We live in a world where if you're white, an upper-class male of extreme privilege, and able-bodied, and you're nothing that takes you away from that norm, then you're going to have - then the world will not assign you problems because of what you are. That is actually the world we live in.
Interpretation
The quote highlights societal privilege based on race, class, and ability.
Michaela Coel's quote underscores the reality that individuals who fit the traditional norms of privilege—being white, upper-class, male, and able-bodied—often don't encounter the same challenges as those who do not. It reflects on how social structures create a disparity in the problems assigned to people's identities, suggesting a need for awareness and change regarding systemic inequalities.
In practice
In a seminar discussing social justice, this quote could illustrate the concept of privilege.
In Britain, we need to start presenting the option of being a writer in front of black women. We need to present the idea of being a writer into poorer communities because the majority of black people in this country are working class. We need to let working-class people know that their voices are important.
I don't believe in comedy as a TV genre - I think there's drama that is funny. Because beyond the laughs, there has to be cost, and there has to be heart.
I wanted to write a show about an estate that wasn't sad or morbid, like a lot of shows portray working class life to be.
When you've got African parents, you go to uni, do finance, and go into accounting. But I'm not good with systems. I dropped out in my final year of college to become a Christian poet. Then went back to do my A-levels and went to uni in Birmingham to do political science and theology. I lasted 12 weeks.
Growing up on our estate, we were all different colours, but we were all really poor. I never really realised that black was a problem for some people.
Where I grew up, in Aldgate, east London, one of the poorest boroughs in the country, I saw lots that was real - the bankers with their briefcases, the man next door with five wives, the illegal immigrants in Flat 5. I'm from a world you rarely see on screen, and I want to show it off.
Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?
Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet would cost about $20 billion. Let's just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season.
Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops.
We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.
The time has come for people of reason to say: Enough is Enough! Religious faith discourages independent thought, it's divisive and it's dangerous.
I think people have to set up little battles. They have to demonize people whom they disagree with or feel threatened by. But it's the ideological framing of the debate that scares me.
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