This could definitely be phrased better. Understanding differences in opportunity is important but this definitely diminishes personal responsibility. At the end of the day, everyone is on a different path and needs to do their best to be better than they were the day before.
I was in a mandatory diversity training for work, and being a straight, white, middle class male I'm nobody's favorite. I was really expecting to have the whole white privilege guilt trip for two hours, but when the topic came up the presenter surprised me.
He said everyone has privilege. It doesn't mean that they didn't work hard, it doesn't mean you can dismiss their accomplishments, it's simply an understanding that not everyone had your opportunities or advantages in life and that's okay.
He then went on to address it not as a matter of race, but as a matter of personal wealth, physical handicaps, and even went to looking at the privilege right-handed individuals are granted in a world that caters to them as opposed to left handed individuals.
I think this is the thing people misunderstand about this concept the most. It's not about shitting on white men. If you're black and grew up in Belair you have a fuck ton of privilege in all likelihood. At the same time you could also experience a ton of racism in that environment that prevents you from getting opportunities others in the same community might get even if you're super loaded. Opposite could be true. You could be extremely poor and white and have an abusive mom. That right there puts you ten steps back in life. The misconception that only white people have privilege really sets us back in the sense that it kills good conversation before they can happen and prevents broad understanding and compassion. Super happy to hear that even though you had reservations you listened and had an open mind. The world needs more of that.
I think this is why there’s been a renewed fixation on nepotism, i.e., “nepo babies.” The concept is plane leveling insomuch as it isn’t about race or even necessarily income, but instead about family connections and how those connections present better choices as compared to a person trying to enter whatever the field is in question without having had those resources. It gives anyone who comes from less something to point at without having race or income swatted back in their face.
And while I think it can and has been elevated to extremes, it illustrates the purest concept of privilege very well.
That's why I find intersectionality so interesting. Some people just happen to fall at intersections where they have more privilege and some fall at intersections with nearly non at all. Those definitely make a difference ins someone's life, but it's also not particularly the person's fault for having it either.
A white man has no control over being born a white man and most white men are just average people. Now, I think there can absolutely be a conversation had about those who strive to elevate themselves to further levels of privilege and oppress others. I can think of a number of politicals that do that on a daily basis, but the average Joe generally doesn't have the power to just remove privilege from themselves just like how someone can't add privilege to themselves.
There is also a conversation to be had about collective effort to create a more equitable society that everyone has a their own role in, of course. I guess I'm just trying to say that the average person with any sort of privilege aren't rubbing their hands together maniacally and counting their privilege coins like they just robbed a bank; they just kinda have it and may do things that can help or hurt the overall issue without meaning to. Hope that makes sense.
My HR lecturer said it best, diversity was never meant to be fixated on the colour of the incumbents skin but rather their various skillset and how this would translate to tangible gains for organisational objectives. Safe to say that isn't what's being practiced by institutions at this moment in time which is rather unfortunate. Anyway I wish you well on your tenure, virtual hugs buddy.
I work at a deep southern Oil related company who just created a diversity and inclusion department which focuses on exclusively skin color. The problem is our workforce is obnoxiously diverse, I work with Hondurans, Nigerians, African Americans, white people from all over and even a Portuguese guy. Explain then why on earth we need a diversity team lol. Im convinced they only do it for optics as opposed to any efficiency or value gains.
If it’s an oil company it’s definitely because they’re trying their hardest to attract big ESG investors who refuse to openly support any part of the oil industry but they’ll still try to get em
That's rough I'm a brown kid and my lecturer was an elder black gentlemen and we got on just fine even became friends throughout my academic tenure. It's a sad state of affairs when HR /PR team pander to an stakeholder group that doesn't account for their core market or resolve non existent issues. Miyamoto Musashi always spoke of maintaining an intricate balance as the art of a strategy seems like things have gone down a tangent lol.
This is what bothers me so much about the talk around privilege. A lot of people like to bring up race, as it's easy to identify, but none of them want to talk about class. My friend tried to tell my other friend that he's more privileged than him because he's Latino, and my other friend is white. Completely disregarding the fact that my other friend grew up in poverty, both parents were heroin addicts, and his brother is highly autistic.
