Hard Work vs. Privilege

Great Debates
141

What’s amazing is how many people, when you tell them a story like this, will say ‘Well, it’s those kids’ fault that they didn’t take their library books back. They know better!"

Which is true, but doesn’t help. I think people who don’t work with children and who base their understanding of children mostly on their own recollection of being children often do not appreciate how distorted that memory is. Like when a 2 year old is misbehaving and people say "My mom never let me . . . " and of course, they have no idea what their 2-yr old self was permitted. They are remembering their 4 or 5 year old self, which is an entirely different thing.

In the same way, I think a lot of people, in their memory, were made to Take Responsibility as a kid, because those times that you had to, that your parents made you live with consequences really stand out. But there is a confirmation bias. You don’t remember the time they quietly paid your library fine or whatever. The other thing that happens when you have some resources is that consequences are mitigated–your parents pay the fine, but make you pay them back out of your allowance. Your parents make you pay the fine, but create bogus “chores” you can do. What you remember was that you had to take responsibility–your parents made you–but without their support, you wouldn’t have been able to.

Years ago, a friend of mine was talking about how, in her youth, her parents had made her skimp and save and use her own money to buy a video game she wanted. What was interesting is that it turns out her parents had subsidized it–she distinctly remembered that she had to earn $20, but others at the table knew the game was $50, having had one themselves. So her parents gave her a manageable goal and helped her reach it. She really did work, and really did struggle and she had every reason to be proud of it–but there was also behind the scenes support she didn’t even know about. I think this is a good metaphor for privilege in general, and I don’t know why some people find the discovery that they ought not take perfect credit for their own accomplishments as such a dire insult.

142

Half you guys are describing the privileges of wealth not race (or anything else).

The privilege of being white is that whites are about 3/4ths of the country, majorities enjoy this privilege in other countries. I think a lot of people are conflating environmental racism with white privilege.

For example, I am a tax lawyer and I spent some part of my career in Asia. I am also Asian. I never realized how much people noticed my race until I lived in Asia. People totally ignored me when I walked into a conference room, that is not the case in America.

I had white ex pat colleagues. They commented on how they felt out of place all the time because everyone was Asian, they really FELT their whiteness. They commented about not always feeling welcome and feeling a bit out of place in social situations, and all sorts of other things. I told them that this is how Asians feel in America every day. It is also important to note that white people are frequently treated better than in foreign countries than the natives because people assume they have money. And they STILL feel this way.

If you want to feel/know what race privilege is, go to a foreign country where the majority does not share your skin color, not as a tourist but to earn your living and raise your family.

To adopt part of the video game analogy, its not like playing the game on easy mode, that is too simplistic and makes you think that whites have it easy, they don’t, not any more than people between 5’6" and 6’2" have it easy much shorter or taller than that and you have challenges that most people aren’t even aware of. Its like playing a game with multiple classes where 75% of the players are playing one particular class (lets say fighters) and the rest of the people are playing other classes. As a result the game designers balance the game so that most of the items that drop in the game are for fighters and almost all the quests are accessible to fighters and the game and quests are balanced with fighters in mind. And as long as the game isn’t actually broken for any of the other classes, things just keep moving along. Fighters are seen as the typical player while wizards and healers are considered specialists or support players.

Privilege allows the majority to ignore concerns about race that minorities must grapple with, sometimes on a daily basis. It just doesn’t affect them that much.

Take Hollywood for example. If there is a more hippy dippy liberal place in this country, I have never been there. And even in Hollywood, the protaganists are disproportionately white, good guy or bad the main characters are usually white, minorities are usually relegated to support or buddy roles (in the bad old days the bad guys were minorities but people objected to that so now the bad guys are white too). The roles minorities play are often stereotypes, almost caricatures.

All the stories in popular culture are based on stories that originate from European countries or countries from which Europe has inherited some of its culture. The nearest thing we see to non-white culture in popular media is Egyptian mythology.

I watch my kid and all his friends running around as king Arthur and his knights, every last one of them can spell “knight” the most fucked up word that children get exposed to, a 6 letter word where 3 of the letters are fucking silent and every 6 year old boy can spell it. But when 75% of the country is white we are going to see a lot more stories about Thor than about Guan Yu. When you are a minority, you have to go a little out of your way to show your kids that Asians are also the central characters of some important stories. If you’re white, then just about every book, every show, every movie is about someone that looks like you.

None of this is a barrier to success but drop by drop, inch by inch, this societal focus on whites gives you the impression that white people are more important in this society than minorities. And its not just minority kids learning this lesson.

143

No, I don’t find it a challenge. It’s basically the Thanksgiving Day pre-feast say-something-you’re-grateful-for exercise writ large. I don’t know that I derive a ton of value from it, but for those that do, I say “great! have at it!”

