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]

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.