Privilege

[bcholmes]

The privilege meme, via rbowspryte:

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
My mother went to and finished nursing college many years after I finished university. I don't know if this is relevant, but in Canada, "college" tends to have a slightly different connotation than "university". I don't believe that my mother's schooling was a degree-based program.
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
I'm not really sure how to answer this one.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
I desperately wanted to learn how to play the piano, so my parents signed me up for guitar lessons.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
I'm not sure; I think I might just squeak by on this one. In grade 13, I took flute lessons, which I paid for myself. I would have turned 18 in November, and I'm not sure which month I started, but I might have started before I turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Not before I turned 18. Once I got to university, one of the banks on campus gave co-op students credit cards.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
I had a scholarship or two that covered most of my tuition, and I paid for almost all of my other university expenses.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
I went to summer day camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
My family went to Florida when I was in grade 6; we stayed in motels one the drive, and while we were there. We also went to Jamaica when I was in grade 8(?); it wasn't quite a hotel, but the difference is moot, I think. It was one of those McVacations.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Pretty much true. I was an only child, and pretty much the oldest kid in my extended family (I have two cousins who are older, but they're so much older that they're pretty much a generation ahead of me)
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
No, but I did have a hand-me-down car when I was 18.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
I think I get this one on a technicality. My grandfather on my mother's side liked to make model boats. They weren't highly detailed or anything, but I had one and my mother had one.
23. Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
24. You and your family lived in a single family house
25. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
26. You had your own room as a child
Yup. Only child. Plus, we had a three-bedroom home for most of my life.
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned [an investment] in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Jamaica. Me, I always wanted to visit England; I eventually saved some money and went after I graduated high school (I was 18 at the time). I travelled with my grandparents (my parents had no interest in seeing England), and I ended up on a coach tour with 50 senior citizens. Wacky fun times.
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
Did we even have museums in Sarnia? Oh, wait. I think there's something on the second floor of the library.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

rbowspryte added these questions:

35. I am for the most part healthy and have no significant disability.
36. I have been born into a gender which I am comfortable with.
37. My sexuality is viewed positively in the media and by the majority of my society.
38. My sexuality is not visible to others just by looking at me.
I don't know how to answer this one. I was "read" as queer pretty much throughout high school.
39. My peer group is represented positively in the media and embraced positively by the majority of society.
I don't know that my peer group is clearly defined.
40. My ethnic group is represented positively in the media and rarely stigmatized or stereotyped.

These ones also struck me as interesting:

41. The language spoken by teachers in school was the same language as that I spoke with my family at home.
42. My parents and teachers took it for granted that I would attend university.
I think that this is true. Again, I was the second university-educated person in my extended family (the first was my Aunt Janey), but I think that my parents and teachers expected me to attend university.
43. Any money I earned at part-time jobs before I turned 18 was mine to keep or put towards m education.
When did I have my first job? Was it before 18? I bused tables -- I think I started when I was 17.
44. I know what my family's genetic history is.
Mostly. I know I managed to dodge the diabetes bullet that's hit almost everyone in my mother's side of the family.
45. When people see me with my parents, they assume we're related.
I look scarily like my mother
46. I graduated from college or university with no debt.
Co-op and scholarships.
47. During college or university, I could use income from part-time jobs to supplement my spending money (rather than for tuition, books, or living expenses).
No. In my final year, I had to pay for two terms using the same amount of savings that previously paid for one term. I needed the part-time job to help pay living expenses.

Comments

[aquaeri]

Every time I read this, I am struck by how much American-centric privilege the list itself displays. Also, as a migrant, I have no clue how to answer some of the questions. (I am not going to argue that I don't have white privilege, because I sure do, as well as middle-class privilege, and Western Culture upbringing privilege and Living In English-Speaking Country Privilege and so forth. But this list, sigh.)

[bcholmes]

Please say more.

[aquaeri]

The list assumes that access to tertiary education == wealth (or scholarship). My father went to university because, despite being from about the poorest, least privileged class in his country, his country had also figured out that wealth was no criterium for choosing who should go to university. In said country, attending private school was a marker of something quite different than it is here, or in the US (which I think is a different thing again). I also gather there was a point in Australia's past where access to tertiary education was not about wealth (although conservative governments got rid of that, pronto) and even by my generation, there were no college loans because that's not how university education was financed. (it has all changed now.)

I now live in a place where I know exactly how much most people spend on heating: zero. Class/money/power issues revolve around airconditioning.

Phone and/or TV in own room was completely unthinkable in my childhood. TV in house was a somewhat reluctant decision on the part of my parents (and I was a privileged child of middle-class university educated parents - if the point is to identify my privilege, this is totally orthogonal).

Again, living in a single-family house was a marker of something quite different, and not neccessarily simple wealth, as the richest person I interacted with lived in a very expensively-furnished apartment with expensive artworks in an elite location, and my rural and by local standards underprivileged cousins lived in single-family houses - it was when they moved to the nearby "big city" in their own apartment they knew they were moving up.

I also think "original artworks" doesn't begin to address very complex issues of one's culture's conception of art and creativity (or its relationship or lack thereof to class or wealth, monetary or otherwise).

And 6. Duh. My father didn't attend high school (in the definition of high school I imagine the people writing these questions intended). I was regularly reminded how lucky I was just to be able to attend school five days a week - my father went to school on alternate days (M,W,F or T,T,S) because he (like all the other children) was needed to help at home.

The flying question also seems very culturally dependent. In Europe, most people don't fly anywhere they can get by train in my experience. Vice versa in Australia even quite poor people may have been on a plane at some point because the population is so widely scattered your grandparents may live over 1000Km away and still not be regarded as all that far away (the Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide axis tend to regard Perth and Darwin as really far away. Adelaide doesn't think Perth is that far away. Brisbane thinks pretty much the entire Queensland coast is reasonably close, but it's far away to everyone else).

17. Again this seems to depend on a NorAm conception of summer camp. The closest I went were the programs set up by Copenhagen Council, where there were activity lists published in the newspaper you were eligible for based on your card number (that you bought at school just before the holidays). I was possibly the only kid in my class who had one, because it was regarded as a lower-class program. I did notice that most of the children I met on it came from poorer backgrounds than I did. Not that that affected our ability to have fun together. (As I remember, the program also included actual week-long camps you could sign up for, but my mother said my brother and I should leave those slots for kids who really deserved them.)

As I said, I'm white, middle-class, university-educated with university-educated parents and friends, living in a Western country etc. I know I have heaps and heaps of privilege. I'm trying to translate to my limited experience of what my cousins' lives were like, or my partner's childhood. I can't even begin to relate it to my Thai PhD student (who has heaps of academic etc privilege inside Thailand, but as soon as she leaves the country?)