One of my very favorite Texas lawmakers is the honorable Senfronia Thompson of district 141 in Houston. I learned so much from Rep. Thompson about privilege. It was she who taught me:
“When you talk about race, white people think you are talking about People of Color. When you talk about gender, men think you are talking about women. And when you talk about sexual orientation straight people think you’re talking about the LGBTQ community.”
In other words, people of privilege see themselves as the norm and so they can think that equal rights for people who differ from them as special rights.
Rep. Thompson has spent her adult life advocating for the Texans some would leave behind. She has been a lighthouse for human rights and is one of the great uncelebrated champions of Texas history. She explains her tireless activism in one sentence:
“When the arc bends toward justice, we have to bend it, it doesn’t bend itself.”