# Hard Work vs. Privilege **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322 "2017-01-16T17:23:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/221 "2017-01-19T20:30:08Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > AA is a way to mitigate the effects of white privilege, sure. > > I had this professor in college. I wasn’t a star student in his class–just a solid B student. I had never visited him during his office hours just to chat, but I did make a concerted effort to sit in the first row and ask questions in class. Just like many of the students did. > > Turned in my final exam and he asked if I wanted a job in his lab. > > Why me? Why would he single me out of the pack? > > Well, it sure wasn’t based on my grades or my abilities, because he didn’t offer jobs to the other students who were objectively smarter than me. So my guess is that he saw a black woman in a predominately white male setting and decided “What the hell. Why not?” > > To me, that’s what AA enables. It allows a person to say “Well, they are sufficiently qualified and I do think diversity is important. So why the hell not?” > > Without something like AA, “qualified” becomes whatever the privileged class says it is. Like, the privileged all score in the 90th percentile on the SAT, so that becomes the cut-off for keeping out the riff-raff–even though the 90th percentile doesn’t actually do a good job of discriminating good students from bad students. To me, policies like AA allow someone to say, “Now hang on just a minute. 90th percentile, for real? What about all the students that measure up in other ways? Can’t they catch a break?” > > Ideally, the gate-keepers wouldn’t use rubrics that are biased towards those who are privileged. Until we can stop this, AA policies seem like a reasonable compromise. I’m not saying that I am against AA today (although I have some problems with how it is implemented today\*), I will not have a problem with at least some form of AA until we have had AA for at least 100 years and perhaps up to 300 years. However, the purpose of affirmative action is not to counter the effects of a white majority. If it were, then Asians are also entitled to affirmative action, aren’t they? For example, the testing rubrics are breaking down, not because the white majority has actually come around to your point of view but because Asians are doing better than whites. In much the same way that people are starting to suddenly see the virtues of drug rehabilitation now that whites are the victims of a heroin epidemic, people are starting to diminish the importance of standardized tests, now that Asians are outperforming whites at standardized tests. THAT is privilege, it harms all minorities, not just under-represented minorities. And we might want to correct for it but we would be expanding the concept of AA to include privilege. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/222 "2017-01-19T20:42:15Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …while others have adequately answered your question, I just wanted to clear up a few “country related” questions. > > We do have “free health care” here. Two years ago my dad had a stroke. We didn’t realize it was a stroke at the time. He just stopped being able to see. “I can’t see the television!” he kept complaining. It wasn’t until I googled “sudden blindness” that we realized that something serious was happening and we bundled dad into the car and took him to hospital. We dropped him at the front doors and I went to park. In the minute it took me to do that the Triage nurse had assessed him as critical and he had been taken immediately through to emergency. > > My dad spent over a month in hospital. The first few days in Critical Care, under 24 hour monitoring by the most amazing medical crew. They eventually moved him to one of the wards. Then they moved him to Porirua Hospital so he could recover. > > When they bought him home we were given a huge amount of support. The district nurse dropped off a walker, some stuff for the shower and some other things, and committed to a monthly visit if we wanted it. We also got offers of regular “home help” if we needed it: but we turned those down. (For now.) > > All of that: zero dollars out of pocket. > > But dad needs a lot of help now. His memory isn’t so good any more. He has had a few falls, a few accidents. He’s spent a few weeks back in hospital. Our family have had to make some serious changes to how we do things now. We’ve had to make sacrifices. So “free health care” doesn’t fix everything. And this is our dad. Our family. Our whanau. We look after him. > > The frame with the loans? Those aren’t student loans. All students under a certain income threshold/criteria are eligible for a “student allowance.” All those that aren’t eligible are eligible for an interest-free student loan. Those loans highlight the differences in getting credit: a real problem for low income families, who get into trouble for any sort of reason, look to the banks but the banks turn them down, so they have to resort to high interest finance companies. > > That frame of Paula looking after her dad? Heartbreaking. Paula’s story? That is my story. I’m Samoan/Maori. I worked in hospitality. Hardest job in my life. Going to work when the sun was up and then coming home while the sun was rising the next day was normal. > > My greatest achievement was being Functions Manager for the Royal Visit of the Queen, being in charge of the front of house team for her State Lunch. But I’ll never forget the feeling I had a couple of weeks later. We had a meeting with a client who was running a conference in a few weeks time: and I bought along one of my supervisors just to sit in. (The supervisor just happened to be white.) This client never once looked me in the eye. Everytime they had a question they asked my assistant, who would reply with either a “yes” or a “no” or a “you should ask the boss!” while pointing at me. It was one of the most painfully awkward meetings I have ever had. My assistant felt so terrible he even apologized to me afterwards. (“What are you apologizing for? You didn’t do anything wrong!!!”) > > I am constantly reminded of “my place.” Like when I’m in a room and I’m the only brown face and someone will say something remarkably racist and everyone will laugh, and then someone will look at me and say “well not you mate, you are one of the good ones.” I’ve had to overcome a lot to get to where I am today. I own my own business and its been running for six years now and it is doing well. > > I think about privilege a lot. I am in an industry that dramatically skews white male. I am using my position as a business owner to open up opportunities to minorities and to women. I am using my privilege to help “level the playing field”. I don’t have quota’s. But I have started consciously started thinking about my decision making. I’ve made a lot of small, but significant changes to how I do things. I’ve got a long way to go. But recognizing the privilege that I have was the very first step I took. Breaking down the barriers to the industry is what I am investigating now. Its a work in process. One that may take the rest of my life. Ahhhh. This explains so much. You mentioned you were a SJW in another thread and I thought, that’s funny, kiwis are among the most racist people I know, they’re worse than Australians. Funny how our prejudices shape how we see things. What you have is not called privilege. Privilege is usually unearned, did your parents leave you the business? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/223 "2017-01-19T20:52:35Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > **bump** , here’s analogy for you: > > Let’s say the new president makes it so that all natural-born citizens are entitled to free day care, free health care, and free college. > > Would it be incorrect to say that a natural-born citizen is granted more privileges than a naturalized citizen? Is it wrong to say that when it comes to health care access, natural-born citizens are more _privileged_ than other groups? > Your typical middle-class white kid has more privileges than your typical poor black kid, correct? If saying the former has more privilege than the latter is incorrect, what would be a better description? > > Here is another example: > > A fifth grade teacher has two students–Suzy and Johnny. When Suzy acts up, the teacher gives her a pat on the head and a piece of butterscotch. When Johnny acts up, she tells him he’s an idiot and makes him do fifty push-ups in his underwear. Is it wrong to say that Suzy is privileged over Johnny when it comes to classroom discipline? Does it matter that neither one of them gets treated in a “normal” way? There isn’t much we can do about the privileges of wealth unless we start raising all our kids in creches. Sure we can take economic backgrounds into consideration in the admissions process at schools but hiring committees are not likely to give a shit the exemplary black kid grew up wealthy while the mediocre black kid grew up dirt poor. The fact that the poor black kid represents less human capital is mostly all they are going to care about. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/224 "2017-01-19T20:53:15Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I think privilege is an apt way of describing your “fortune”. I disagree. Some things in life you can’t control. Being born tall or smart or to wealthy parents who actually give a shit about you. That is good fortune. “Privilege” implies that you are the recipient of some special rules or opportunities. Like being able to get away with raping people because you’re a popular athlete with wealthy parents. I think the problem is that people are more and more expecting an equality of outcome rather than an equality of opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/225 "2017-01-19T21:01:27Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > As far as I know, they have not changed in forever. My understanding is that yes, childhood poverty is increasing. It seems to be a pretty obvious interpretation of the data, and I haven’t seen anyone anywhere propose a different interpretation. > > Those thresholds are widely considered to be too low, which is why almost all social services start at some greater number than that–which seems to suggest that the government itself considers need to start somewhere above the threshold. > > Those numbers come from kids who turn in the paperwork. I’ve read the paperwork, and I don’t think there’s an option to be “eligible” but “decline”–though I am open to correction. People who don’t want to be part of the program don’t fill out the application. > > Whatever metric you propose, it seems to me that it is likely to correlate with the trend in increased eligibility for free-and-reduced lunch. Let me try explaining it this way: AFAIK, the “official” stats, that your news article and the study are basing their report on, come from the National Center for Education Statistics. Right [here](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_204.10.asp?current=yes) is their most current table for “Number and percentage of public school students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, by state: Selected years, 2000-01 through 2013-14”. This is the group of American school kids that you claimed are “living in poverty”. If you’ll kindly go look at the table, particularly the four columns on the right-hand, you’ll notice some interesting things: First off, at a very high level, you, and your sources are correct that the “Number and percentage of public school students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch” is going up. At the national level, in 2000-2001, you’ll see that it was at 38.3% and in the last year we have data for, 