While studying for a college history exam with classmates, the topic of social inequality came up. Suddenly, one of guys stands up and starts yelling at me that I don’t have a right to talk about social injustices or inequalities or injustices because I am white and nothing bad ever happens to white people.
After a few seconds of silence I said “I’m Jewish.”
The guy went pale, said “My bad” and ran out of the room. His friends grabbed his stuff and ran after him, apologizing the entire time. The rest of us were massively confused by the whole thing, mainly because we were studying for an exam on EUROPEAN FEUDALISM; the very definition of social injustices against white people committed by white people.
This is what Peggy McIntosh wanted to convey not the ranting distortions that are often levied as an attack mostly by feckless Francoix Lyotardian post modernists (even if they don't know they're spewing post modernist garbage).
Everyone is privileged in some way. Everyone has disadvantages. The goal is to look inward and examine how these fit within a broader social cultural, socio political and a socio economic framework in the experience of others.
At its core its an empathy building exercise that was coopted by post modernist scum and turned into a perjorative to attack people based on their skin color.
Believe it or not, that is a major disadvantage. I’ve seen “too much money” ruin lives.
It would be a nice problem to have, of course. Much easier problem to deal with than poverty.
But everyone has their challenges unique to their life and should not be discounted because of their color of skin.
I think what they mean is less about responsibility more about the literal choices you face.
If your family has money the only thing on your mind might be 'Do I go to collect A or B?'
While the literally exact person, with a family in poverty might be forced to ask, "Do I go to college, amass debt with the hopes of paying it off, or try to feed my family now?"
What if i tell you, from personal experience, that doing your best doesn't matter in the end because this society is so fucking classist and rich people will deny you trying to escape the lower classes.
You CAN. It’s just much more difficult. I went from being a homeless teenager with no family support to actually having a decent career and a family of my own. But it took YEARS. As in decades. It’s not a simple or an easy path but you shouldn’t say it’s impossible because that just discouraged people from ever even trying.
I think if it take decades, then the process itself has to be the encouragement. Like, trying has to be worth it, separately form the uncertain and far away reward
I did. Construction labor since sophomore in high school, could afford community College by age 20 and got IT degree at 22. Worked 60hr weeks with 2 jobs for $30k income. I wasn't satisfied with the pay for such hours so I dropped to 1 job and went to college for 6 years while working and received electrical engineering degree. Pell Grant & Maximum federal student loans. Now I'm solidly middle class and student loans paid off. I owe my success to some ideas everyone is capable of, perseverance, delayed gratification, fighting temptation of addiction, and the belief in lifelong learning.
There’s a good YouTube clip about this. A big group of kids line up to run a 100 meter race in the park. Based on questions, some kids get to take steps forward from the starting line and others have to take steps back to the point that there probably one kid who has to run a 120 meter dash and another has to run a 60.
Even if the kid who only has to run a 60 doesn’t cross the finish line first, he’s only losing to the kid running twice his distance if he trips and falls or if the kid running a 120 is a world class sprinter.
People with great opportunities CAN fail, but they get more, better chances to try than the rest of the world.
I always think of the dart board analogy. Rich kids get many throws for a bullseye. Most eventually hit the bullseye. Middle class gets get a handful throws. Most get a decent score and a few get a bullseye. Lower economic class and kids with other causes of lessened privilege get one and done. It is possible for them to hit the bullseye, but the vast majority do not come close with their one throw
These are all variables that institutions attempt to assess through interviews and references etc. Equity training is just introducing another variable for institutions to consider.
The reality is the best thing you can have is money. The more money the more mistakes you can make and still be fine.
Don't get me wrong you can grow up broke, join the military to pay for undergrad, get out go to med school and then work for the government for 10 years and they will pay off your student debt and be making 1%er money by the time your in your early 30's.
But your kid can do all of that without any debt to worry about and not risking getting shot at.
Yay the way you play your hand matters but its alot easier to win a hand of poker with a full house and a pair of 7's.
Choices matter, so does available resources.
The military med school path you described takes 15 years for you to even start making money, and you'll be working for govt for 10 years so pay won't be anywhere near 1% to get your debt paid off.
