**TL;DR - The phrase check your privilege is used a lot, especially on Twitter however it does ring true. Appreciating what you can do and what you have can not only help your mental health but perspective.** Privilege is often something that is not up to our own decisions. You cannot help being born into a wealthy family, or the country of which you were born. However we mention, as a growing society, the importance of recognising privilege. It is always important to recognise how you benefit from certain stereotypes, cultures and opportunities. It would be ignorant to not recognise how maybe being born in a developed country helps you with job opportunities, schooling and a working democracy. Checking ones privilege can help with increased understanding and tolerance, ignoring these pedestals can develop into a divided and intolerant society. It does not mean that you should punish yourself or feel awful for having privileges. It is often quite sad that people try to make some who are very lucky, feel bad for things out of their control. Again, it points to this idea that “I can’t feel sad if I have a roof over my head and food on the table”. This can cause awful mental health problems as people then feel depressed about being depressed. This shouldn’t have to be the case and people should not be constantly reminded of their privilege in a negative way. We can always find ways of bringing society together and getting the extreme 1% or people who don’t have to face random police stops or discrimination to recognise their privilege is one way of increasing tolerance. However, it is not something to be used as a political power tool to make people feel bad about what they have earned or been born into, but more a tool for increasing understanding.

Honestly, the term is a bit overused and inflated beyond its original meaning. Similarly, many people who demand others "check their privilege" are often unwilling to provide the same criticism to themselves that they serve to others. Everyone should be humble to the ways in which they may have been lifted up without realizing it.

**Is acknowledging white privilege essential to practicing anti-racism?** • The colloquial phrase “check your privilege” is widely used across social media towards and by allies of anti-racism – it is often used specifically to refer to the concept of White Privilege. White Privilege is the idea that in spite of other potential disadvantages (such as social class, money, gender identity, disability, religion, and nationality), white people [benefit from being white](https://www.whitespaces.org.uk/institutional-whiteness) due to the systemic racism inherent in our society. Checking your privilege is a reminder to reassess an opinion or belief from an anti-racist perspective. • Many believe that we each have a responsibility to acknowledge our own privileges in order to recognise the ways in which society is biased against certain groups of people and eliminate our own [unconscious bias](https://checkyourprivilege.co/). • Others argue against the idea of privilege, believing that this rhetoric vilifies white allies unnecessarily. Some believe that people overuse the phrase to simply [shut down conversations](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/05/check-your-privilege-means) where opinions differ, instead of explaining their own point of view (or even accepting that others think differently).