2013-14, it’s climbed to 52.0%. Because I live in Utah, I decided to look at Utah’s line, and I noticed something peculiar: 2000-01 = 28.8% 2010-11 = 38.2% 2012-13 = 60.5% :eek: 2013-14 = 37.0% What could possibly explain this huge fluctuation? It’s possible, I suppose, that Utah’s economy absolutely went into the shitter during the 2012-13 school, and many more of Utah public-school children found themselves “living in poverty”, and then it had an amazing recovery, and the numbers fell back to more traditional levels in the high 30’s the next year, but that seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Isn’t it much more likely that there was either a reporting error, or the eligibility requirements changed? I lived here, and I’ll tell you there weren’t these sorts of huge economic fluctuations that plunged an additional 22% of our school children into poverty. If you look at the line for the District of Columbia, you’ll see a similar irregularity: 2000-01 = 70.0% 2010-11 = 73.0% 2012-13 = 61.6% 2013-14 = 99.2% :eek: Did an economic bomb go off in DC between the 12-13 and 13-14 school year, plunging virtually every school-child in DC into poverty, or do you think the more likely explanation is that the numbers are either mis-reported or they changed eligibility requirements? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/226 "2017-01-19T21:01:39Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I disagree. Some things in life you can’t control. Being born tall or smart or to wealthy parents who actually give a shit about you. That is good fortune. > > “Privilege” implies that you are the recipient of some special rules or opportunities. Like being able to get away with raping people because you’re a popular athlete with wealthy parents. > > I think the problem is that people are more and more expecting an equality of outcome rather than an equality of opportunity. I think the problem you are referring to is that for some people, you will not have achieved equality of opportunity unless you are able to achieve equality of outcome. IOW , if opportunities were truly equal, outcomes would be to. I have not seen that mentality on this board but some crit race theorist seem to point to disparities in outcome as evidence of disparities in opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/227 "2017-01-19T21:09:08Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There isn’t much we can do about the privileges of wealth unless we start raising all our kids in creches. > > Sure we can take economic backgrounds into consideration in the admissions process at schools but hiring committees are not likely to give a shit the exemplary black kid grew up wealthy while the mediocre black kid grew up dirt poor. The fact that the poor black kid represents less human capital is mostly all they are going to care about. I disagree entirely with that. Now, if the black guy is unqualified, or is very significantly less qualified than a wealthier white guy, then hiring the wealthier white guy, with his greater qualifications makes sense, and background doesn’t enter into it. But if they are more evenly matched, then you should consider background. If the wealthy white guy went from wealthy kid, to private school with tutors, and to a great college, that’s nice. But if you have a kid that went hungry every day, went to poor schools that barely taught you to read and write, but still managed to graduate high school and get admitted into college, you have seen a guy that has worked hard to further them self immensely in life. I would be more interested in seeing where the second ended up then the first. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/228 "2017-01-19T21:19:50Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > But everything is NOT a privilege. I think I have lost the train of thought. I was responding to your statement that ‘even our rights are privileges’ and the wide inclusion of not being taken from parents, not being barred from being educated, not being prohibited employment, etc. as privileges. I’m disagreeing with that idea. > [@](#): > > I mean, if someone put up a sign barring you from their store, would you think you were being granted a privilege? No, you wouldn’t. > > But if that same person put up a sign welcoming you, you probably would, right? > > Now let’s say there are no signs. But some people are still kept out of the store, whille others are given access. > > The word “privilege” still applies even though the discrimination is not overt. The second group has a privilege (access to a store) that the first group does not have. All other things being equal, the second group has more privilege than the first group. I don’t think this is a good example because I don’t think using the word privilege in this context makes much sense or at least it is inconsistent with how I’ve seen the term used in these discussions. So to answer the question in the second paragraph above, I would not. > [@](#): > > The things people are entitled to exist solely on paper. That paper can be destroyed. Without the paper, we’re entitled to nothing. Well, I disagree with this. I’m a natural rights kind of person which is probably outside the scope of this discussion. > [@](#): > > Privilege is not a legal construct, but a social one. Rights are a legal construct. I think I disagree with these too. The latter to the extent you think rights are ONLY a legal construct I disagree with. I think there are both rights that are a legal construct and those that are not simply a legal construct. The former I disagree with as well, I think, but I’m not sure how you are delineating the terms. Since privileges are granting of rights, if privilege is not a legal construct but you think rights are a legal construct, the phrasing here doesn’t make sense to me. > [@](#): > > Two-hundred years ago, white males had more rights than black women in the US. Presently, white males and black women have the same rights. But they don’t have the same privilege because of all those years of unequal rights. Two-hundred years from now, black women may have more privilege than white men. Hopefully they will enjoy the same rights. But that isn’t guaranteed. This though, I understand what you are saying and I agree completely with the concept. