An oppressed person’s lived experience does not make him or her an expert on all of the many aspects of oppression—just as your typical slave probably didn’t have much knowledge of the price fluctuation in the southern slave market.

But oppressed people do have an expertise that should not be overlooked if we want to fully understand a situation. They can identify, as those outside of an experience often cannot, the subtle remnants of oppression that still constitute a major barrier to progress. They see the microaggressions that their allies overlook.

A poweful example: the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited explicit acts of racial discrimination in the public sphere, but failed to address countless examples of systemic racism that were left intact—and 67 years later, our race-based caste system remains largely in place and we continue to struggle with the topic.