keryx | privilege meme

Bold the ones that are true for you.
The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home [Was close, I think]
Were read children's books by a parent [But way more adult (not "adult" adult, you know, Stephen King and Dickens and stuff) books!]
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 [Piano, harp, dance, art classes]
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively [I guess - I mean, white yuppies, sure.]
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs (hahahahahahaha)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school [I didn't. But DID go to a private middle school, though on a scholarship]
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 [Though I'm not positive on this one, I assume that it had to be.]
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child [Does mine & my grandmother's count? Cause yes, then.]
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child [At one point, I shit you not, I had two. Navy housing gave us a townhouse with 3 bedrooms. So I was a mostly working-class kid with a PLAYROOM.]
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

One of the big class-based predictors of academic success is supposed to be the presence of books in your house. My parents both came from factory-working families, but were avid readers (mom read magazines, but was also in school for most of my lower school years, so lots of college textbooks, while dad read assloads of fiction). Both of my parents shared books with me, and I don't just mean the books themselves but conversation about them.

I don't know why I felt the need to point that out, except that a) I was always a big nerd and b) I am now an equally big yuppie. So the research is right in my case.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But class is not necessarily dictated by funds. Class is about status, not money. This isn't a socio-economic list, it's a strictly class-based one. And classes DO exist - to deny otherwise is to ignore a huge part of the problem in American society. The assumption is not that only certain classes want their children to do well - it is that valuing reading enough to own books in the home indicates a certain attitude and a certain ability. EVERYONE wants their kids to do well, and I think most people want their kids to do better than they have done. But I also recognize that the reality of our world means people interpret that in different ways.

We had books in my home growing up - and it was because they were all mine. My mom read a little bit but father.... He's not a reader at all. He actually calls me up and tells me when he has read a book because it is an event. And it has nothing to do with economics - he actually comes from a VERY privileged background. It's the attitude behind it - he takes books for granted and doesn't value them. My mom, on the other hand, comes from a very working class background and even though she doesn't read (she has dyslexia and reading is a lot of work for her), she knew reading was an important part of me doing well - she knew education would help me make a better life for myself as well, whereas it was just a default in my father's family and when my father didn't go to college, it was still okay because, eh, it was just college.

Your family's interactions around money and education must have been really interesting!

I grew up strangely astride two different classes, two different socio-economic groups as well. We spent time at the country club with my dad's parents, doing golf related things, but activities with my mom's family - with whom we had more day-to-day interaction - were more likely to involve dirt roads and trampolines in North Florida. It was always my mom's family who valued my intelligence and my academic goals. My father's family just saw it as a totally normal thing, even though none of them have graduated college (my father's family was involved in the golf course industry and my grandfather is a golf course designer).

I argue that class based on status is entirely built around classism. I went into a bit earlier in the thread with

keryx but to assume that some low paying jobs (teacher, artist, etc..) are acceptable is entirely predicated on the original status of the person when they started out in their training. In theory it'll take more $$ to be a teacher, rather than a garbage collector - and that is why that job is 'ok' while both are obviously necessary in society.

Your personal experiences with class are of course valid, but they show how wide and vast the human experience is. My fathers family - largely college educated with 'respectable' careers in engineering & the like generally did not read, enjoyed crass humor, and did all the 'unclassy things' that my working class, but opera loving mother's side of the family abhored.

As far as college, I think any training will of course further a persons career... but the idea that college = acceptance into middle class is something a lot of working class folks balk at for a variety of reasons, but that is another rant entirely. I should add that I am a returning college student, I had to drop out at age 19 because I had no money and could not afford to incur the lofty debt that surrounds U.S. colleges today. I also hate hearing 'wow you are really well spoken for a person without a degree'

I'm not saying it ISN'T classist and maybe that's the source of our miscommunication. I just acknowledge that classism exists BECAUSE classes exist.

My father's family didn't give two figs for education and they were the ones who were truly privileged (boarding school in Switzerland privileged). My mother's working class family were the ones who saw education as a gateway to a better life. However, they also think it's kind of a frivolous pursuit. It's an interesting dichotomy.

I'm now the only person on either side of my family to have a college degree. That goes for my cousins on both sides as well. I'm also surrounded by two distinct groups of people - those who are pursuing post-grad degrees and those who disdain college. Then there's my husband who is returning to college at 33 to get his A.A.. And he gets the same reaction - because he is incredibly well-read and creative and he comes from a family where education and creativity were highly, HIGHLY valued.

So it isn't just my personal experience - after all, the plural of anecdote is not data! I'm not using my experience to trump yours. But there is a general cultural trend. It might be that this list doesn't apply specifically to YOU but that doesn't make the list any less of an interesting tool for encouraging people to examine class privilege.

maybe this is another semantics thing, but do you think classism exists because classes exist, or because a heirarchal, controling, patriarchal society that is based around keeping the 'lowest' low and self hating.

I was questioning the cultural trend, because I think we only talk about it within the set parameters of this 'self hating low' kind of reality where any of us who did grow up working class/poor who had access to books, who had parents or extended family who were voracious readers.

The tool was interesting, but seemed so lacking.. if you are talking about class privilege why didn't financial aid come up, why wasn't the question of 'did your parents graduate high school' come up, hell why didn't TV ownership come up right next to books?

All I'm debating is the tying of 'culture' to class... because while there is some economic privilege needed for some access.. a lot of this discussion is shaped purely by class-ist assumptions that have gone unquestioned.

again, I apologize if I seem argumentative or difficult... I just found this survey really limiting, and get very frustrated in such discussions because the assumed cultural trends are currently impossible to separate from the silencing that happens to the poor when they talk about their experience.

privilege meme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

misposted elsehwere.... but here ya go