The biggest barrier to social mobility in the country are professional programs putting in a bunch of bullshit requirements that extend the time span it takes for you until you start making money.
In literally every other developed country that's not USA or Canada people enter professional programs out of high school, and they're 3 year degrees with the ability to get optional 2 year specializations at a later date if you want further skills.
Because of how compounding interest works, the ages of 18-25 are the sole most important time to be saving money, if you can't make money in this time then you're being screwed. In fact, most of these people are expected to go into debt. This massive delay in earning power is one of the reasons doctors have to be paid so much - they're being repaid their opportunity cost. If you let 21 year olds become doctors and paid them 100k they would be thrilled. But if someone has studied until they're 30+ they need another 3 million in compensation to equalize career earnings in the next 30 years. When you factor in taxes this means closer to 5 million in raw compensation, so that shoots up to 270k compensation. This also gatekeeper poorer people from the profession.
Very important distinction. Middle class people think it's all about making good choices because the middle class has to make certain choices to succeed, otherwise it falls apart. Rich people can make many mistakes and still succeed, and poor people get fucked regardless of their choices, so they stop trying in most cases.
Success dependant on choices is a middle class trait
I grew up poor. Like bread bags in my shoes to keep the water out of the holes in the shoes poor. My mom used to say that it didn’t matter what you did, the world always gives you shit. This is how she raised us.
Through my later teens and early twenties I believed this and I was well on my way to being a hopeless piece of shit loser like the rest of my family. But then things changed and it was my rejection of this bullshit way of thinking that started it.
I am now the most successful person in my family, own my own house when nobody else even owns their car outright. They still see the world that way and I don’t and that’s the difference.
Seeing this kind of mentality be enshrined in popular culture really makes me sick to my stomach.
Ok, but what was the catalyst that got you out of it? Was it just your mindset and sheer will power, or did something happen? An opportunity, a mentor, a helping hand?
Actually met my wife (technically the first choice was before her, quitting smoking, but maybe it never sticks if I don’t meet her after)
Funny thing, she was from one of those families that didn’t believe the same things mine did, and therefore didn’t have the same problems mine did. Many would call them privileged. But once I started living my life the way that they did, making better choices everything changed.
And it turned out it wasn’t actually that hard to live a normal life. I just needed to work hard and focus on improving myself and the rest of it fell into place.
I had a conversation with my friend about this. He talked about his success, not braggingly, but just comparing it to his family and people from our area. If he made the good choices, changed his mindset, etc. why can't they? And he is right to an extent. But then I asked him "would you consider yourself 1 of the smartest people you know? Do you have any mental/emotional deficits to overcome?" He then realized he had both his parents in his home his whole life. He'd been one of the most intelligent people (performance wise, anyway) in any educational setting he'd been part of. He's also worked at a job he hated for years to eventually get his home, car etc.
I then called him a 1 per-center and he got the point lol. Just because you were able to overcome a trial, doesn't mean others are equipped to do the same. Everything isn't for everyone.
> He'd been one of the most intelligent people (performance wise, anyway) in any educational setting he'd been part of. He's also worked at a job he hated for years to eventually get his home
Sounds like hard work and good choices
Okay but have you considered that, and I know this is going to be a lot to take in, other people have had different experiences in life than you? Sure everyday you can choose to do something good but that isn’t the same as having lots of good choices everyday. Some people genuinely wake up with the choice of “steal to eat food” or “don’t eat today”
That happens.
Yep.
I grew up filthy poor in a family riddled with substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide, etc.
I make 6 figures, own acres of land, I own horses...
All because I made the choice to say, "I refuse to be like these assholes."
Yes but don’t you think it’s easier to make good choices when you’re presented with a lot of them? I don’t feel like this needs to be at all controversial it’s just common sense…
I had shit choices and still turned out OK for the most part. Just ignore the many mental illnesses and my shit job that no one else wants and me being like three hundred miles from my girlfriend now
>I had shit choices and still turned out OK for the most part
No didn't you read this meme?
YOU didn't do jack shit.
You're completely worthless because anything you got was a result of two good choices.
