I am privileged

[pandora_parrot]

I had a bit of a rude awakening this past weekend. I was in the middle of a heated discussion with aepalizage, which, in part, contained me lecturing her on what was wrong with her life and what she needed to do to improve herself. I explained to her, in my ever-so-clear-and-correct opinion, that ANYTHING is possible, if you are willing to pay the price.

She reminded me of something important then... Not everyone has the resources that I've had in my life.

This has been said to me before, but I think this was the first time I really heard it.

I am privileged.

I am well-off financially. Sure, I struggle with money a lot, but I make plenty of money to pay down my debts and live a very very comfortable life.

I am educated. For whatever reason it happened, I was able to get through college and get a 4-year degree in Computer Science and Mathematics.

I am not disabled, either by mental issues or by physical issues. I am able to function more or less normally despite what issues I do have.

I was socialized as a male, which I understand gives me reprieve from certain elements of cultural oppression that most women learn as children.

I am white. I don't have to fight against prejudice and racism in order to achieve my position in life.

I have lots of resources in the realm of social contacts and professional contacts.

There's plenty more, I'm sure.

...

I took what I said to aepalizage back. Sometimes... people just don't have the resources needed to do certain things. Although I have accomplished a lot through intense effort, sacrifice, and hard work, I cannot divorce my results from the fact that I was putting forth such effort from a position of power. I can't use my success as indicative of what everyone is capable of. I can't tell others how to live their life based on my example.

I learned a bit of humility this weekend, and for that I am grateful.

Comments

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying. I've enjoyed privledge and I've been screwed over for lacking some of what you have. Just by dint of your past, you've got a higher point on the ladder than some, which makes it easier to rise yet farther.

Except that you *did* put that intense effort, hard work, and sacrifice out there. That's one of the main measures of success I use - were you willing to devote yourself to utilizing what resources you have? Were you willing to push and aquire what you weren't privledged enough to be born with, as needed?

How far have you come from where you started? Have you seized what opportunities life offered, made the most of them? Sure, you have the luxury of just coasting - and it's an enviable luxury - but you don't just coast.

[lisbethk24.livejournal.com]

I am immensely pleased to hear you say this, dear.

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

Nicely put.

[changingone77.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for acknowleging this. I've been trying to get a few of my upper-middle class friends to realize this, but they just don't get it. In being privleged their whole lives, in so many ways, they can't understand that I haven't had the same opportunities and don't have the same economic mobility as them. But they sometimes make me feel ashamed for not being so financially accomplished, and it frustrates me to no end.

Oh, I just wanted to add that there is no homogenous experience of maleness or of race, or of class, for that matter. Growing up as a queer white kid on the Navajo Reservation (and on welfare) I wasn't exactly extended any of the privileges people assume come with being white and male.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

While certainly not homogeneous, there are certainly advantages to having been raised male, at least in the area of subconscious socialization.

[changingone77.livejournal.com]

Yes, perhaps, but I think too much emphasis is placed on such socialization, and it's so often used as an excuse to marginalize trans women. I maintain that I was neither socialized male or female. I believe trans people internalize alot of different messages, are often treated different socially (if they're viewed as gender-variant as kids), and usually do not identify with their assigned sex anyway.

I just think it's an oversimplification to say trans women were socialized male, and it makes me feel like the truth of my childhood (transhood?) has been overlooked or erased.

What really gets me is how some people give their assumptions of male socialization such importance, as if privileges of class or race or heterosexuality are secondary to that. In my experience, they are not.

[nodesignation.livejournal.com]

I think that too depends on the person a lot. How a person internalizes that socialization will vary greatly, not to mention that that socialization will vary greatly.

Being raised in a lesbian feminist community, my parents tried to raise me in as gender neutral a manner as they could. Of course I still went to public schools and such. But it leaves things complicated. While I may have been socialized to speak up in the classroom, and my parents raised me to be a strong feminist, I was also encouraged to examine and check my male privilege from as young as I can remember. And often that meant silencing myself or making myself more invisible while in women spaces or with groups of girls. In fact, when I transitioned and started spending more time in women's spaces, that really heightened. I, like a lot of trans women, became very very quite and unimposing for a while -- ironically, a quintessential trait of the internalized sexism of being raised female.

Just as gender isn't a binary, the way we are socialized by it doesn't fall into two clearly definable camps.

[skipperofarc.livejournal.com]

In an interesting twist, I think I internalized a lot of the stuff directed to girls in my childhood. Because, you know, they meant me when they said that. Even if they didn't know it at the time x.x I kind of sucked it in. I think it's more what you listen to than what you're told.

But one area I definitely did have privilege was in being able to walk down the street without being targeted. That, of course, has changed :P

Subconscious socialization

[lisbethk24.livejournal.com]

There are advantages to those where that socialization "took." For some of us it didn't.

[soquili-gitli.livejournal.com]

Humility is sometimes very important. Glad you were able to take it positively.

[nodesignation.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you working on all that. Working on your privilege is a tough task. Probably one of the harder things I've had to do in my life. It's easy for folks to latch onto where they are oppressed and forget about where they are privileged, but it's important to do.