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/229 "2017-01-19T21:52:05Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m not saying that I am against AA today (although I have some problems with how it is implemented today\*), I will not have a problem with at least some form of AA until we have had AA for at least 100 years and perhaps up to 300 years. > > However, the purpose of affirmative action is not to counter the effects of a white majority. If it were, then Asians are also entitled to affirmative action, aren’t they? AA was not intended to counter the effects of white privilege, because if that were the case, white women wouldn’t be the biggest beneficaries. Still, that doesn’t mean it can’t have that effect. I don’t know if Asians are “entitled” to AA, but in every diversity program I’ve ever participated in, Asians have been represented. For instance, I received a research fellowship in graduate school through NIH under an intiative devoted to improving medical disparities in stigmatized populations. A handful of students in the program at my school were Asian American (one of the dudes was Fillipino). I have also heard of universities recruiting Pacific Islanders due to their “under representativeness” in higher education. > [@](#): > > For example, the testing rubrics are breaking down, not because the white majority has actually come around to your point of view but because Asians are doing better than whites. In much the same way that people are starting to suddenly see the virtues of drug rehabilitation now that whites are the victims of a heroin epidemic, people are starting to diminish the importance of standardized tests, now that Asians are outperforming whites at standardized tests. Just curious. Do you have a cite? Because I can think of a number of reason why the rubrics are changing that don’t have anything to do with Asians. Like, the overwhelming pressure for everyone to go to college. > [@](#): > > THAT is privilege, it harms all minorities, not just under-represented minorities. And we might want to correct for it but we would be expanding the concept of AA to include privilege. I actually don’t see how downplaying the importance of test scores harms minorities. Or anyone, for that matter. Seems to me that a multi-metric rubric that is calibrated to student capability benefits everyone. Relying solely on a metric that only captures a certain kind of student (those that have been privileged enough to devote hours to taking pratice exams) doesn’t increase opportunity. And it probably doesn’t serve the university’s interests either. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/230 "2017-01-19T21:55:23Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > for some people, you will not have achieved equality of opportunity unless you are able to achieve equality of outcome. IOW , if opportunities were truly equal, outcomes would be to. There is a poster here who has previously claimed exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/231 "2017-01-19T21:58:17Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I actually don’t see how downplaying the importance of test scores harms minorities. Or anyone, for that matter. It is harmful to some minorities because test scores and GPAs have often been a way for some minorities to \*overcome \*their race disadvantage and test their way up into good universities and climb academic and other ladders, often true for Indian-Americans and East-Asian-Americans. Take that away, and you are weakening or snipping away at the rope they could use to climb up. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/232 "2017-01-19T22:00:06Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It is harmful to some minorities because test scores and GPAs have often been a way for some minorities to \*overcome \*their race disadvantage and test their way up into good universities and climb academic and other ladders, often true for Indian-Americans and East-Asian-Americans. Take that away, and you are weakening or snipping away at the rope they could use to climb up. Maybe so, but you are also adding in more ropes for everybody to climb. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/233 "2017-01-19T22:08:41Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > kiwis are among the most racist people I know, …really? Please, by all means, expand on this. Tell me about these racist kiwis you know, and how they are more racist than anyone else you know. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/234 "2017-01-19T22:10:49Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > “Privilege” implies that you are the recipient of some special rules or opportunities. Like being able to get away with raping people because you’re a popular athlete with wealthy parents. The first sentence jibes with my interpretation, although I don’t think it necessarily connotes “special rules”. For instance, I can easily imagine an institution where all new inmates are granted basic privileges automatically, but the privileges can be taken away as punishment. An inmate who has the privilege of a daily phone call and their private room is still more privileged than an inmate in solitary confinement, even if it is true that most of the inmates get a daily phone call and a private room. But the second sentence is kinda crazy. That’s you putting a crazy spin to the term just because of current events. > [@](#): > > I think the problem is that people are more and more expecting an equality of outcome rather than an equality of opportunity. Well, I wouldn’t be one of those people. Seems to me the problem is people believe that trying to mitigate inequality of opportunity is ridiculous given the impossibility of achieving equality of outcome. Personally, I think you can recognize that there will always be disparities in both opportunity and outcome, but also believe that there is real social benefit to minimizing their effects. So we should at least try. