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]

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.