Serious question: Why are people afraid to admit privilege?
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Anonymous
Of course, no one else has worked like you have. You exemplify the reason for the original post. 
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Anonymous
Thank you; exactly. |
Anonymous
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I'm not sure what privilege means.
My problem with this whole "privilege" thing that has erupted in the last few years is is that it's used as a wedge issue to divide people firmly into camps of haves and have-nots. The reality is that very few people are on one side or the other. You can have all the privilege of affluence, but at the same time suffer from major psychological, health, family, depression issues while a working class person may be working two jobs and living a financially constrained life, but with a warm and supporting family. There are people who are more fortunate in every sense of the word, but so what. There's nothing new in this. At all. And a lot of them also worked very hard for what they have. So what if they had a better family origin, they still worked off their butts for what they have. So what are they supposed to do or change? What do you want them to do? What is "acknowledging" privilege going to do? And I also see people using privilege, or rather, the lack of "privilege" to justify mistakes and flaws in their own lives. It's a mechanism they use to allow themselves from accepting the truth and looking directly at themselves and their own actions. It allows them to resent people they see as better off without doing what it takes to become one of those people, especially as they start attributing a misplaced moral dimension to privilege versus unprivileged. |
Anonymous
NP here. Honest question, and pls don't rip my head off: are your children today, 5/16/19, experiencing privilege or adversity? If there's a continuum or number scale, whatever, with zero being the worst adverse conditions imaginable outside of prison, and 10 being a life of yachting the mediterranean … where do you place your **kids** today, 5/16/19? I'll answer that: my son is about a 7-8. I (like you) had to work harder at his age, so I was about a 5 when I was 17. My parents — also the first in their families to attend college — were 3-4. THEIR parents lived actual adversity in the steerage of infection-filled ships coming to the US, then living in tenements in lower NYC and facing daily discrimination and living in filth and disease. In my book, my white grandparents should have rec'd an adversity bump from the College Board on the SAT. My white, affluent son in 2019, four generations later, should not. |
Anonymous
Why don't you let those who are actually unhappy about the "adversity score" address the "WHY" instead of you speculating based on your own disdain and bias toward these people? |
Anonymous
Same here. I would assume that you, like me, experienced a fairly sh$tty childhood with food scarcity, no heat at times, etc., so I don't feel my scholarship was undeserved. However, it was a little weird to graduate with no debt while my wealthy classmates were saddled with many thousands to pay. But that's how they achieve their goals of diversity, and I was glad to participate. I'm now a woman in a hugely male-dominated field, and yes, I've gotten every job I've applied for. I'm 100% qualified, and I assume at least one male applicant was, too. But diversity's working in my favor because of what I guess you would call female privilege. |
Anonymous
Interesting. Thank you. |
Anonymous
| I didn't grow up privileged but I did go to college debt free but borrowed money for graduate school. But I always knew that I was lucky to have great parents who really valued education and hard work. My children are very privileged but we have done our best to instill in them a strong work ethic and that once out of school they are 100% on their own. They are all in their early 30's and have succeeded on their own but they know how lucky they are. I watch how they treat the people who help support their lives (child care etc.) and I can see that they have learned something. |
Anonymous
| I'm going to point out that everyone in this discussion, living in the U.S. with the means to own a computer and the luxury of frittering away time midday to judge others, is also extremely privileged. |
Anonymous
Because everyone is FOR diversity and access until it means restricting their OWN access! Case in point....ask any white college kid who is protesting and marching alongside as an "ally" for under-respresented groups if he/she would just go ahead and step aside and give his/her slot to a student who is equally deserving in merit. You know...b/c of diversity. They want OTHERS to give up their slots. But do not want to give up THEIR OWN! |
Anonymous
| In my observation acknowledging for one’s privilege has become a necessary part of even mundane conversations. It’s the modern hair shirt. Not sure where you’re getting that people are afraid to admit it. |
Anonymous
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Privilege is just a loaded word
Apparently it's privilege that instead of going on fancy vacations and spending on cars we lived more frugally so we could afford to live in a better school district Apparently it's privilege to encourage your kids to work hard, study and get good grades I just call bs on all of it Doing those things is common sense and if more folks would do it we wouldn't be having these discussions |
Anonymous
Apparently it's privilege to go to school/military/trade/skill/job then get married and TEHN have kids once you can afford them Again if people did that poverty would almost disappear in a generation |
Anonymous
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I know I was privileged. I grew up UMC. I went to an excellent public school (not that I realized it at the time). Then my parents paid for both college and about half of graduate school, enabling me to get out of student loan debt by 30.
It would be hard as hell to ever enter my industry had I not had those advantages. I would've been shackled by debt into middle age, like millennials will be. I also had the advantage of being white. I didn't realize it at the time, but that permitted me to get away with stuff that a minority student would not have been able to shrug off. E.g.: 1. Not getting thrown out of an honors program when I was caught cheating in middle school (did get yelled at; never did it again) 2. Not getting arrested while being a drunk idiot with other drunk idiots in a car after senior graduation 3. Not having to prove myself three times over when applying for jobs, renting apartments, etc. 4. Not being consistently under-treated or dismissed by doctors when I've needed medical care 5. Getting the benefit of the doubt when I got mugged once: no cop ever suggested it might've been my fault for being on the wrong street at the wrong time 6. Not having to talk to my son about bowing and scraping to idiot cops if he ever gets pulled over And so on and so on. |
Anonymous
I mean, cool story for you. But you do know that your children will not benefit from such privilege, right? Also, if you are caucasian, that "female diversity" will only carry you so far. You will win the job over a white male, but if you're up against a female, lesbian woman of color, you will lose the job every time. |