Are You Aware of Your Right Privilege?
It’s hard being left-handed in a society that caters to righties
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It all started pretty innocently. I was playing around on TikTok (don’t judge me) and someone asked, “What is something you’ll get a lot of hate for if you say it out loud?”
My answer?
“Right-handedness is one of the worst kinds of supremacy out there.”
The response was overwhelming. As I write this, the video has been seen 115,000 times and retweeted 1,500 times, has roughly 200 direct comments, and has been liked more than 2,500 times.
I clearly touched a nerve.
“Right supremacy” is a phrase I’ve used half-jokingly for some time. Between it sounding close enough to White supremacy to catch the ear and its inherent ring of truth, I was surprised someone hadn’t coined the term a long time ago. Maybe they did, and I’m late for the party. I didn’t know just how much the term would resonate.
Conversations around privilege and supremacy can be touchy. They usually center around critical parts of identity (race, gender, ability, and sexuality, to name a few). Who am I if I’m not an able-bodied, Black, cisgender, hetero borderline atheist? More difficult still, society is determined to assign a rank to these statuses. Enter Kimba Crenshaw and the concept of intersectionality.
If only a real-world analog demonstrated how we respond to the privilege that cuts across every critical identifier.
Enter the lefty. We are only 10% of the world’s population.
There’s a very familiar arc when it comes to discussing any privilege and its notions of supremacy:
- A marginalized group discusses and finds solace in their common struggle.
- Nonmarginalized people discover the challenges and frustrations that come with said marginalization.
- Nonmarginalized people process new information.
