privilege to be American. But none of us has earned the great privilege we share together and which is the furnace of most reform.

Source: New York Times March 27, 2018 01:30 UTC