feuervogel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feuervogel) wrote2010-10-02 07:53 pm
feuervogel) wrote2010-10-02 07:53 pm
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You know why I rage so hard about "welfare queens" and assorted such bullshit?
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.
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.
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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.)
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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.")
no subject