144

Ignoring for the moment your use of the loaded word “indoctrination”…

Recognizing that you, a member of stigmatized minority group, has to work harder can affect your psyche in a number of ways.

It can make you a no-nonsense person who comes across as aloof and intimidating. It can make you wary and distrustful. It can make you overly self-conscious and anxious. It can exhaust you.

And? Does these things mean that the “indoctrination” is wrong, or do they underscore how much lacking privilege sucks?

145

Life will never be perfectly fair. And they will not approach fair in my lifetime.

Were they racist before they took the job?

The hypothesis of affirmative action and mismatching are not new. Its not an indictment of affirmative action entirely but it is an indictment of how affirmative action is applied today.

Its not that blacks are less academically gifted than whites. Its that putting less academically gifted blacks in a sea of more academically gifted whites in an effort to create diversity puts those blacks at a disadvantage compared to similarly situated blacks who went to schools that were better academic matches for them. Without arguing what the source of this academic disadvantage might be, there is some evidence that the large disparities in academic ability that we tolerate in an effort to create diversity might be hurting the students that are being put into environments in which they cannot successfully compete.

146

I suspect that you’re not be completely serious (and that’s okay, really), but it’s not really about being grateful. Or guilty. Or [insert some other emotion].

It’s about being honest. That’s it.

147

I think there is a reason why charitable giving increases in the month of December. The feeling of gratitude makes people more generous and compassionate. Recognizing how you’re privileged enables you to think of ways you can help someone who isn’t so fortunate.

148

I’m not being completely unserious either. Everyone who has posted in this thread, looking at things from a global and historical perspective, are privileged 1%ers. It’s a huge advantage / privilege to be born in America in the late 20th century and not, for example, Indonesia in the 6th century. Most Americans living today are part of the privileged elite of all of humanity, just by virtue of the time and geography of their residence (and for the dirty foreigners in this thread, you might be 2%ers, but you’re still WAY up there ;)). Furthermore, if we’re not one of the few who are illiterate, or mentally ill, or incarcerated (well, not so few there), or otherwise severely disabled, and we find ourselves with access to a computer, and the internet, and enough leisure time to engage in discussions here on the SDMB, we’ve essentially hit the privilege jackpot. Trying to further discern whether you’re slightly above or below one of your peers at the upper echelons of privilege strikes me a bit like someone on the Forbes billionaire list feeling sorry for themselves because they’re #300 on the list instead of #5. It seems like silly quibbling, but YMMV, and people are free to quibble if they want.

149

But this thread isn’t just talking about our own personal experiences of privilege, and its ramifications on our own lives; but rather the effects of privilege on society as a whole, in this country and around the world.

Further, what you say about 1% seems a little silly to me since it might apply to MLK Jr, Frederick Douglass, Gandhi, and even Nelson Mandela, if we were to compare their lives to the lives of humans throughout history (many/most of which were “nasty, brutish, and short”). This sort of “quibbling” is how society improves.

150

And to be fair: they are.

http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/race-dramatically-skews-discipline-even-in-elementary-school/

The reason given for these sanctions speaks to the enormous role that individual judgment plays in disciplining kids. While there were only 119 suspensions for clear-cut violations like alcohol, tobacco or drugs, schools logged a whopping 7,479 incidents for “other behavior.”

The meaning of this data confounds African-American parents, who wonder whether white teachers are targeting their children and has made educators increasingly uncomfortable.

It’s pretty clear that African-American students are treated differently. They’re more likely to be targeted or punished for minor offenses. And they have higher expectations, apparently. Case in point:

Never met a kid in the lily-white german high school I went to who pulled it off all year long.

Scalia fan, eh?

151

Most people in this thread have been talking about how they are relatively privileged, and discussing ways to make sure the advantages of privilege are spread more broadly.

And it’s not just about feeling good: for one thing, how much talent goes wasted because institutionalized privilege prevents it ever being developed? Also, frankly, income inequality is what eventually leads to capitalist dogs being put up against the wall. I want genuine social mobility in this country because, to paraphrase Horace Mann a bit, it’s the balance wheel of the social machinery. It greatly increases the chances of my grandchildren and great grandchildren living in peace, whatever social class they are in.

And there are some damn poor people in this country. Are they better off than the poor of a generation ago, or the middle class 50 years ago? In some ways, sure. But I’ve got students raised in a laundry room their family shared, sublet from someone else. Do you really want to tell them that the difference between that and upper middle class is “quibbling”?

152

What are you saying?

That if you have a computer, can read enough to communicate on a message board, and you aren’t incarcerated, then you have all the privilege that you should ever want, since you’re doing better than most people on the planet? So shut up and be happy?

Is that what you’re saying?

