Maybe Not “Everybody”

I’m increasingly aware of the use of the word “everybody” as an unintentional indicator of privilege. When we assume that “everybody has flown in an airplane” or “everybody has a car” we overlook the many people who haven’t or don’t.

Last fall, at an affordable housing event in Charlotte, a formerly homeless speaker asked everyone present to hold whatever keys they happened to have in the air. We dutifully hoisted our key rings high.

As the speaker pointed out, all of us had house keys or keys to apartments. Most of us had car keys – some of us for more than one car. Many had office keys. A few had boat keys or keys to vacation homes. And the speaker shared that – before he ever had a home – one of his life goals was to carry a key. It was a powerful reminder: not everybody has a house key, much less a key to a car or boat or office.

When I was first introduced in my role in The Presbytery of Charlotte in 2018, someone with a microphone said generously, “Jan knows everybody.” It was supposed to be a compliment I guess, but I cringed just a little.

Not only do I not know everybody; I didn’t know most of the people in the room that day. What does it say to the people whom I didn’t know (and they didn’t know me) who were sitting there who have never heard of me much less met me? This is how we get an “in” group and an “out” group.

I’ve shared before that the dumbest staff meeting I’ve ever attended in my life started with a get-to-know-you question that assumed that everybody had been to Paris. We were asked to go around the table and share the name of our favorite restaurant in Paris. I wish I was kidding.

There were people at the table who had never left the state, much less traveled outside the United States. And this wasn’t merely about an inability to read the room. (LORD, help each of us read the room better.)

It’s about privilege. It’s about the sacred assumptions that everybody’s life has been like our life.

Those of us who’ve grown up with vacations and regular dental appointments and air conditioning in the summer and heated car seats in the winter often forget that not everybody grows up with this. And in Instagram World, you would think that everybody travels in the summer and eats curated meals.

My point is not that it’s bad/shameful/hoity-toity to travel or eat pretty food or fly in a plane or have a boat. My point it that I am blind to my own privilege most of the time, and maybe you are too.

We who do not believe we are privileged need to get out more and notice our neighbors – and not just the ones who look like we look.

• 12% of the U.S. population in 2023 had never flown in an airplane (as you can see in the chart above provided by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics)
• 48% of Americans have a valid passport for travel outside this country according to the U.S. Department of State (2024.)
• 22.2% of Americans have a Bachelor’s degree according to Educational Attainment Statistics (2025).
• Only 3.3% of Americans have a Doctorate or Professional degree, according to the same source. (I see all you Presbyterians with D.Min, JD, MD, DDS, PhD degrees.)

Most of the people who read this will – like me – be drenched in privilege. We are beyond fortunate. And we also have a responsibility to know and serve those who don’t have a pocketful of keys or a passport.