I often share stories and perspectives about "people from the dominant narrative" and "people who are underrepresented."
It's actually more nuanced than that. Most of us don't fit neatly into one of those buckets. This is due to two main ideas:
Compounding privilege and intersectionality.
Similar concepts with very different manifestations.
For example, I am a man. A straight man. A straight White man. A straight White cis man. All these identities represent the dominant narrative.
My Whiteness, maleness, straightness, and cis-ness all give me privilege.
Combined, that's a whole lot of compounding privilege.
A Black, transgender woman, conversely, has three identities that intersect and multiply her underrepresentation, which often leads to further marginalization and discrimination.
And many of us have a combination of compounding privileges and intersectional identities that manifest differently in different contexts.
A straight, White woman, for example. A gay, disabled man.
I know this is all very pedantic. And I don't have a tidy formula to address it.
I just want to raise awareness that issues around race, identity, privilege, and normative cultural values are complex and nuanced. And often messy.
And we have to be willing to talk about them.