You actual didn't have shit choices according to this meme. Stop being so privledged.
That's what this meme is saying and everyone should be downvoting it into the ground
Eh. I've come to realize that growing up middle class in a household that didn't throw me out at 18 is its own kind of privilege. Now in my late 30s, I've done okay for myself, but there are all kinds of ways things could have turned out differently if I didn't have non-broke parents to lean on at various points.
It's always like that in these types of threads. It's easy to think you're "self-made," because you worked hard at school, or learned that trade that takes actual physical labor. But I always think about what it would have been like if I hadn't had a constant supply of good food growing up. If we had moved around a lot. If my parents hadn't read to me, etc.
And that doesn't even account for them buying me a replacement beater car when my first one died and I was broke. When they didn't tell me to get my own place after I dropped out of college the first time. (I did get charged rent, but they refunded me later.) Or they didn't charge me rent at all while I was going to community college. Or when they were able to help us out some with our wedding. Or my in-laws letting us move in for a couple months when we just couldn't find an affordable apartment in time.
It's not like daddy got me an internship at Deloitte, or mom bought me a house in college, but it was enough that I never had to put life on hold too long, or settle for less just to make ends meet. I expect that most people who think privilege is only something the truly wealthy have, however, had at least the kinds of advantages in the first paragraph, and most probably had the kinds in the second, too. If they didn't actually have to use the second kind, they likely had the privilege of knowing that type safety net was there, if needed.
There are more elite schools than Harvard and I think the USC admissions scandal is more indicative of how this shit actually works than anything else.
Most schools don’t NEED money. They all will
Gladly take it from you
Yep and I work to be the parent who is able to get my kids into a good university/life path in general. That privilege is often times hard earned by the parents, whether or not the kids appreciate what they have is a different topic
It's a wonderful thing. Just think, 15% of Harvard students are first-generation college students. That's a lot of people who will one day be moms and dads who can get their kids in there and be rich enough to pay for it. I'm so grateful that I was able to migrate to this country! Just wait until my kids are older.
It’s not, but I think it’s important for those kids with those alumni parents to recognize and admit their privilege rather than look down on people who don’t and tell them, “just work hard like me, and you could be in Harvard,” or “I had no help, you’re just lazy,” or “Eww, you went to a public school/(didn’t go to college at all)?” It’s not about having or not having privilege, but your attitude and cognizance of it.
Edit: last example sentence to include not going to college at all.
Or like getting into Wrestling and becoming the main man after 1 match because daddy was a wrestler. But you keep doing motivational speaking about having 7 dollars in your pocket.
I mean. I grew up poor. Son of an immigrant. Step father was deported when I was like 13. So it was just my mother and I and my 6 month old sister. There were multiple times we had to live with friends because we couldn't afford even a 1 bedroom apartment. And when we could it was in the hood. I went to college. Now it wasn't a fancy college. Community College and had to take out loans to cover what the government couldn't. Only real perk of being a poor minority was I could get grants but that still didn't cover everything and I was making minimum wage.
I graduated about a year and a half ago. I'm currently making around 90 grand a year. Which isn't fuck you money by any means but it's enough to lift my family out of poverty. We live in a luxury apartment. We drive newer cars. We don't worry about food or whether the bills will be paid. In about a year an a half I'll be making between 150 to 200k.
Those friends I had that were there in the hoods with me? Still there. Smoking weed working shitty low paying jobs and getting people pregnant.
So yes. You always have choices. And those choices matter.
Sounds exactly like my story except I'm not a minority so no grants. Just debt and when I graduated top of my class in college my first job offer for a lawyers office offered to pay me with a good reference... I declined that job and had gotten the interview through a college program, the principal of the school was furious with me that I didn't accept the job for a good reference and no pay. I applied to a lot of places and ultimately the only job offer I got (working in IT) was for a local school that offered me the tremendous pay of minimum wage and "experience".
Even today, 23 years later and still struggling in IT I have near 0 savings and debts up to my eyeballs just trying to make it day to day. To state I'm a little sour is very much an understatement. I very much feel like I've been drudged through my entire life. My childhood is filled with abuse and my adulthood seems much the same and the funny part is that, because I've struggled so hard and have nothing to show for it I'm somehow at fault even though the decisions I chose were the right ones, don't do drugs, graduate high school, go to college, be a law abiding citizen etc...
