ABSTRACT
Activists and writers in contexts of injustice have highlighted as a structural problem that injustice is experienced differentially. One form of injustice is privilege. What privileges lie hidden in my daily academic life? What is silenced by such hiding?
Three deeply discomforting moments in my life relating to class, climate, and Whiteness privilege, form the core of an account of gradually admitting to my passive acceptance of injustice in the form of privileges from which I benefit. My ignorance has been perpetuating injustice despite this not being my conscious will.
From this crisis, the chapter explores the substantial inner work needed for healing injustice such as White people benefiting from racism, and the outer work of changing habits of dominance within the academy, including ignoring the needs of the Earth. A starting point is befriending my will to injustice and talking about it with others who identify with similar privileges. The needed work from White, middle-class academics ‘like me’ includes repeatedly and creatively uncovering ways in which we are benefiting from various strands of privilege regardless of whether or not we wish to.
At the end, proposals are made for inner growth through building community among academics.
