More thoughts on the privilege meme

[maevele]

I finally worked out my real problem with that meme. I grew up poor enough that I only scored a 4, and yeah, I wasn't living the middle class life compared to what I saw on TV, I was still privileged compared to many, many of the other poor people around me. We were poor, but not so fucking life draining, hungry, always worried about money poor, so i knew I was privileged. The list thing starting from a more middle class base caused some mental disconnects for me, because I feel like I've always been aware that if you're not starving, there is always someone in America who has it worse off, and that list was coming from a place without even that assumption.

OTOH, It's started a LOT of really solid conversations about class and privilege, and has people thinking, so hell yeah!

Comments

[chris462.livejournal.com]

Even if you ARE starving, there's usually some down the street or in your class who has it worse.

Really, before my dad died and my mom abandonded us, we had no idea what we were missing. Then we moved in with my grandparents, who willingly bought food and paid the utility bill, then we began to realize just how bad we off we were.

Before that, though, ignorance really was bliss.

...playing just for the privileged...;)

[emzebel.livejournal.com]

It's always relative, isn't it? I think that the point of the initial exercise wasn't to be an exaustive examination of relative class distinctions, but to prompt a largely middle class audience (college students and administrators) to think about how they are privileged and how they may have received benefits beyond their scholistic peers.

So, to that end it's useful - just as it has prompted a lot of people around here to think about privilege who otherwise don't really think about it.

My mother made damn sure that I knew how well I had it growing up - especially since it wasn't always that way for her family. But I can definitely tell you that for many many people who can check a bunch of those boxes, they have never considered themselved privileged in the slightest, because just as there's always someone worse off, there's always someone with more.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. I think the biggest problem with the meme are the uses to which the people who wrote it think they are putting it, like it's the be-all end-all of defining whether or not someone is privileged. It's problematic to treat anything as if it's defining you one way or another. We do this, we put people into boxes, privileged or not privileged, feminist or antifeminist, radical feminist or sex-positive, racist or non-racist, good or bad, rich or poor...as if that's how it is. Except that's not how it is. You are a case in point. I am a case in point. People are not EITHER privileged or not-privileged. The scoring system, the follow-up questions to that meme? I found that part of it useless, almost offensive. But a person can be privileged a thousand different ways, some related, some not, and some could even contradict. And privilege can be fluid over time. The poorest years of my life were not my childhood, but like you, I grew up pretty poor, working class, dad a union guy on the line in an auto-plant. Middle class, upper middle class, loads of people had educational privileges I didn't. But I had (and knew I had) so many privileges others didn't--in some years. And I always had a roof over my head (a mortgaged-to-the-hilt roof, but a roof). And books (used, from garage sales), a library card, a television set, cable (in some years). But I had no money for college, got a substandard high-school education, and, frankly, my parents' knowledge of and focus on higher education was different based on the fact that they didn't get a higher education. And none of that STOPPED me, none of it DEFINED me, but it did matter. And it still matters today, because I can't save for Puppy's college while I'm paying off my $140,000 in student loans. I think I did grow up privileged, in some ways, and not privileged in others.

So the meme can't tell us whether anyone is privileged. But the questions themselves can be useful. I think they have the most use to people who are both very privileged, in myriad ways, and are also sort of clueless. For folks like us, I think it's valuable for people to understand that you could be privileged in some ways and not privileged in others; that if you had educational privileges they mattered, gave you a leg up over folks without educational privileges, even if there were other things you lacked. NOT to say anyone didn't deserve or should feel guilty, but to understand the impact NOT having that given privilege might have had on your life, so we can see why making sure everyone has a decent education is important.

I guess the problem I had with a lot of the criticisms of the meme (not yours, actually, my post earlier wasn't referring to you) was that people really have been talking about privilege as if it's an either/or thing, and since the meme couldn't determine that, then the questions are useless. Well, it's not an either/or thing. I grew up very working class, and as an adult with a young family, we were POOR. But I had social privilege. I'm white. I'm literate. I've almost always had health care. And, I'm sorry, but if a person who had a great education (even via scholarship), has a kind of privilege, whether he was poor or not. It's good to get people to recognize their privileges. You and I have apparently recognized our privileges our whole lives, but when you lack a lot you're more exposed to people that lack even more, I think. So many people do not understand how rare their educational privileges are. For those people, in a classroom setting in a university (as part of a whole class that explores other kinds of privilege as well), I think those people might be surprised at the results of that exercise, and that would be a good thing.

Oooh. That got long. Sorry!!!