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Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner. Thank

Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner. Thank goodness for government-sponsored low-income lunch program. That was my only meal many days. Naturally I was surprised when recently I got informed I have white privilege by a bunch of spoiled children who've never known a day of hardship in their lives. I'm not terribly enamoured with the Silicon Valley political atmosphere these days.

jachee 9y ago
Don't think for a minute that our white privilege isn't the major reason we can reflect on having been poor, rather than continuing to live that reality.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Inconel 9y ago
  While I think it's a very good idea to take stock of one's privileges relative to others, and how these privileges impact the outcomes of our lives, I'm a big proponent of the notion that privilege lies on a spectrum, it isn't binary. The distinction isn't between those with privilege and those without, but instead between different levels of privilege. Certainly whiteness, in a white dominated society, is one example of privilege that gives you a head ups, all else being equal, but usually all else isn't equal. I think it can often be a mistake to focus on white privilege being the major reason for an outcome when it was most likely the result of a number of intersecting privileges, whiteness being one of them, but not necessarily the most important. I also think the parent comment does address something important, namely that while many people may not be particularly comfortable with introspection or the notion of privilege, there are likely many who would be more receptive to these ideas if the people labelling them privileged, often along rather one dimensional attributes without taking in to consideration areas in which they are decidedly underprivileged, didn't hail from some of the most privileged demographics in the US. Posters in this thread have shared a number of feelings that hit very close to home regarding my own experience growing up impoverished in this country, and I make a very conscious effort to try and remain aware of the incredible number of unearned privileges and good fortune that I've been the recipient of, but even someone like me often can't help but recoil when I hear some of the most privileged people in SV, and consequently probably the country and world, so confidently label and denigrate others as privileged.
  - StanislavPetrov 9y ago
    One of the reasons I was so impressed by this piece was that the author didn't mention any sort of identity, other than just being poor. Anyone who is poor, who has been poor, can identity with some or all of what was written here. Perspective is always important when considering any subject. The subject of "white privilege" when it comes to the debate over poverty and power is often misguided, just like any blanket judgements made based on race. The fact that the oligarchs who have ruled the world for centuries are virtually all white means little to nothing to the millions of poor white people that have, in many cases, been destitute for generations. A good friend of mine, who happens to be white, was born in a very bad neighborhood in Queens, New York to two poor, white parents. He went to school in one of the worst schools in New York. His father pumped gas and his mother was unemployed, spending her time with him and his two siblings. Both of his parents came from a poor family, neither of them had attended college. When he was 14, his mother died of a treatable disease because they couldn't afford health insurance. After that, he took care of his sister and brother after he got home from his afterschool job. When he was 23 his father was shot and killed during a robbery at the gas station. 50 years old now, no education, he scrapes out a living working at a gas station himself, barely able to afford the rent on his rented, basement room. Poverty doesn't discriminate. Many if not most Americans in 2017 are in or near poverty themselves, with no savings, one crisis away from homelessness or bankruptcy. Those trying to make it a racial issue are distracting from the very real problem we face.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      What would happen to your friend if he was ill for a while and couldn't work? [NB I'm not from the US]
      - StanislavPetrov 9y ago
        He would likely become homeless and possibly end up living on my couch.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      > Anyone who is poor, who has been poor, can identity with some or all of what was written here. This is something I only thought about after moving away from where I grew up. Poorer white people would moan about black people and Mexicans all day but I wish I had pointed out to them that they're all poor together and have more in common than they do with the rich people they love to watch on TV.
- ManlyBread 9y ago
  Comments like these are one of the causes of radicalization of young white males on the Internet.
- micheljones 9y ago
  AYYYY PEDDLE DAT RACIST PROPAGANDA HOMEBOI!!!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gerbal 9y ago