153

If we talk about affirmative action we are no longer talking about privilege are we?

154

The need for affirmative action is due to the unequal playing field, which comes about from privilege (as well as other discriminatory policies and practices). It doesn’t perfectly equalize the playing field, but IMO it’s a lot fairer than it would be (and was) without AA.

155

All true, and that’s why context is always important.

Your OP is rather broad because you’ve framed things with absolutes. Privilege vs hard work. Obviously the answer is that both generally come together to produce success. Duh. Usually when people seek, in a good faith, an understanding of privilege, they approach the topic with more context and nuance than what is apparent in your own attempt to dissect this issue.

If the thread was about, the origins of income inequality or racial disparities, discussing the way privilege figures into things would not be “quibbling”. Again, it would be about being honest. Rich people who were given advantages in life by being raised by affluent parents, living in affluent communities, surrounded by affluent opportunities, do not become better off than their poorer counterparts just by being smart and sensible people. Since it would be dishonest to portray their success as simply a product of hard work, you will see people pointing out how money gives folks a mighty leg up in life that compounds in time. To the extent that, if you’re rich enough, becoming poor actually takes a lot more effort than being rich or richer.
its a

156

Your site does not indicate that minority kids are treated differently only that they are disciplined more. Since it is important to have a learning environment free of distractions it is especially important for teachers of poor kids to have a class of well behaved students.

157

HumbeThinker’s follow-up question (“What do we do about it?”) is the one I’d like to see answers to, so far they seem to be:

So … great. I’m on board. More ‘honesty’ and ‘awareness’ for everyone. Is that it? Are we all good now?

Or are there some more concrete steps we should be taking? Maybe some way to measure the results?

158

:rolleyes: What you call “silly quibbling” between almost indistinguishably privileged members of the overall global elite amounts to significant differences within that elite.

The privilege differences between you and a working-class housecleaner, say, although she too may be American and have a computer and internet access, generate discrepancies of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in income and assets alone, not to mention major differences in educational and career opportunities, health outcomes, quality of life, etc. It’s easy (and convenient) for those who are at the top end of such privilege differences to handwave them away as negligible, but from the other end that’s not how they appear.

If you suddenly switched places (I dunno, wizard maybe?) with that “upper-echelon privileged” housecleaner and her US citizenship and her computer and internet, you sure as shit wouldn’t be saying “Ah, how refreshing, another version of life in the upper echelons of global privilege with only trivial differences from that other privileged life I used to lead. How pleasant to still be enjoying the huge advantages of humanity’s all-time privileged elite!”

Hell no, you’d be hollering “AAAAAGH SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF THIS MINGY LITTLE APARTMENT WITH THE ROACHES AND MICE, I DON’T WANNA SPEND MY DAYS CLEANING FLOORS AND TOILETS, WHERE’S MY NICE YARD AND MY GYM MEMBERSHIP, WHY I GOTTA PUT UP WITH MANAGERS CALLING ME SWEETIE?!?? THIS SUCKS!!”

There there Hurricane, stop all that envious quibbling and feeling sorry for yourself. You’re still firmly ensconced in the all-time privileged elite of humanity, and the differences between this life and the one you used to lead are negligible compared to what most of humanity has to put up with. If you want more of the advantages you used to enjoy before the wizard swapped you out, why don’t you stop complaining about your difficulties and just put in a little more hard work to regain your former status? Sweetie? :dubious:

159

Well, that’s the privilege. Operating in an environment of old white men is more challenging for the black 20 something because she is a black 20 something but not at all challenging for the white male 20 something. Its not racism, it may not even be unfair, but it does confer an advantage to one group over another.

Now we’re delving into economic privilege and stuff like that. There is clearly an advantage to wealth. Not insurmountable at the individual level but insurmountable at the demographic level.

So yes it is surmountable, for exceptional people, yes. But a TYPICAL poor black kid simply does not have the same opportunity horizon as a TYPICAL rich white kid. If a rich white kid is an total fuck-up, he probably still goes to college, he probably still gets a job and worse gets to worse, he becomes a real estate agent selling houses like the one he grew up in (I know several former fuck-ups like this). A poor black girls doesn’t tumble into college despite fucking up. Her fallback isn’t selling houses that cost more than her mother makes in her lifetime, her fallback is minimum wage because she may not be able to tolerate the income variability that comes with sales. She may need a more reliable and consistent income.

Because Bill Gates ascribes much of his success to early access to stuff that he would not have had access to if his father wasn’t a wealthy lawyer.

160

Is that seriously all you’ve gotten from what folks have said? I mean, you even quoted Miller, and there were some follow-up posts to that due to your repeated demands that people explain HR approaches to possible biases in large vs. small businesses–but all you’re getting is the initial reflective piece? For real?