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/235 "2017-01-19T22:14:19Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It is harmful to some minorities because test scores and GPAs have often been a way for some minorities to \*overcome \*their race disadvantage and test their way up into good universities and climb academic and other ladders, often true for Indian-Americans and East-Asian-Americans. Take that away, and you are weakening or snipping away at the rope they could use to climb up. But focusing on test scores to the exclusion of other things harms other minority groups, yes? How does using a broader rubric harm ALL minorities? This is what **Damuri** is arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/236 "2017-01-22T01:27:40Z")
My family and I are walking-talking refutations of the idea that being smart and working hard really matters all that much without luck and starting position making significant contributions. Despite very high intelligence, not a single one of my relatives on my mother’s side was able to go to college. No money + having to work to support the family = no chance for higher education. In a just world, my grandmother would have gotten a PhD. She was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. With her family circumstances, gender, and era, along with being a single parent for several years after she kicked my grandfather out, the best she could do was to be such an efficient secretary that they literally hired two women to do her job when she retired. The average intelligence on my father’s side wasn’t that great, but mechanical aptitude was pretty high. Despite my grandfather being the kind of machinist the engineers talked to to figure out how to make the parts they drew, none of his kids were able to go to school. My dad had a chance at college because of the GI bill, courtesy of 2 tours in Vietnam (including a fun little time called the Tet Offensive) but he struggled all his life with academics. Judging from his writing, I know for sure he had an undiagnosed learning disorder. He wasn’t stupid, he just had a hell of a time reading and writing properly, and given his blue-collar background and the time he grew up in, no one gave enough of a shit to recognize his problem, much less offer therapy to correct for it. My mom was also very intelligent. She graduated high school 2 years early (skipped grades), but made it through less than 2 years of veterinary school because she had to work full time to support herself, having moved out at 17 due to family problems. Skipping over the several years where we were dirt poor — farming in our back yard, hunting for meat, government cheese and food-stamps, shopping for school clothes at Goodwill poor — my mom and dad worked their asses off and we kinda-sorta made it to middle class. My dad was eventually able to get a job with the county which provided health care (important because I almost died as a kid from pneumonia when they were poor as shit) but which necessitated long commutes to remote work sites and irregular days off. Mom ran a dog grooming business that they saved, borrowed, and begged enough money to start. My dad was a functional alcoholic, his first descent was triggered by getting laid off from GM when I was very little, so there were a few hiatuses where he wasn’t living with us. He always worked hard and took extra jobs on his few days off even when they were separated because he tried his damndest to support his kids. I had a few years of stability after elementary school; I’d attended 4 different schools from kindergarten to 5th grade because we moved due to family stuff and job availability, etc. I was IQ tested at least twice that I remembered. (Mom told me that they tested me after the first couple of months at kindergarten too, but I don’t remember that myself.) Most of the schools had no idea what to do with me. I remember being moved to two higher grades for reading and writing classes (attending 6th grade classes when I was in 4th) and they stuck me in with much older kids for “enrichment” like computer classes, but I honestly don’t think any of the public schools I attended were equipped to handle really bright kids. The first time I didn’t feel like a freak was when I was in GATE classes in middle school. I had shitty study, organization, and time-management skills since I’d never really had to work at anything academic. Not coincidentally, that was when we were finally able to live in a house in a decent(ish) neighborhood. Mom worked 12 hour days 6 days a week at the dog grooming business, dad worked long hours in shitty conditions. We were latch-key kids. Neither of them were home before 8pm most nights. I often made dinner for us from about the time I was 11 or 12. I worked at the shop on weekends and holidays to help out. Mom got cancer when I was between 15 and 16. After an initially positive response to surgery and chemo, she started seizing one day and upon examination was found to have several advanced brain tumors. Dad’s insurance was pretty good, but treatment was still expensive, and without Mom, we had to sell the business at a loss. She died a couple of months before my 18th birthday. I was seriously fucked in the head for years, and didn’t really realize it at the time. My grades hadn’t been that great because I didn’t do any homework, but pulled As on tests. I hadn’t realized yet that school was kind of a game, and that grades were keeping