You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better because of your race, it's not being treated worse. White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for nothing. White privilege is not being afraid of the police. White privilege is getting let off with a warning. White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits. White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt. White privilege is having a family that got to use the GI bill. White privilege is having a family that was able to build a little bit of generational wealth from government housing policy. White privilege is thinking racism is over. White privilege is starting at 0 when the rich kids start at 50 and black kids start at -15.
- Inconel 9y ago
  Those are all valid points but as I tried to address in another comment, it becomes more nuanced when you try and account for various different privileges intersecting. The problem with your point scale for me is that it's fairly simplistic. White privilege might be starting at 0 but as soon as you introduce some other disadvantage, say growing up in an abusive home, you're very quickly in the negative. The same of course holds true for a non-white kid that's already starting in the negative, of course if on the other hand this non-white kid grows up in a stable middle class family with access to a quality education and a safe environment, they can very quickly accrue far more points on the privilege scale than some poverty stricken white male. This is the crux of the problem for me in this debate. I absolutely believe that white privilege does exist, and we shouldn't shy away from confronting it's effects, but we also shouldn't so singularly focus on it that we neglect the many other ways people, even white people, can be disadvantaged through no fault of their own. From a more pragmatic stand point, I think we need to be more nuanced in framing these issues because it can be rather easy to alienate those who might otherwise be receptive to the goals of a more just and egalitarian society when you don't take the totality of their experiences into account. Again, taking my own experiences into consideration, I usually fluctuate between minor annoyance and outright dismissal when someone who grew up in a stable two parent household that stressed the importance of education, attended decent schools where they didn't have to fear for their safety on a daily basis, lived in neighborhoods where straying farther than 20 feet from your front door didn't mean you where going to get jumped, got to go to college with a bunch of kids from similarly privileged backgrounds and now makes $180k in SV, wants to lecture others about privilege. Also, I don't want to be dismissive of your list, and I definitely want to be careful in making assumptions about your background, but some of those things sound more like middle class white privilege than plain old white privilege. I know some poor white folk, I grew up around them on my family's first stop when immigrating to this country, and they tend to be afraid of the police, for good reason, and don't usually get let off with a warning.
namlem 9y ago
White privilege and class privilege often get conflate in this country. I guess in part because our society has historically been very divided by race and in part because Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of class. If you're white, you have white privilege, but you don't necessarily have class privilege. Class privilege isn't just about money either. If you grow up without much money, but to highly cultured and educated parents, you still have some class privilege.
- deftturtle 9y ago
  Thanks for the distinction! I know plenty of non-white persons who have lots of class privilege. It's worth far more than racial privilege.
delazeur 9y ago
I am also white, and I also grew up poor. I agree that many (though far from all) of the college students who talk about socioeconomic inequality are spoiled brats. However, you have misunderstood what "white privilege" means: it's not that your life has been easy, it's that the same situations would have been even harder if you had not been white.
- makomk 9y ago
  In theory that's what it was originally intended to mean, but these days there seem to be an awful lot of people who think it does mean that if you're white your life has been easy and you brought every hardship on yourself. For instance, this tweet was doing the rounds a few days ago: "Imagine sucking so fucking bad that being a white guy is hard for you?"[1]. 26,000 retweets, no ambiguity whatsoever, no real pushback or criticism of it that I saw at least on the left. [1] https://twitter.com/mikeyfrecks/status/896362940634472449 https://twitter.com/mikeyfrecks/status/896362940634472449
  - delazeur 9y ago
    One sarcastic tweet from a random nobody is not a bellweather of leftist discourse. That's a weak joke, not social commentary.
    - jachee 9y ago
      Of (overly pedantic) note: It's actually "bellwether". A wether is a castrated ram. (Like a steer, speaking bovinely.) In a flock, a wether would be outfitted with a bell to serve as the lead sheep and herald the flock's motions, which is where we get the modern-day term.
fencepost 9y ago
Interestingly, Scalzi has also written about this in a way targeted at tech folks: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th... Long term I think his article on being poor may be longer lasting and more influential than anything else he does - with the possible exception of taping bacon to a cat. http://whatever.scalzi.com/about/the-canonical-bacon-page/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/about/the-canonical-bacon-page/

