Module 4: Power and privilege

Time to take (on) power!

Module 4 presents articles, tools and resources to help you think about the role that power and privilege play in our world, workplace and union education work. 

To prepare, complete the following steps:

  • Step 1: Read about white privilege
  • Step 2: Explore a map of power and privilege in Canadian society, and
  • Step 3: Learn about the danger of looking at the world thinking that a single story explains everything.

Read and watch below!


If you get stuck or have any questions, reach out. We’re here to help. Contact: education@cupe.ca


Step 1: Read about unlearning white privilege

“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group,” writes Peggy McIntosh in this classic 1990 article.

Click here to read more.


Step 2: Explore the role that power and privilege play in our society

Dr. Amy Tan is an academic family and hospice palliative care physician in Calgary. Alarmed at the rise of organized white supremacy and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racialized communities, Dr. Tan produced an excellent resource for contemplating how power and privilege operate in the Canadian context.

Click here to review “Power and Privilege in Canada”

Dr. Tan’s graphic, and accompanying text, invites us to see who has power and privilege, and who doesn’t. She builds on the work of Black feminists by explaining how identities and oppressions overlap: how they “intersect”, or, how they are intersectional.


Step 3: Danger of a Single Story

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
 
Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature.
 


If you get stuck or have any questions, reach out. We’re here to help. Contact: education@cupe.ca