You know why I rage so hard about "welfare queens" and assorted such bullshit?

[feuervogel]

I got free lunch starting in 4th grade.

We wore off-brand, knock-off clothes, or clothes from second-hand shops.

We got food at the store where they send the dented cans.

When my mom's 78 Olds started to die (in 1991), she wasn't sure she'd be able to get a replacement vehicle.

When I got The Letter from CTY, mom wouldn't let me go because we couldn't afford it, even with the scholarships available.

When my high school German club did an exchange program, I begged and pleaded to go, because I thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. (My grandparents paid for most of it. I was lucky to have extended family with money.)

It was the first time I was on a plane.

I was 16.

I didn't get new eyeglasses as often as necessary.

We didn't have health insurance.

I know it could have been worse, and I know I'm lucky -- privileged -- to have had a PhD grandfather who worked as a grant reviewer at NIH, who could cover things like clothes or food or help with the house payment when mom was laid off again.

I also know that there are a lot of people in the 15% of the population we were better off than who don't have access to middle-class grandparents or other forms of help than welfare.

Those of you who grew up in your comfortable middle-class families, whose parents didn't have to worry about being able to repair the roof when you found a puddle in the living room, and don't realize just how goddamn lucky you fucking were and think your experience is what everyone has, who think that everyone can do what you did through Hard Work, are really goddamn naïve.

That naïvete is your privilege. The way you think the world works only holds true for the top 50%.

Examine your fucking privilege. You might gain some compassion in the process.

Comments

[feuervogel]

Handy list of privilege lists

[amakarie.livejournal.com]

I grew up upper-middle class and took for granted a lot of things, then my mom lost her house, her job, and lived off of food stamps and was near homelessness (twice). Without the government support system (as well as her church aka charity) she would have never survived.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

I worry that correlating fortune with those privileges discounts the people/families that afford themselves a higher lifestyle in earnest. Whether we're dealt a good or bad hand, it's up to us to play the game.

Most of my bosses have been women (of various ethnicity) and being a white, straight male hasn't saved me from my bouts with unemployment. Whatever privileges I have, they're still kicking my ass and they've earned my respect.

[feuervogel]

What leora said below.

If hard work were sufficient to be "well-off" however one defines that (I start with "not having to worry about where the rent check is coming from"), my mom would have had a much easier time with me and my sister.

No, she didn't go to college. She was (and is) a secretary: a shitty, thankless job. There were times when she had a second job at the local craft supply store two or three nights a week to make ends meet.

I don't associate "hard work" with "went to college": that's classist. Janitors do a lot harder work (physically) than CEOs, and without janitors, the CEOs would have a really nasty office (or force their secretaries to clean it), but the CEO is "more important" than the janitor, apparently because he went to college or something and earns $60,000 an hour. Or more.

Nobody fucking merits $60,000 an hour.
(that got tangential, there.)

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

I think I would define "hard work" as developing one's viable skills, but also having the talent and ambition to apply them to their most lucrative potential.

[feuervogel]

I hesitate to include talent in a definition of hard work. Talent (rather than skill) is something you're born with.

Ambition is also iffy. For example, ambitious women (Hillary Clinton, say) are bitches or uppity, because of the existing societal gender norms.

I don't like that Americans value ambition so highly. We don't all have to be top of the class, most likely to succeed, 80-hour-week workaholics. We *shouldn't* be.

What's wrong with wanting to get a job that pays a decent wage (aka a living wage) and keep on keeping on? I don't want to be president of the board of pharmacy, or district manager of a chain, or any of that shit. I value my personal life and my creative time far more highly than prestige or whatever.

(I *do* want to be a published novelist, which is a form of ambition, I suppose. Would it be cool if I made best-seller lists and won popularity contests like the Hugo? You betcha. But I'm not going to put in 200% all the time to reach these goals, which is how I understand the term "ambition" especially when paired with "hard work.")

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I also had to think about it before including those things, but I think talent and ambition can still be developed or wasted. You can be born with a gift and still lose it.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

I guess I should also add that I don't oppose welfare. A lot of folks need a hand and they should get it.

But resenting people who don't need it feels like unfair demonizing.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I don't read this as resenting anyone except the clueless. I grew up rich, but I don't feel this is aimed at me, because I acknowledge that I had it easier in various respects, and that my academic ability was not purely a matter of hard work (I did work incredibly hard, but it wasn't just hard work), but also a matter of going to a good school because I lived in a rich neighborhood, having good school supplies because my parents bought them for me, not having to do much beyond focusing on my schoolwork during childhood, etc.

The issue is people who pretend that their success is purely due to their own amazing efforts, when ignoring the fact that they were born helpless and in need of support, and that what sort of care you get and what sort of education you get makes a huge difference that hard work cannot fully balance. After all, I worked hard ~and~ had advantages. I'd certainly have had it much rougher if I had only worked hard. And the issue is those who don't want to balance that out.

One of the small but powerful examples for me was in the maths and sciences. In high school I did math up through AP Calculus AB and I took biology, chemistry, AP chem, and physics. One day I forgot my calculator for a chem test, so I just did my best to do the test manually. But the test was designed to fit the amount of time a student who reasonably knew the material would need with a calculator, so I did very badly. My teacher asked me about that, as my grade was an anomaly, and he told me that I should have said something (it'd been my own fault, so I hadn't). Then I found out that my partner went through chem and calc and such in high school too - except nobody bought him a calculator. He did all of it manually and with log tables. I failed at managing one test, and he did all his courses that way. There's no way that I can say that my success is purely hard work or that that is fair. And he'd likely have gone much further if he'd had the advantages I had.

[feuervogel]

The post I'm about to make isn't directed at you, Sean. Sometimes it takes me a while to distill the point I was trying to make, and leora's comment below helped the process along.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know... If I thought this was about me, I'd have contacted you directly. It's cool.