jachee 9y ago

Don't think for a minute that our white privilege isn't the major reason we can reflect on having been poor, rather than continuing to live that reality.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Inconel 9y ago
While I think it's a very good idea to take stock of one's privileges relative to others, and how these privileges impact the outcomes of our lives, I'm a big proponent of the notion that privilege lies on a spectrum, it isn't binary. The distinction isn't between those with privilege and those without, but instead between different levels of privilege. Certainly whiteness, in a white dominated society, is one example of privilege that gives you a head ups, all else being equal, but usually all else isn't equal. I think it can often be a mistake to focus on white privilege being the major reason for an outcome when it was most likely the result of a number of intersecting privileges, whiteness being one of them, but not necessarily the most important. I also think the parent comment does address something important, namely that while many people may not be particularly comfortable with introspection or the notion of privilege, there are likely many who would be more receptive to these ideas if the people labelling them privileged, often along rather one dimensional attributes without taking in to consideration areas in which they are decidedly underprivileged, didn't hail from some of the most privileged demographics in the US. Posters in this thread have shared a number of feelings that hit very close to home regarding my own experience growing up impoverished in this country, and I make a very conscious effort to try and remain aware of the incredible number of unearned privileges and good fortune that I've been the recipient of, but even someone like me often can't help but recoil when I hear some of the most privileged people in SV, and consequently probably the country and world, so confidently label and denigrate others as privileged.
- StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  One of the reasons I was so impressed by this piece was that the author didn't mention any sort of identity, other than just being poor. Anyone who is poor, who has been poor, can identity with some or all of what was written here. Perspective is always important when considering any subject. The subject of "white privilege" when it comes to the debate over poverty and power is often misguided, just like any blanket judgements made based on race. The fact that the oligarchs who have ruled the world for centuries are virtually all white means little to nothing to the millions of poor white people that have, in many cases, been destitute for generations. A good friend of mine, who happens to be white, was born in a very bad neighborhood in Queens, New York to two poor, white parents. He went to school in one of the worst schools in New York. His father pumped gas and his mother was unemployed, spending her time with him and his two siblings. Both of his parents came from a poor family, neither of them had attended college. When he was 14, his mother died of a treatable disease because they couldn't afford health insurance. After that, he took care of his sister and brother after he got home from his afterschool job. When he was 23 his father was shot and killed during a robbery at the gas station. 50 years old now, no education, he scrapes out a living working at a gas station himself, barely able to afford the rent on his rented, basement room. Poverty doesn't discriminate. Many if not most Americans in 2017 are in or near poverty themselves, with no savings, one crisis away from homelessness or bankruptcy. Those trying to make it a racial issue are distracting from the very real problem we face.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    What would happen to your friend if he was ill for a while and couldn't work? [NB I'm not from the US]
    - StanislavPetrov 9y ago
      He would likely become homeless and possibly end up living on my couch.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    > Anyone who is poor, who has been poor, can identity with some or all of what was written here. This is something I only thought about after moving away from where I grew up. Poorer white people would moan about black people and Mexicans all day but I wish I had pointed out to them that they're all poor together and have more in common than they do with the rich people they love to watch on TV.
ManlyBread 9y ago
Comments like these are one of the causes of radicalization of young white males on the Internet.
micheljones 9y ago
AYYYY PEDDLE DAT RACIST PROPAGANDA HOMEBOI!!!

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gerbal 9y ago

You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better because of your race, it's not being treated worse. White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for nothing. White privilege is not being afraid of the police. White privilege is getting let off with a warning. White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits. White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt. White privilege is having a family that got to use the GI bill. White privilege is having a family that was able to build a little bit of generational wealth from government housing policy. White privilege is thinking racism is over. White privilege is starting at 0 when the rich kids start at 50 and black kids start at -15.

