privilege

[rm]

rom What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.




1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School -- I would have been utterly berated for even dreaming to request such a thing.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Comments

[dorei.livejournal.com]

~pssst~ just found out through a friend who is far too obsessive, that this is from Indiana State University, apparently.

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

And honestly some of those questions clearly demonstrate that. (cars and cruises and credit cards for example)

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

From what I can tell (from their web page), it's meant to be a discussion starter tailored specifically for students at that university, not as some kind of all-comprehensive "test" for class around the country. The idea is apparently just to give students some focal points for a more extended conversations about things that some students have experienced and may have taken for granted.

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

I can see that. I think it actually is pretty interesting when you compare several people (like me, my husband and my son). But mostly growing up in Indiana so many people I knew thought cruises were so exotic and high class because they don't live near the ocean.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I grew up in the middle of the country as well, and cruises were seen as pretty exotic.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up, cruises were marketed as show-off-your-wealth luxury activities for ostentatious old people when I was a kid. I was in my 20s before cruises were routinely marketed to middle class people, and in my 30s before they were marketed to people younger than their 50s.

I've been on two cruises as an adult, both part of solar eclipse tours, and enjoyed them. I suspect the ships are a lot more fun when they're full of astronomers than when they're full of people who watched too much Love Boat on television.

...

[keith418.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this takes historical issues into consideration. When I was in High School, even the kids who were from social classes much higher than mine did not have phones in their rooms. Now, I think it is more common in middle class families. Likewise, credit cards were not as frequently used - even in the early 1980s - as they are now. I never went on "cruises" with my parents, but we did visit foreign countries and rented houses.

Re: ...

[rm.livejournal.com]

I wondered the same thing. Certainly when I was growing up, I didn't know anyone who had a credit card in their own name, despite the wealth I was around -- I do remember some people who had cards in their parents names with letters of permission -- I can't imagine such a system actually working now.

.

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the whole question of cataloging "privilege" (and this is common now in undergrad programs), I have to really wonder about some of these choices. I associate people going on "cruises" with the sort of "middle class idiots with disposable wealth" Love Boat thing. The whole Kathy Lee Gifford, Carnival cruise line tackiness. My parents sent both my brother and I abroad while we were in High School - both to visit and as exchange students. That's got to count for more than some tacky cruise.

Do the people who put this thing together really understand taste as class indicators? Do they really understand the intricacies of the classes they want to study? I have to doubt it. This looks too slapped-together and half-assed. My brother got a car in High School because he drove and wanted one. I didn't get one because - at that point - I didn't drive and didn't want one.

Re: .

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the car thing does account for people who grew up in areas like I did, and the cruise thing boggled me. Like my family, regardless of income would NEVER go on a cruise, because we'd view it as sort of tacky.

Re: .

[docscarabus.livejournal.com]

Cars depend a lot on where you live. In Los Angeles you need a ccar to get anywhere, so most kids of driving age had one. I grew up in Boston, I knew ONE kid with a car, and I think he ha bought and fise it up himself. Even very rich kids didn't have cars.

Cruises I totally agree with Keith...cruises are lowbrow middle class vacations.

A question that is missing is "Have you ever been to Europe?"

Re: .

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

Copied from my previous comment:

From what I can tell (from their web page), it's meant to be a discussion starter tailored specifically for students at that university, not as some kind of all-comprehensive "test" for class around the country. The idea is apparently just to give students some focal points for a more extended conversations about things that some students have experienced and may have taken for granted, not an attempt to catalogue class indicators.

!

[keith418.livejournal.com]

"My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it."

- Dr. Evil

Re: ...

[delicatetbone.livejournal.com]

Also, why is there no mention of being on food stamps or receiving government assistance up there? Or do I just keep scanning and missing it.

I'm curious as to why they picked the questions they did -- and why they chose not to ask about things like being white/light skinned or not-fat or whatever else...

[lllvis.livejournal.com]

After reading to comments here I'm glad to find I was not alone in some of my thoughts! Does priviledge=extravagance? Seems to in these peoples' minds. My parents did well, but they did well by working for what they had. Dad is white collar with a very blue collar background and sensability, so I don't think some of these questions apply. Also, I COULD have gone to a private school if it was thought to be necessary, but they didn't think so.

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

I laughed about the cruise thing too. I think some things were more telling than that though.

And clearly there are things that are more likely to happen if you are an only child (like my son). When I did the three of us (Me, husband, child) what was more telling for me personally was that you see a big jump in some of them by the time you get to Thomas. Two college educated parents who have traveled abroad, have one child, lots of time and disposable income. Throw in he is a white male who appears at 7 to be straight and that is a whole helluva a lot of privilege.

[coridan.livejournal.com]

I'm a white male american. I'm certainly doing better than the majority of the damned planet - probably better than 90%. I have health insurance, daily food and a roof over my head, entertainment on call and physical safety.

These are not givens for the majority of this planets population.

I hope I can pay some of this back, or forward.

CB

[asa-dachi.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how to answer the summer camp thing. I didn't go to one of those all-summer camps where rich folks send their kids so they don't have to spend all day with them all summer long. But I did go to week-long camps for church, music, boy scouts, etc.

Anyway, counting summer camp I had 20 out of the 34 priveleges in bold. I considered myself fairly priveleged for my parents' origins. My dad's choices (when college wasn't going so well for him) were to go into the coal mines or join a branch of the service. He joined the Navy, figuring it would be better than being drafted into Vietnam. How he ended up a Vice President of Physical Distribution at a major retail enterprise is somewhat of a longshot if not a miracle.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

Adapted from my reply (http://steve98052.livejournal.com/257864.html) to the survey:

I had a credit card in my own name around age 18, and I fully realized that it was very unusual at my age, 45. It wasn't so much a privilege thing, except to the extent that my parents' good credit record meant I could get one with them as a reference, rather than getting a secured card. I'm not sure whether secured cards existed then anyway. It was more a "you need to learn this" thing; I would have caught hell if I ever spent more than I could pay within the grace period.

My parents paid for my school, except for what was covered by a one-year scholarship. Thanks to dirt-cheap in-state tuition, my tuition and books probably cost less than my share of the groceries during the same years. The fact that they didn't have to spend much on my school doesn't lessen my appreciation at all.

Summer camp was a cheap, one-week-per-summer thing, not the up-scale, all-summer things in brat-pack movies. But I bolded.

My parents were more help than any private tutors would have been.

If standardized test prep classes existed at all when I was of age for them, they were extremely rare. So no.

I got a television of my own late in high school. It had a twist-knob channel changer, not a remote. I wonder if the target audience for the survey has ever seen a television like that.

I can't imagine that any child knows what their family's heating bills cost. Even in families where the bills are a big burden, the kids would be unlikely to know the numbers, although most would know that the family was struggling. Stupid question.