{"id":1967,"date":"2008-01-15T13:27:13","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T18:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1967"},"modified":"2008-01-16T05:48:03","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T10:48:03","slug":"privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1967","title":{"rendered":"Privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Cake Eater Kathy<\/a>, it’s “the Privilege Meme”.<\/p>\n

The point is to bold each of the statements that applied\/applies to me.<\/p>\n

Original source<\/strong>: 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. So I do. Yaaaay Will Meagan, Angie, Minnette, Drew and Stacy!<\/p>\n

Father went to college<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Father finished college<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mother went to college<\/strong>—I think for a semester or two (Schwoops. As Keith Moon is my witness, I thought I’d heard it was a semester or two, but Mom emails to say she actually went to three years of college. My bad).<\/p>\n

Mother finished college<\/p>\n

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor – UPDATED: <\/strong>Mom emails to note that a distant relative on her side was an attorney and governor of Iowa.<\/p>\n

Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers – dad was <\/em>a high school teacher.<\/p>\n

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home<\/strong><\/p>\n

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home – <\/strong>I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 5,000.<\/p>\n

Were read children’s books by a parent<\/strong><\/p>\n

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18-<\/strong>–Not really – I learned cello in the elementary school orchestra. When I was 14, my dad paid one of his friends to show me a couple of things on the guitar. I think it was four lessons. It was useful.<\/p>\n

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18<\/p>\n

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively – it’s kind of a dumb statement. White conservative Christian males take a lump or two.<\/p>\n

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 – I think I was 33. And I regretted it.<\/p>\n

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs – Dad helped out. And I got a decent scholarship, and a couple of grants.<\/p>\n

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs<\/p>\n

Went to a private high school<\/p>\n

Went to summer camp – <\/strong> In seventh and eighth grade, I won scholarships (thanks, American Legion!) to the International Music Camp<\/a> on the cello. One week sessions that were spent practicing like mad for a huge honkin’ concert in the International Peace Gardens.<\/p>\n

Had a private tutor before you turned 18<\/p>\n

Family vacations involved staying at hotels<\/strong> Once, when we were going to the Tetons and the car broke down, we spent most of the vacation money getting the car fixed. We had enough to stay a night in a hotel in Livingston Montana. We went to the occasional lake cabin, though, which was a lot more fun.<\/p>\n

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18<\/strong> – Um, mostly? But from, like, Woolworths and Penney’s?<\/p>\n

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them<\/p>\n

There was original art in your house when you were a child<\/strong> – Yes, but Mom painted it all. She was quite talented.<\/p>\n

Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 – I didn’t have my own phone until I was 26.<\/p>\n

You and your family lived in a single family house<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home-<\/strong><\/p>\n

You had your own room as a child From age twelve on – always shared with my brother.<\/p>\n

Participated in an SAT\/ACT prep course – huh?<\/p>\n

Had your own TV in your room in High School<\/p>\n

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College – no, but I bought a CD when I was 16 with my radio earnings. 12.6% at the height of the Carter Stagflation!<\/p>\n

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16<\/p>\n

Went on a cruise with your family<\/p>\n

Went on more than one cruise with your family<\/p>\n

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up<\/strong>—such as were available in the middle of North Dakota? Yes.<\/p>\n

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family—The commandment to not waste heat was pretty clear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE:\u00a0 The Night Writer did the meme – and added:<\/p>\n

The point is to make us feel guilty about being born with certain advantages. To which my response would be, “What is <\/em>your point?” I hope this wasn’t the result of hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into a research study of the obvious. I mean, couldn’t that money have been better spent on something like finding out why monkeys scream during sex<\/a>? Perhaps a better response from me, though, would be “So what?” \u2014 as in “So what do you want me to do about it?”<\/p>\n

Am I supposed to go around feeling meek and guilty for an accident of birth over which I had no control over? I mean, that was a decision made way above my pay-grade. Similarly, should I be upset over the injustice that Michael Jordan gets the privilege of being 6′ 9″ with mad skills, or that Sean Connery gets that voice? Or should I go to Japan and have people treat me differently, in overt or subtle ways, because I’m different? They probably would, and I’d probably be upset about it, but the only thing in my power to change about the situation is my attitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The subtext of the meme was fairly clear – the authors tipped their hand with the “are people like you portrayed favorably on TV” question, as if such a question weren’t meaninglessly-broad enough to be useful only to…<\/p>\n

…pop sociologists, I guess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Cake Eater Kathy, it’s “the Privilege Meme”. The point is to bold each of the statements that applied\/applies to me. Original source: 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}