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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Simplest and Most Perfect Explanation of Privilege
source: https://brightside.me/article/what-you-should-think-about-before-you-judge-others-10155/
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Simple explanation. But the Bush children and the Trump children will not believe it because it takes away from their accomplishments.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)hunter
(38,317 posts)My own kids grew up largely privileged like Richard in the cartoon, but not within any kind of bubble.
I grew up in a 99.44% affluent white community and I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. (My parents were privileged and white, but usually less than affluent. They are artists who had day jobs. We lived where they could find work. Me and all my siblings fled this community as soon as we were able, as did my parents when they retired.)
It seems to me that too many of my childhood acquaintances, the ones who stayed and were "successful," have attitudes like Richard. They think they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and hard work. A few consider Ronald Reagan a saint. They don't understand why Paula doesn't do the same.
My children grew up in neighborhoods where white people like their dad were not the majority. The majority of our neighbors are first, second, and third generation Mexican American like their mom, and bilingual. The rest of us are white, black, and Asian, in fairly equal numbers. It pleases me immensely my kids are very cognoscente of the racism, sexism, and homophobia of straight white U.S. tradition. It pleases me that they have an entire rainbow of close friends.
It's possible to be progressive and liberal in affluent white U.S. communities, but it takes some work to understand the barriers those without white privilege must overcome. An easy empathy is not enough.
There is also the class issue. Wealthy people, no matter their sex or their color, seem disconnected from the rest of us. They've never struggled to pay for groceries and the rent, they buy their automobiles with cash, they've never had their electricity, water, or phones shut off for non-payment, they've never suffered a bad tooth because they can't afford a dentist. Many people privileged with wealth are blissfully unaware of the problems many Americans deal with daily.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Those who have been coddled all of their lives can't deal with the world outside of their bubbles, not to mention come up with any empathy for those unlike themselves.
llmart
(15,540 posts)I always liked the description that "he was born on third base but thought he hit a triple".
Sums up wealthy privilege for me. However, we have some excellent examples of wealthy people who were taught otherwise growing up like the Kennedys and FDR.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Not to mention those who endorse systematic inequality.
FDT.
uponit7771
(90,346 posts)Crunchy Frog
(26,587 posts)Are they considered privileged due to their skin color, or is this definition of privilege a socioeconomic one?
hunter
(38,317 posts)The poor white sharecropper was no better off economically than the poor black sharecropper but for that privilege. The white sharecropper knew he was better than Black people and his status was even reflected in the way the rest of society treated him.
For example, in the community I grew up in, "Driving While Black" citations were a favorite sport of the local police. They'd harass black pedestrians too, treating them as if they didn't belong there, full on Nazi "Papers please!" There were also a few embarrassing (and costly!) lawsuits against the police for violently arresting the very first Black or Hispanic person they encountered after any crime that was purported
to be committed by a Black or Hispanic male.
Another example: During the Dust Bowl and Great Depression years "Okie" was not a term of endearment in California. I used to frequently encounter elderly people in that community who were still bitter that California growers hadn't fired their Mexican-American workforce the instant these white Dust Bowl refugees showed up on their doorsteps. It's not that these growers were not racists, most of them were, but why would they replace skilled Mexican American workers, experienced in irrigated agricultural practices, with unskilled refugee labor who'd been so silly as to trust in God that it would rain?
I first heard the words "White Trash" from one of my grandmas born in San Francisco just after the Great Earthquake, to an affluent California dairy family. Some of the roads where I now live are named after my great grandfather's cousins. My wife's Mexican-American father was born in a farm worker's tent near a small money pit farm my parents once owned (which is now part of an ugly wasteland of million dollar mini-ranches and MacMansions... my parents sold too soon.)
Undeniably a number of Trump voters were impoverished white people who couldn't understand why they'd been left behind with all those other people.
Crunchy Frog
(26,587 posts)It does not reflect anything that's in the OP, which is what my question really concerned.
In the OP cartoon, at any rate, privilege or lack thereof, is defined exclusively according to socioeconomic criteria. The differences in skin color between the two characters appears to be either a coincidence, or possibly a stereotype. The privilege of the white dude in the cartoon would be completely lost on the people of rural Indiana, where my nieces come from.
I would argue that the cartoon fails to achieve what it claims to. Your post does a much better job of it.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Akamai
(1,779 posts)"What oft was thought yet ne'er so well expressed!"
The above is a great expression from beginning to end!
heaven05
(18,124 posts)excellent post, I think
Crash2Parties
(6,017 posts)Everyone in the comic has the same skin tone. In today's America, that is significant.
Hamlette
(15,412 posts)I've said that for years. I grew up like Richard but know and appreciate it and think we have an obligation to help Paula.
Trump is just like Richard as did FDR and JFK but look how different those three are.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,760 posts)Bookmarking to share.