Sometimes other people say it best.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the privilege I have and don't have. The privilege I see and that which I am oblivious or naive towards. I have thought about the "Boys of Baraka" and what it says that the black boys are brought to Africa to be taught by white people so that they can have a brighter future. I have thought about how demeaning this is and how true it may be. I have thought about the white privilege that I benefit from and whether it serves anyone but my own ego to dismiss these privileges in disgust of them, or use them to try and change the system. I have thought about what a privilege it is just to be able to think about my privilege - to have the time and resources to spend my time sitting here thinking so much about myself, who I am and what I believe in life. I suppose I have thought a lot about all of these things and realized that it is easy to get stuck in just thinking and believing that this new enlightenment is enough. But it's not. So now I want to start working on doing and changing and real tangible things while I continue to think and grow and reflect. And here are some quotes that I really, really love that help me think about these things.

This is one of my very favorite quotes, and it makes me think about how power is concentrated and who has it in our country.

You will agree that there is no harm in not knowing how to play music, or dance, or ride; nevertheless, a man who is not a musician is ashamed and does not dare to sing in the presence of others, or dance if he doesn't know how, or ride if he cannot sit his horse well. Yet ignorance of how to govern peoples gives rise to so many evils, so much death, destruction, burning and ruination, that it may be said to be the deadliest plague of all; and despite that some rulers who know absolutely nothing about government are not ashamed to set about the task of governing before the eyes not of a small group of men, but rather of the entire world, seeing that they are so exalted in rank that all eyes are turned towards them and hence not only their great but even their slightest defects are always observed.
-Baldesar Castiglione, "The Book of the Courtier"

This quote is from a "conscious" hip-hop and rap artist/poet named K'naan. He was born in Somalia and lived there during the Somalian Civil War until he was able to get an exit visa with his mother and join his father in New York City in 1991. This quote is from a song off of his album "Dusty Foot Philosopher".

"You know my closest friend got killed and we used to, the way that I used to see him, he was like the dusty foot philosopher. It means - the one that's poor, lives in poverty, but lives in a dignified manner and philosophizes about the universe, they talk about - they talk about things that well read people do, and they've never read. They've never been on a plane, but they can tell you what's beyond the clouds. And that's who the dusty foot philosopher is."

-K'naan, "For Mohamoud (Soviet)"