Serious question: Why are people afraid to admit privilege?

[Anonymous]

My zipcode is in the lowest quarter for average income in Maryland, but around the 50th percentile for the US. I wonder if they're going to include cost of living calculations, or if kids in the wealthiest states are just not going to be able to compare with kids from poorer states, even if they're in relatively similar situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am shocked by how many people are upset of the SAT adversity score. They do not want to admit the privileges that their children having growing up in a nice school district, safe school, etc. These are all great things! Everyone wants these things for their kids but sadly, many kids do not have access to these resources. Why are people so afraid to own that privilege and be proud of it while also working toward the same future for other kids? What are you afraid of? Honestly if you kid doesn't get into HPY and goes to say, UVA- what do you think will happen? Do you really think their future is lost? Are you afraid they will end up on the streets?

Seriously please help me understand...

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!

Exactly. And this is why Biden is running for president instead of stepping aside and raising money to help fund the Kamala Harris or the Cory Booker campaign--both of whom are just as qualified and capable as he is in serving as president and working to enact policy that advances diversity and opportunity. But similar to most white people, he's all for promoting diversity, but he won't give up his own chair at the table to do it!

Why in the name of god, should Biden be expected to step aside and give up his own chair for someone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:White people of any income level can move about freely without being targeted due to racial stereotypes.

This is not true of anyone who does not have white skin, no matter the ethnicity or race.

That is the essential privilege that anyone, including poor whites, must acknowledge. But is anyone really denying it?

Asians can do this as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They don't think they are successful because of privilege. They think they are successful because they are smart and made all the right choices, thus they are OWED good things.

This. They can also said "they worked for it" and so should everyone else. If they can do it, so can the other person.

In short, admitting privilege (which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. People just need to be more aware that they have the good fortune to have it and others do not) means they can not longer feel superior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not afraid to admit privilege. I felt it the moment I arrived in DC.
I worked hard to but it's easy to work when everything is going your way just because you are white.
Me white foreigner, me no English and nobody cared.
I've been offered a job while I was shopping (no, not that kind of job). This was one of the first very big glues how "special I am" in US or at least in DC.
Being told that I have credit and can move into an apartment asap, was another big glue. What's a "credit"?!
I don't even worry about my kids. They are white in America and go to good schools.

I'm a white woman who wants to live in this place where you other white people have things that come so easily to you simply by being white. This reminds me of the Eddie Murphy SNL skit "White Like Me" where he shows the benefits white people get when black people aren't around. Somehow I haven't been invited to this club.

[Anonymous]

People think that "privilege" means you never faced adversity. It doesn't. It means that any adversity you faced was not the result of your race/gender/poverty.

It's also really hard for people to accept that their success was not purely the result of "hard work."

PP nails it in the best, succinct way.

I encompass everything pp states above. Adversity as a result of poverty. Privilege as a result of gender (and beauty). Adversity as a white minority. Privilege to attend Catholic schools. Adversity as a result of discrimination (physically disabled parents). Privilege as a result of educated parents.

Success as a result of hard work, common sense college degree without debt, grit. Privilege as a result of getting every job based on gender = attractiveness. Adversity as a result of having to prove intelligence vs male counterparts.

Luck and timing are no doubt the greatest privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Fck off. I worked for my "privilege". My parents were the first in my family to go to college. I resent this being counted against my kids for purely political reasons.

You really don’t get it apparently.

I’m a lawyer in biglaw. No one in the building works harder than the janitorial staff. And many of them have second and third jobs. Lots of people work hard. But their hard work doesn’t help their kids like mine does.

People think that "privilege" means you never faced adversity. It doesn't. It means that any adversity you faced was not the result of your race/gender/poverty.

It's also really hard for people to accept that their success was not purely the result of "hard work."

Seems even harder for people to accept that they had agency and, through bad choices or inaction, played a part in their own lack of success.

Seems completely impossible for some people on this board to stop punching downward.

Right? People have so much invested in believing that people always get what they "deserve." Yes, people have agency. Yes, people make choices. But people have different choices available to them based on factors that are totally beyond their control. And the same choice can have very different consequences depending on factors beyond their control. And sometimes bad stuff just happens--you or a family member gets sick, or laid off, or your car breaks down, and again, the consequences can be very different depending on factors beyond your control. Instead of thinking "there but for the grace of God go I," some people just dig in with the idea that we live in a world where actions and consequences are perfectly matched.

I know some people who made plenty of poor choices in high school--drinking, crashing their car because they drove too fast, stealing street signs, slacking off in school--and they are living perfectly normal lives now as adults. They were all white guys from well-off families, and their parents could afford to hire a lawyer or buy them a new car or pay for college without needing scholarships or taking out crushing loans. That's privilege. They got breaks that a poor black kid wouldn't have gotten. Or even a poor white kid, really.

Ok what about other disadvantages people can face like being fat or ugly? Should we require kids provide a photo and let the College Board factor in their looks as part of their adversity score?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don't think they are successful because of privilege. They think they are successful because they are smart and made all the right choices, thus they are OWED good things.

This. They can also said "they worked for it" and so should everyone else. If they can do it, so can the other person.

In short, admitting privilege (which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. People just need to be more aware that they have the good fortune to have it and others do not) means they can not longer feel superior.