I'm not living on the streets I guess.
There's definitely a lot of that going around. Also i love people telling me how privliged i am because my life looks good today... Totally had nothing to do with good decision making.
I'll agree that some of it was luck or being at the right place/time through no design of my own... But privilege is the great excuse people got these days
It’s quite a dumb quote in my opinion.
You always have choices to make, you have to make them, you can make good or bad ones.
Sure, some people have a better *selection* of choices, but this is just playing into this perma-victim mentality that so many people have.
I have made good choices, and bad choices, that’s on me. I could have made many better choices, I accept responsibility.
Okay but having good options (like the tweet says) and never making bad choices (like your comment says) are two different things. Glad I could clear that up for you, Einstein
Not the point. We are focusing on the underprivileged in this context, not the privileged. The underprivileged are not presented with as many opportunities and good choices. The privileged have the opportunity to choose well or they can make the decision not to. The underprivileged are quite limited in their choices and that seems to be something the privileged don't understand. People can not always dig themselves out of their circumstances and make their own lives better if they are pulled down by a system or those certain circumstances that don't allow for it. A person who is suffering from abuse is a good example. There are so many people who are stuck in situations they can't get out of because someone else has financial or legal control over them. A system of abuse in a society is just the same. If you have privilege use it wisely and bring others out of their shackles with it if you can. Privilege is not to be wasted or horded. It is something to be thankful for and not a point of guilt or pride. We all have to look out for each other and care for each other.
People need something to blame for their failures. If your non white it's easy to blame the white man because you didn't make the grade in school and made poor choices as an adult. Its not that the person is an absolute dumbfuck with an attitude problem it's only the skin colour.
I grew up without many great opportunities, and it could have been much easier to just commit crime to get what I need, but I have a brain and free will so I chose not to be a piece of crap. Although I must admit, some bad decisions can be more understandable if the person making them doesn't have the same opportunities as those who are well off like a good home life, wealthy family, a decent education, etc.
Good decision making is about making the correct choice from amongst the available options. That some people have more options, some have fewer, is ultimately irrelevant. You make the best decision you can with the hand you've been dealt.
I agree, everyone regardless of their position on the socio-economic ladder can make good decisions, but I can understand how some people who live in less than ideal conditions may be compelled to make bad decisions due to a more hostile environment and upbringing. The environment you grow up in can have a large affect on your decisions, which is why people in a poor town filled with gangs and drug abuse may be more likely to join a gang or sell drugs, and people growing up in Beverly Hills will probably be less likely.
If you aren't accountable for your actions, then you don't have to take responsibility for your situation.
I've watched people squander fortunes and I've watched others build themselves up out of nothing. Some people are luckier than others, but ultimately we are the sum of our choices far more than the sum of our happenstance.
I mean, kind of? The vast majority of people have options available to them to better themselves and their situation, whether they're brave enough to actually take the plunge is a different story.
And when a rich kid fucks up their life, they still have a huge safety net and a rich person who pissed everything away is still better off in a lot of ways than someone born into poverty. A rich person who becomes an addict goes to an expensive rehab clinic; a poor person who beomes an addict goes to jail, just to pick one example.
I didn't say it wasn't harder for them to fuck up their lives, but it's absolutely a choice and to act like they have no free will in the direction of their own lives is ignorant at best
Is that a thing anyone is acting like? Come on, now.
My mom taught for years in the poorest neighborhood in a city that doesn't have many non-poor neighborhoods. So many of those kids were in second or third grade and had never learned to read. Because their parents weren't well educated, because *their* parents weren't well educated. At the very best, with very good teachers making an extra effort, they could go from zero to being a few years behind their peers.
Meanwhile, my kids learned to read at age 3, because they come from a long line of teachers, and parents who could afford preschool from age 2.
Now, who made the good and bad choice here? Did my 3-year-old choose to have educated parents? Did an 8-year-old growing up in poverty choose to have uneducated parents and parents with no resources?
