Jobs and Awareness

[cjsmith]

I have discovered, among my smart college-educated white upper-middle-class mostly-male circle of friends, that there are few people who have done anything but white-collar jobs. Most have never held ANY unskilled-labor job, EVER, including during high school. EVER.

That first sentence could also be pronounced "...among my [privilege] [privilege] [privilege] [privilege] [privilege]...".

I have discovered that I tend to have more respect for the ones who have; they read as "less spoiled", somehow, and then when I find out they once bagged groceries or changed diapers it just all hangs together. The ones who've been burger-flippers or security guards tend to be --- not always, but they tend to be --- the same ones who would have seen the alternate pronunciation of that first sentence and its implications.

What I respect is that awareness, wherever it comes from.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

smart college-educated white upper-middle-class mostly-male

Well, I'm considered smart, and I have a couple of diplomas to attest to the college educated part, and I'm white in the "grandson of Irish and son of Canadian immigrants" fashion. That last means that I was raised around men who worked very hard for what they earned. I suppose my current income makes me upper middle class, though I haven't been in this bracket for the greater part of my life. And yes, I'm male.

I started working, in the sense of doing work that brought in some money, when I was eight. Helping out in my father's garage. The first job I had outside of my family was as a stock boy in a drug store, where I restocked shelves and cut up empty boxes so they could go into the incinerator. From that I went to working as a short order cook and all around assistant in a cafe during my freshman year of highschool. Then back to working for dad when he bought a gas station. I also did janitorial work in my Catholic high school to help reduce the tuition.

Once I was old enough (16) I went to work in convenience stores (the Circle K chain) for the last two years of high school. That was an educational experience, and gave me an insight into the convenience store biz that I've never forgotten.

After graduation, I couldn't afford college, so what with one thing and another I ended up joining the USMC. I did that for the next 8.5 years, then moved over to the Reserve, got a job in a Ford dealership, and headed back to the halls of academia in my copious spare time. I was a line mechanic there at the dealership for 5 years, until I managed to wrangle enough of a Research Assistantship to become a full-time academic. Of course, some academics consider experimental physicists to be a bit blue-collar anyway, as we tend to get a lot of dirt under our fingernails along the way.

All that said, I agree with you, mostly, that having a lot of work experience which put me in the midst of hard working ordinary folks gives me an appreciation for things that some of my more fortunate colleagues just don't have.

But I'll confess I still bridle at seeing the word privilege tossed around. There were many years when I didn't feel very privileged at all, and I do have an understanding of why so many working class white men in the US feel that the deck is stacked against them.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

But I'll confess I still bridle at seeing the word privilege tossed around.

Hm. Why? I can understand why there were times you didn't feel very privileged at all. Absolutely. There are also times I don't feel very privileged at all, either, although it is still true that I am of a race and intelligence/education level that tend to mean I'll have a lot fewer of some kinds of problems.

The awareness I was talking about is something you clearly have. "...gives me an appreciation for things that some of my more fortunate colleagues just don't have." I'm not sure I'd call those colleagues fortunate, quite, but yeah, that awareness, that appreciation, that's exactly what I was talking about.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Privilege gets used in a lot of text these days in a manner which suggests, pretty blatantly, that anyone not encumbered by societal handicaps is automatically at a social advantage. But in truth, the only thing that can be said about people who don't have any of those societal handicaps is that they are at an advantage with respect to the disadvantaged. They still don't have any clear social advantage when compared to -- say -- the children of the wealthy and powerful.

Sure, I understand that being white and male means I don't endure a lot of harrassment that black people and women experience because of stupid social practices. But that's not a privilege. It's a basic human right that we're all supposed to enjoy -- at least here in the US. The fact that some people are systematically denied that right is a matter for the courts to address, and indeed the courts have consistently held that such systematic practices are illegal.

Privilege meant "private law" originally. Privileges were legal advantages given to (you knew this was coming) privileged classes of society. Roman patricians enjoyed privileges in terms of where they could live, and what government jobs they could hold, and how much wealth they could accumulate, and whom they could marry.

You can make the argument that any US citizen is privileged because we have a Bill of Rights which specifies the rights of the people, but if we do that then we completely twist the meaning of privilege around since the whole point of privileges in the first place was to favor a small sector of society over the rest.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

If I understand you correctly, then, you dislike the word privilege because:

1. it is used to indicate a generic "advantage" which does not universally "win", ie, there exist people with bigger advantages

and/or

2. the disadvantages some people face shouldn't be there

and/or

3. the word is being used in a manner rather divergent from its origins

How'd I do on the comprehension? I'm not sure I got number 1 right -- that one's shaky...

[wcg.livejournal.com]

You did just fine CJ! I suppose 1 was what first bothered me about it, and 3 is what comes to mind most immediately these days. But yes, all three of those things fit.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah. Cool! Thanks.

For me, it's useful to have a word that denotes an unfair, perhaps illegal but hard to prove, in some cases unethical, societal advantage of some sort. The fact that there are many types and, well, "sizes" of advantage doesn't mean I don't want the word. It's interesting, though, that this particular word is an irritant to you. Would you use a different word to mean this concept? Would you want a word for it at all?

(oh, and btw, Hi! How are you these days?)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

When I'm trying to describe the condition you outlined, I tend to use either advantaged or favored. Of the two, favored is the one I'd be more likely to use in general conversation. If the condition were unfair, I'd explicitly say "unfairly favored" to describe it.

Perhaps I just know too much Latin.

As for how I've been, pretty good. I'm currently the only Mission Planner/Analyst here since my colleague Julia got pulled off for a short assignment in Colorado. So I'll be busier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs for the next week.