Well.... they did. And that's the problem people like you fail to understand.

Very few people are given a gilded lifestyle from the get-go. I know plenty of kids from UMC families who are living ordinary lives in their adulthood because they didn't do what it takes to stay in the upper middle classes. You don't breeze your way through law or medicine school or as a successful entrepreneur. The vast majority of successful people worked their asses off to get where they got. Some perhaps had more help along the way, I won't deny that, but they still worked their asses off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


You can’t put a number on someone’s adversity.

That’s why people are so frustrated.

My mother was mentally ill and abusive my entire childhood. It was adversity, but I could never include it on an application.

I am not white.

Because the only adversity that counts according to the left has to do with race, income, gender, and sexual orientation. Any other types of adversity don't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am shocked by how many people are upset of the SAT adversity score. They do not want to admit the privileges that their children having growing up in a nice school district, safe school, etc. These are all great things! Everyone wants these things for their kids but sadly, many kids do not have access to these resources. Why are people so afraid to own that privilege and be proud of it while also working toward the same future for other kids? What are you afraid of? Honestly if you kid doesn't get into HPY and goes to say, UVA- what do you think will happen? Do you really think their future is lost? Are you afraid they will end up on the streets?

Seriously please help me understand...

Next time you drive past a public elementary school bus pick up waiting area in an upscale suburb, with a dozen kids all looking cute waiting for their bus, make a mental note.

Consider this.

You are seeing 12-15 children. On average, 1-3 of them will get into their flagship state university; maybe another one will get into another selective college. One of them is gifted with his/her hands, and will do great as an exclusive hair dresser or construction company owner. One of them is a gifted salesperson and will do well in real estate or some other sales job. One out of 200 will get into an Ivy; that is lots of bus stops. With the new SAT policy, it may not be any of the kids from the leafy suburb, but instead a kid from a cracked sidewalk central 10 miles away.

That leaves half of those children as headed to second-tier colleges, community college, unable to move forward. Their job prospects will be limited. They will not be able to achieve anywhere close to their parents' standard of living.

Half.

2-3 will crack under pressure, more often from the less successful half, but sometimes from the more successful, and succumb to addition. Alcohol, opioids, meth - you pick.

Now ask yourself why you are surprised at the amount of anxiety parents are feeling at any postulate that further diminishes their child's chances of doing well. They are right to feel anxious. These are ruthless times for the families with young children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Instead of bean-counting who is privileged in what way, our society should be expending those resources making sure that there is equality of opportunity, not of outcome. Scales, affirmative action, etc., are all attempts to create equality of outcome in an unjust system. Instead, we need to make sure all children regardless of socioeconomic or racial makeup have access to childcare, healthcare, and excellent schools.

This is it. All public schools should be funded the same regardless of what the income of the locality is like. This is equality of opportunity. The fact that low income parents are more likely to not be interested in education, is not something that society can do anything about or be overly concerned with even trying to. This is life. There is only so much that can be done. And yes it does suck that some kids are born to parents who don't care about education, but we can't wave a magic wand and make everything equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fck off. I worked for my "privilege". My parents were the first in my family to go to college. I resent this being counted against my kids for purely political reasons.

It is not counting against your kids. Are you suggesting that your kids aren't going to be able to go to college? Are you honestly afraid that there aren't enough college seats in America to include your kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you kid doesn't get into HPY and goes to say, UVA- what do you think will happen?

Ostracization

All these same people who scream about merit want their kids to get into these elite schools so that they can use their Network and privilege to step into a tidy job opp

so all that idea of hard work and working yourself up the ladder is really bad when actually applied to themselves

where you end up largely depends on where you start

This is not true. It just isn't. It is merely a thing people say to get others to give up hope and quit trying. The field is wide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For everyone who admits privilege and wants for things to be equal, would you give your jobs (which you received due to privilege) to an underprivileged person? Would you give up your child's college admission so that an under privileged person could go in their stead?

This is a big part of it I think-perhaps decreasing their children’s admission to a prestigious school feels to some people like “giving up your child’s admission.”

Thee are plenty of colleges to go around, just maybe not an ivy, or top 20 school. This adversity scale is not going to mean anyone’s child doesn’t go to college at all, people! Broaden your view of what schools are acceptable for your snowflake. [/quote]


Couldn't this same logic be applied to kids who have a high adversity score. Why give them a boost (by giving them the score), they will still be able to go to college. It's affordable for them (often more so than it is for the middle class) because they get grants. They obviously are students who are still doing rather well academically, because they would need relatively strong credentials to get into a good school, so if they don't get into their school of choice, what's the big loss? There are still schools for them. After all, there are plenty of schools to go around, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instead of bean-counting who is privileged in what way, our society should be expending those resources making sure that there is equality of opportunity, not of outcome. Scales, affirmative action, etc., are all attempts to create equality of outcome in an unjust system. Instead, we need to make sure all children regardless of socioeconomic or racial makeup have access to childcare, healthcare, and excellent schools.

The frustrating thing is we have good evidence of what works to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, crime, and incarceration. Providing quality childcare and pre-K along with in-home services (teaching the parent(s) basically) is proven to raise life outcomes, reduce crime, reduce spending on social services, and carries on to future generations.

Where have you been? These programs only provide modest gains for about a year or two. These programs have not been proven to be successful at all long term.