Inconel 9y ago
Those are all valid points but as I tried to address in another comment, it becomes more nuanced when you try and account for various different privileges intersecting. The problem with your point scale for me is that it's fairly simplistic. White privilege might be starting at 0 but as soon as you introduce some other disadvantage, say growing up in an abusive home, you're very quickly in the negative. The same of course holds true for a non-white kid that's already starting in the negative, of course if on the other hand this non-white kid grows up in a stable middle class family with access to a quality education and a safe environment, they can very quickly accrue far more points on the privilege scale than some poverty stricken white male. This is the crux of the problem for me in this debate. I absolutely believe that white privilege does exist, and we shouldn't shy away from confronting it's effects, but we also shouldn't so singularly focus on it that we neglect the many other ways people, even white people, can be disadvantaged through no fault of their own. From a more pragmatic stand point, I think we need to be more nuanced in framing these issues because it can be rather easy to alienate those who might otherwise be receptive to the goals of a more just and egalitarian society when you don't take the totality of their experiences into account. Again, taking my own experiences into consideration, I usually fluctuate between minor annoyance and outright dismissal when someone who grew up in a stable two parent household that stressed the importance of education, attended decent schools where they didn't have to fear for their safety on a daily basis, lived in neighborhoods where straying farther than 20 feet from your front door didn't mean you where going to get jumped, got to go to college with a bunch of kids from similarly privileged backgrounds and now makes $180k in SV, wants to lecture others about privilege. Also, I don't want to be dismissive of your list, and I definitely want to be careful in making assumptions about your background, but some of those things sound more like middle class white privilege than plain old white privilege. I know some poor white folk, I grew up around them on my family's first stop when immigrating to this country, and they tend to be afraid of the police, for good reason, and don't usually get let off with a warning.

namlem 9y ago

White privilege and class privilege often get conflate in this country. I guess in part because our society has historically been very divided by race and in part because Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of class. If you're white, you have white privilege, but you don't necessarily have class privilege. Class privilege isn't just about money either. If you grow up without much money, but to highly cultured and educated parents, you still have some class privilege.

deftturtle 9y ago
Thanks for the distinction! I know plenty of non-white persons who have lots of class privilege. It's worth far more than racial privilege.

delazeur 9y ago

I am also white, and I also grew up poor. I agree that many (though far from all) of the college students who talk about socioeconomic inequality are spoiled brats. However, you have misunderstood what "white privilege" means: it's not that your life has been easy, it's that the same situations would have been even harder if you had not been white.

makomk 9y ago
In theory that's what it was originally intended to mean, but these days there seem to be an awful lot of people who think it does mean that if you're white your life has been easy and you brought every hardship on yourself. For instance, this tweet was doing the rounds a few days ago: "Imagine sucking so fucking bad that being a white guy is hard for you?"[1]. 26,000 retweets, no ambiguity whatsoever, no real pushback or criticism of it that I saw at least on the left. [1] https://twitter.com/mikeyfrecks/status/896362940634472449 https://twitter.com/mikeyfrecks/status/896362940634472449
- delazeur 9y ago
  One sarcastic tweet from a random nobody is not a bellweather of leftist discourse. That's a weak joke, not social commentary.
  - jachee 9y ago
    Of (overly pedantic) note: It's actually "bellwether". A wether is a castrated ram. (Like a steer, speaking bovinely.) In a flock, a wether would be outfitted with a bell to serve as the lead sheep and herald the flock's motions, which is where we get the modern-day term.

fencepost 9y ago

Interestingly, Scalzi has also written about this in a way targeted at tech folks: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th... Long term I think his article on being poor may be longer lasting and more influential than anything else he does - with the possible exception of taping bacon to a cat. http://whatever.scalzi.com/about/the-canonical-bacon-page/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/about/the-canonical-bacon-page/