Of course then you have to define “happy, stable successful life”
I’m a white, male, tall, intelligent, had caring/loving parents who left me a not-insignificant amount of money, almost by chance ended up working 34 years for a company with good pensions, live in economically thriving (i.e. expensive) area.
Not heterosexual, not rich (I’d call it “comfortable”), not good-looking.
On the whole, very privileged, and that’s how I voted.
White, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle class, born in Canada. I am playing the video game of life on the tutorial difficulty setting.
Gay, male, Jewish/atheist, very chronically depressed, survivor of open heart surgery with severe spinal stenosis. Extremely diabetic. Survivor of abusive father. Have a gorgeous and totally devoted husband.
All in all, I’d say privileged.
I agree with this. 2-loving-parents “privilege” appears to be worth WAY more than privilege tied to one’s gender, race, or sexual orientation. Wealth and health probably rank a good bit above those other ones too.
What do you mean by this?
How many times have you been pulled over for just driving? It happened all the time to me in Boston while I was in college. Long hair and big car did it. I was not scared because I was white and possibly a rich college kid, so the cop had to treat me with at least some respect, but I can imagine it being a bit more nerve-wracking if you are in a group not treated with as much respect.
I assume he means that he voted for “privileged” in the poll.
Yes, that’s what I meant. Are you (HD) so politically-focused that you can’t grasp the context of this thread?
Privileged. I am a middle aged man in a developed country, educated, employed, a member of the titular ethnicity of my country, hetero, cis, not disabled.
That I am married can hardly offset the above.
I don’t know what this means. I’ve been pulled over maybe a dozen times in my life. In every one of those cases, the cop had some official reason even if I thought it was bullshit (I assume that’s the case with the alleged “DWB” pull-overs too, right?). Does that mean my answer should be “all of them” or “zero”?
You think cops can’t / won’t be disrespectful to white people? Or did you just believe that back in college? Here’s a little secret: cops shoot plenty of white people too.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I didn’t immediately realize what you meant (although in hindsight it should have been rather obvious), so I figured it would be better to ask than wonder. I’ll leave it up to you to form your own opinion about whether that means I’m “so politically-focused that * can’t grasp the context of this thread” or not.
If they feel like sharing, I’d be very interested in hearing from the four (at this point) respondents who said they were “Oppressed”. What made you choose that classification?
I’m a white, male, hetero-sexual American so I do have that going for me.
On the other hand, I am in poor mental and physical health bad enough that I live off disability which, of course, also means I am living in poverty. I am also on the unattractive side as well. So if I had choose, I pick oppressed.
This is exactly the kind of argument that hacks people off about intersectionality, or talk about privilege - because you’re treating wealth privilege or stable-family privilege like they’re “not a thing” by overwhelming them with a veritable cascade of anti-privileges.
“If you’re missing out on wealth privilege and stable family privilege AND ALSO missing out on race privilege, straight/cis privilege and gender privilege, then your life will be worse than if you’re missing out on just wealth and stable family privileges”.
Well, yeah, no shit, obviously this is true. Also obviously it doesn’t prove that these two privileges aren’t real privileges - you have to do an actual balanced comparison to get a sense of this. So…
What would you rather get - shitty unstable parents but you’re straight, or great stable parents but you’re gay? I’d go option 2 personally - stable family is worth quite a lot of privilege points for me. On the other hand “unstable shitty parents + cis” versus “great stable parents vs trans” - at that point, I’m voting option 1 - being trans sounds hard.
“Rich and female” versus “poor and male”? “Rich and black” versus “poor and white”? Reasonable people could differ - I’m definitely going for option 1 on the first of these though.
I assume, btw, that the only things that count as ‘privileges’ are anything you didn’t work for in any way. So … grew up in a shack but now a millionaire? Don’t have wealth privilege. Mum’s an alcoholic who beat you but you’re now in a great relationship with a fantastic spouse? Don’t have stable family privilege. And so on.
I’m privileged because I’m a white male. (My heterosexuality isn’t doing much for me right now.)
I’m also pretty well off financially due to my job, but I don’t consider my job to be the result of privilege, beyond the baseline advantage I have due to being a white male.
Based on what I read, intersectionality is exactly what I describe with the points system- it’s a way to try and quantify relative oppression/privilege.
Which to me anyway, is kind of absurd. It must become some kind of pissing contest- “I’m a midget lesbian! I’m more oppressed than you!” “No you’re not- I’m disabled in three ways!”
I don’t know… while I understand the concept of relative privilege (that’s what “privilege” really is), I think it’s best treated as a relatively academic concept. Using it as a club to belittle someone’s accomplishments, or discount their opinions or views is wrong. Just because someone may be privileged, it doesn’t automatically make them or their views less valid, and that’s where a lot of this talk tends to go, at least online.
Upper middle class, white, male stockbroker from a family of highly educated professionals or business owners.
I am the living embodiment of the patriarchy that needs to be, as my lefty friends say, smashed.
Here I fixed it for you…
I’m a white, male, hetero-sexual Australian. You can’t get much more privileged than that.
Straight white male, grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood where practically all the parents had been to college, and it was pretty much assumed that all us kids would.
Sure, you had to do some work to get into college, and then turn that into an upper middle class career, but not all that much. Privileged? Hell yeah.