score, so you had to do the work even if you didn’t actually need to study. Partly because of what was going on with my mom, I didn’t even try to apply for college, and later, even if I’d had my shit together, I probably couldn’t have paid for it. I was in AP classes, but by the time you could test for college credit, the $60 per test was ridiculously expensive. I was worried about getting enough gas for school, and maybe buy some food. We were well on our way back to being dirt-poor. Dad was devastated by my mothers decline and nearly destroyed by her death. Even with life insurance money, he couldn’t really afford the house; mom had been the main breadwinner, his job was stable, safe, and provided health insurance, but wasn’t high paying. He had to put our house on the market less than a year after she died. I went from dreaming when I was 13 or 14 about going to school at Berkeley, Stanford, or Cal Poly someday, studying engineering or biotech, to staving off homelessness by using the money I’d earned helping out at the shop from the time I was 12. In high school, my classmates were doing internships and study camps and other middle-class shit when I was squeezing dog anal glands, putting in 11–12 hour days alongside my mom. The money I earned (my mom paid me like I was a regular employee) which was supposed to be for school was basically all I had when my family imploded and everything my parents had worked so hard for was stripped away by circumstance. I was the first person in my family on either side to graduate from college. It took me 8 fucking years to do it too. I worked part-time and did classes at community college for a while, then had to start working full-time to actually earn enough to live and save a little bit for transferring to a real school. My income was right at the poverty line ($10,000–12,000 a year) for most of that 8 years. I qualified for basically no “free” financial aid, and even had to write a petition letter stating that I received no support from my family to get any aid. I ended up with $22,000 in student loans for the 3 years of university I transferred to when I’d finished everything I could do at community college, even though I worked at least part-time while taking a full load (12–18 semester units) the entire time. Fuck you if you don’t think privilege is real. Fuck you if you think poor people don’t work hard. Anyone starting out poor and ending up even in the lower end of middle class is very unusual. It takes not just brains and hard work, but almost always luck or some other advantage to get there. It’s even harder now that tuitions have increased roughly 4x since I was in school. I’m smart, very smart, and stubborn as hell, and I just barely managed to get an undergrad degree. I couldn’t get into some of the competitive majors because my high school grades were mediocre; due partially to seriously fucked up shit that I couldn’t control, personal failings that I fully recognize now and have mostly corrected but had no prayer of being able to fix when I was a kid, and often just not having enough time to do my best even when all other factors lined up. Given a normal middle-class upbringing, I have no doubt that I’d have a Masters or PhD. I’m lucky to have even the relatively low-paying white collar job as a teacher right now. I could easily have ended up being a blue-collar worker with even less pay and chance of advancement. If I’m really lucky, and nothing happens to me in the meantime, I _might_, possibly be able to send my kids to university. My dreams when I was young were to do something significant. I’ve had to settle for just a little bit better for my family than I had growing up, and hope that it’s enough. For the record, I’m mostly of European descent, with some Native American admixture that’s so far back it doesn’t show. After I graduated, I went to Japan on the JET Program with the intention to learn Japanese and practice martial arts. I’ve since spent most of my adult life in Japan, so I fully understand both wealth and race privilege (as **Damuri Ajashi** [pointed out earlier](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19929979&postcount=142)). ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/237 "2017-01-22T11:13:34Z")
And you could not have enlisted and benefited from the GI bill yourself? Anyway, you have a valuable story to tell your pupils. And hopefully your efforts mean that your own children have had a better start in life. I’ve been poor and it majorly sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/238 "2017-01-23T01:19:02Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > And you could not have enlisted and benefited from the GI bill yourself? > > Anyway, you have a valuable story to tell your pupils. And hopefully your efforts mean that your own children have had a better start in life. > > I’ve been poor and it majorly sucks. Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no valuable lesson to learn from my experience except “don’t be born into a poor family.” My efforts were to not end up being fucking homeless and not end up doing a job that made me want to blow my brains out every goddamn day. I wasn’t planning for the future, I was doing my best to survive the destruction of my family and my life. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/239 "2017-01-23T01:38:53Z")
Yeah, if I wanted to do the whole virtue of suffering thing, I’d scourge myself in the comfort of my own home. It’s cheaper, easier, faster, and less likely to screw me in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/240 "2017-01-23T09:09:53Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no valuable lesson to learn from my experience except “don’t be born into a poor family.” You under-sell yourself. By telling your story you alert and educate others to and about the issues you faced. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322.md?page=13)