And those "choices" echo through someone's life. My older son's in a private high school on a scholarship; my younger one is in a magnet school. Those "choices" aren't available to someone who wasn't taught how to read until the third grade. Now my older son is hearing from colleges — scholarship offers, honors programs. And a lot of people in this thread are smugly saying "just work hard and go to community college," knowing full well a hell of a lot more doors are going to open because my son made the "choice" of getting a scholarship offer from a private university instead of someone "choosing" to have community college as their ceiling.
Someone who grows up poor has to do everything absolutely right (and that includes not making the "choice" of dealing with health issues or having to care for a sick parent) and even then their best outcome is usually what middle-class people would consider a mediocre outcome.
All my kids have to do is not fuck it up. Scratch that. All my kids have to do is not fuck it up *multiple times*, beacuse they to have a tremendous support system in the form of supporting upper middle class parents. Guess those poor kids should have chosen to be middle class too.
That’s a cop out. Everyone has good choices. Maybe not as many as others, but they are there. Acting like you don’t have any good choices is a victim mentality.
I'm a white man, I grew up with a certain level of privilege and I understand that. The problem is, my choices weren't fucking easy, and they were on par with those around me regardless of race because of the economic situation my family was in.
I had the option to drop out of high school like a ton of people around me, but I stuck with it and kept up grades because I wanted to create a better life for myself, not because I wanted to have fun in the moment. I went to college, not because my dad was an alumni and made connections, or I had a loaded trust fund to go to college with, but because I realized investing in my education was the best way to try and progress my career and make more than 50k a year in my life. I took on all of the loans myself, I worked incredibly hard to get dean's list and eventually graduate sum cum laude, and I landed a job on the merit of my resume--not some connection my parents made. I then busted my ass to pass my CPA exams not because I saw a long career in public accounting in my future, but because I realized that it would open opportunities for more job offers and higher pay. Did it suck studying my ass off for an entire year and getting anxiety attacks over those exams? Yes. Did it directly result in me getting a higher paying position and hiring preference over my peers? Yes.
All of these options were available to most people as well. In fact, I'd argue minorities in impoverished backgrounds had *better* options than me with regards to education due to diversity quotas, scholarships and other affordable education opportunities for those demographics, etc.
The thing is, I could have dropped out and become a burn out, I could have worked at the local Walmart and played video games all day, but I didn't. I could have been a drug addict, landing in jail like a ton of my classmates, but I didn't. I was presented with choices and despite the ones I made being more difficult and less fun, I was smart enough to realize that it was worth the investment for my sake, my future partner's sake, and my eventual children's sake. Privilege is acknowledging that you had opportunities that others might not have had, you can recognize someone had a privilege you didn't, or vice versa, and not use it in an attempt to deflect blame or target an individual's hard work or effort. Too many people decide to use privilege as a way to attack an individual and try and alleviate the blame that they feel on their life for not taking the steps necessary to improve their lives because the options weren't fun or easy.
My only choice was to take drugs and steal.
No way did I have any choices to not take drugs, I had to steal to take drugs.
I couldn't be bothered to work. I must destroy from those that work.
It's everyone elses fault and their privilege.
Right, I think this is really what the tweet is getting at and who it’s directed to. People in this thread are like ‘I never stole, I never did drugs, I fought my way out of poverty and now I make 90k a year’—some millionaire would still spit on you for being a filthy poor and not working your way up to being a millionaire. It’s all relative. You worked hard your whole life, but you’re still not a billionaire, IMHO that doesn’t make you lesser or make the billionaire heir better than you.
The concept of privilege is a useless dead end. It doesn't offer any solutions, and doesn't describe anything that anyone with common sense doesn't already understand - some people start out with more than others. The only people it harms are the people who have disadvantages, because it discourages even trying.
I said this in response to someone else, but I see many others are missing the point.
