What Privilege Do You Have?

[mamagotcha]

I saw this meme on kightp's blog. It's based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University (jedusor told me about participating in a similar exercise, where all the participants stood in a line and stepped forward one step for each privilege they had... her eyes were opened when she realized exactly how privileged she was). The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

If you post this in your blog, please leave a comment on this post. To participate in this blog game, copy and paste the above list into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your responses in the comments.

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
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
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
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
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
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
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
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

It's interesting to me that computers aren't listed anywhere in this. Wouldn't access to computers be even more of a privilege than a phone or TV? Did you have a computer at home? At school or at work? Did you have a modem? Did you use it for anything other than games or BBSs or (after 1990) surfing the Web? I played Lemonade Stand on the first Apple in 1979 (thank you, Mr. Volk!); my ex and I bought our Apple II in the early 80s, and our first Mac in 1985 (I remember scraping together a couple hundred bucks to get a 20M hard drive!).

Or other electronic devices... how many game consoles are in your home? I remember playing Pong at home in the 70s. When did you first get a cell phone? Did you buy them for your own children?

They look at books... how about whether you had a library card? Did you parents subscribe to a newspaper? More than one?

I would also think that food would be an indicator: did you ever eat out at MickyD's or other fast food? more than once a month? once a week? How about freshly prepared food at home... was it from scratch, or a box/can? How often did you go to stores like Walmart? How about farmers markets?

It looks like my kids would have 7 to 9 more steps than I did (for instance, J, but not the boys, went on a cruise with my sister). I think that our access to privilege was emphasized significantly by moving to Kansas City... the gulf between the haves and the have-nots is wider, and we are definitely further up the "haves" scale than we were in California. Perhaps if we had lived in Rancho Cordova instead of Davis, our experience would have been different... but in a town crammed full of college grads and legislators' families, we were clearly on the lower end. Still, we were there mostly by choice. I was a stay-at-home mom, and we consciously did without things like two cars, vacations, new clothes, saving for the kids' college, and so on.

Interesting things to think about...

Comments

Can't get Great Neck out of the girl

[ennienyc.livejournal.com]

Wow, I was very privileged. The only things not bolded: no credit card, no private high school (but I went to private elementary school so I could skip kindergarten), no tutor or SAT course (didn't need them), no car (still don't drive), and no cruises (still true). And I shared a room with my sister even though there was a "guest room" I could have used. My nephews continue this tradition, with Jeffy sleeping on Joel's floor even though he has a room of his own.

Computers were after my time. We had home delivery of the NY Times, with two papers on Sunday so both parents could do the crossword. When I wanted to do the puzzle too, my sister erased one for me.

[corva.livejournal.com]

Looks like 26 or so for the Bear so far and 12 for me so I am guessing my spawn is moving up.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Nine and a half. I've also got the luck of white skin.

the sister chimes in.

[1firefly.livejournal.com]

So your dad did go to college-sadly not much.
you did have a phone in your room- even if it was illegal.
I think there were more then 500 books in the house.
does going to the state fair count as vacation cause we stayed at the Holiday Inn.
Grandpa was a dentist.
didn't you go to vancover in high school on a plane?
enough said

Re: the sister chimes in.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that Dad took any college courses... I knew he did do some tech school stuff, though.

Hee! Forgot about that phone! (It was tucked into a drawer in a desk that was left at the house we moved into in 1978, and attached to another line that was supposed to be turned off... I picked it up one day and it had a dial tone, and used it to talk with friends that lived far away and I wasn't allowed to call because of long-distance charges. Got busted and had to pay back about $300 worth of calls)

I don't think there were that many books when we moved to Penngrove, although there are certainly more than that now (my dad is an avid reader, to say the least).

I remember one or two nights in the hotel, but mostly we were stuck in the dorms. Yeesh. Nope, not a vacation!

Yeah, I thought about Jim being a dentist, and decided that the effect of his privilege didn't land on Mom very much because her mom got married to him when Mom was in her late teens, right? Talking to her, the stigma of living with a single divorced mother was far more influential in her young life than any benefit from her mother's remarriage.

The BC trip was on a bus: an old slow smelly school bus. With no A/C. We drove through the dust of Mt. St. Helens' eruption debris and coughed for days, but it was very cool to see it.

Hope that makes sense!