[maestrodog.livejournal.com]

It is wonderful of you to recognize the disparity in opportunity and resources and empathize with your friend, but seriously, don't let that revelation invalidate your original statement. There are plenty of famous figures who had to overcome considerable difficulties with limited life resources yet still accomplished much (Oprah Winfrey, JK Rowling, Beethoven, Thomas Edison, FDR just to name a few).

And yes, you might have had more choices and lived a little more privileged than some, but again, that shouldn't undermine your own accomplishments...I don't think that anyone thinks any less of Bill Gates' achievements, for example, simply because he's a white guy from a wealthy family.

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

I don't think Joyce is understating zir accomplishments or suggesting they are meaningless, nor zir struggles and challenges. They are not meaningless, nor do they measure out as less those of others who face more difficulty.

Joyce has worked very hard to overcome zir own challenges and obstacles. The challenges I face are different--some of them are similar to Joyce's, and others are not. What I believe Joyce is saying her is that zie now appreciates that, just as zir own challenges are not less (and nor do zir efforts mean less, simply because zie had more to work with in facing them)...nor are the situations of others who also struggle, even with similar issues, compare in such a way that they can be solved in the same way, or with advice.

Yes, what Joyce says about hard work and perserverence is true, but not everyone's context affords them the price they must pay to make a given change, no matter how much they may want it. It isn't a money-like metaphor where you can just go into debt and still operate at full capacity.

It's like, well, a handful of beads--you get a fixed number, and within a given time frame you will get back a certain amount of them. If I get 24 and you get 7 and we both want to make a change that costs 12, I can make it and you can't...unless you have plenty of spare. Each thing you do in your life has a certain cost in beads. The distribution of beads does not follow proportionately with need, so some have many many beads and some have very few.

It doesn't invalidate Gates' hard work and efforts simply because he's a white guy from a wealthy family. It does mean that he has more chance of succeeding, thanks to his resource base, than a black inner city street kid or a person with cerebral palsy.

[blackberry74.livejournal.com]

It doesn't invalidate Gates' hard work and efforts simply because he's a white guy from a wealthy family. It does mean that he has more chance of succeeding, thanks to his resource base, than a black inner city street kid or a person with cerebral palsy.

Right. And I would say, as a black cis-gendered female, that it is still possible to succeed in spite of one's limitations--it may just take a damn sight longer and be much, much harder to do so. gtonizuka could talk for days on this. He cannot stand the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" because it insinuates that one has bootstraps and the strength to pull right then and there.

*looking around for his comment* I'm surprised he hasn't said anything yet. I'll point this out to him...

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

*nod* It's possible to succeed in spite of limitations; even succeed amazingly. There's an aspect of chance to it--those who have more access and fewer obstacles will find it easier to succeed more often. The degree of that disparity can be quite variable; two people who appear to have difficult odds and similar chances may not actually perform equivalently in similar situations. One thing success does is breed confidence, which is a serious asset insofar as it keeps one trying.

Also, keep in mind that before popular culture changed the way the phrase is used, "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" was meant to signify a futile act. While it makes for colorful metaphor ("I succeeded despite serious odds"), the current popular use is very frustrating to hear; it's basically "work hard at impossible odds and they'll go away", and is of course utterly devoid of information as to how one might actually succeed. Ah, the power of images...

[blackberry74.livejournal.com]

Also, keep in mind that before popular culture changed the way the phrase is used, "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" was meant to signify a futile act. While it makes for colorful metaphor ("I succeeded despite serious odds"), the current popular use is very frustrating to hear; it's basically "work hard at impossible odds and they'll go away", and is of course utterly devoid of information as to how one might actually succeed. Ah, the power of images...

MOST interesting!! I'll have to share that one... Thanks for the info!

...say hi to the bad guy.

[gtonizuka.livejournal.com]

...and this is where I comment on the lovely comment that Joyce's dad made in Cleveland-people such as him always seem to make those balances of power remain in place. =p. I think everyone nailed it, though-I'm a firm believer that while the other party has to acknowledge that they might have an advantage, you still have to attempt to do at least something-I call it "doing your half". Yes, someone who has their folks paying for school has an easier ride than a person who has to pay for school by working, but that doesn't mean that the person who's working can never attend one class and then expect an "A", either.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Your list sounds remarkably like mine:
http://sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com/770601.html

[chaoticset.livejournal.com]

I hate the word, but I accept entirely that there are things like that, things that are absolutely part of me and I do not yet percieve them.

But I have never accepted that they are permanent, and never will.

That you can recognize it is a special sort of capability, and that you have that capability speaks volumes of you. :)

I do envy your luck, Joyce...but I try never to hold it against you. *hugs*

[blackberry74.livejournal.com]

I can't use my success as indicative of what everyone is capable of.

Actually, yes you can. Note your use of the word "capable". EVERYONE is capable of some kind of success. Whether or not it's the exact same kind of success as you is up to the person--some can't or won't do what you've done. So there's nothing wrong with what you've said. *hugs*