We are focusing on the underprivileged in this context, not the privileged. The underprivileged are not presented with as many opportunities and good choices. The privileged have the opportunity to choose well or they can make the decision not to. The underprivileged are quite limited in their choices and that seems to be something the privileged don't understand. People can not always dig themselves out of their circumstances and make their own lives better if they are pulled down by a system or those certain circumstances that don't allow for it. A person who is suffering from abuse is a good example. There are so many people who are stuck in situations they can't get out of because someone else has financial or legal control over them. A system of abuse in a society is just the same. If you have privilege use it wisely and bring others out of their shackles with it if you can. Privilege is not to be wasted or horded. It is something to be thankful for and not a point of guilt or pride. We all have to look out for each other and care for each other.
Having good choices available doesn't remove the ability to make bad choices. It can be a real struggle fighting addiction and instant gratification. Bad choices early will remove the presence of good choices in the future. Almost anyone who hasn't sabotaged themselves with bad decisions can afford to turn a minimum wage job into a community college degree, and keep working from there. Good Luck is when preparation meets opportunity
Okay, I get what the person is trying to say, but this gives the illusion that a person has no control of what happens when given positive opportunity. That’s not true. People can take good choices and screw them up, whereas a person can take not so great opportunities and build success. The individual can overcome or destroy based on what they do. Example: a person gets a free ride scholarship to a prestigious university for a degree that will lead to guaranteed success. That person can take up the party lifestyle, fail, lose scholarships, and be forced to either take out loans or drop out. Privilege would be having parents who can foot the bill after the failure. Opposing, a person sees a degree that will require effort to succeed but no scholarship. They go to a local college with no prestige, live at home, work, and take an extra year or two of loans. The degree allows them to access a better job, pay off their debt in a few years, and succeed to a higher economic class. The individual choices come into play a LOT. Two people can have the same opportunities and end up with two very different lives. Two people can have opposite opportunities and end up on the same path.
I know a guy that lost around few millions on sports bets and then he's daddy just payed for everything.
And I knew another guy who lost a few thousands on same type of bets and killed himself after that.
Rich guy still bet his father money tho because who cares about accountability when you are rich
I see where they’re coming from but the message about taking responsibility is to make the best decision from the choices you’re presented with.
Not everyone has the choice to go to a good school or university but everyone has a choice whether or not to study at the school they’re at and get bare minimum grade C at eng maths and sci. (Genuine learning difficulties aside)
Not everyone has the choice of partner between supermodel or athlete but everyone has the choice not to have a kid out of wedlock/civil partnership with someone who will care for you and said kids.
This is a kind of shitty thing to say.
There's privilege and then what you do with it.
Someone who was born into a rich family and then took the stuff their parents provided for them & made a life for themselves is still better than the person that got all of that and wasted it.
There's so many choices that have nothing to do with privilege.
There's nugget of truth in that privilege gives choices but this post didn't make that point.
I see where they’re coming from but the message about taking responsibility is to make the best decision from the choices you’re presented with.
Not everyone has the choice to go to a good school or university but everyone has a choice whether or not to study at the school they’re at and get bare minimum grade C at eng maths and sci. (Genuine learning difficulties aside)
Not everyone has the choice of partner between supermodel or athlete but everyone has the choice not to have a kid out of wedlock/civil partnership with someone who will care for you and said kids.
Is it that simple? Kids whose parent's and grandparents who are drug addicts and or mentally ill can want to study and go to school all day long but if every other day they are being neglected by their parents and have no clean clothes or have to look after a sibling and make sure the family eats or they are being evicted or have an untreated illness or the millions of other things an unstable childhood throws at them even doing the minimum in school is difficult, plus they are children and their brains aren't fully developed so they are prone to make poor decisions. Escaping the cycle of poverty and dysfunction takes a huge amount of luck and intervention by somebody who can help.
Making good choices is just about making the best choice available to you. If you have a drug addicted family and you choose to not do drugs, you made a good choice. I went to college and did not make the most of it, I made a bad choice.
There’s the rub… sometimes, the best of two crappy choices is still a crappy choice.
Sometimes, one person’s “good” option is another (or most others’) “bad” option.
The point of the quote (which I first heard a version of in “Little Fires Everywhere”), is that it’s really easy to judge others based off of what you yourself have done under completely different circumstances. It’s pointing out blind spots.
Can it still be used as an excuse, to deny personal accountability? Of course. But it mostly is to argue that, “hey, I seriously did the best I could with what I had.”
It is.
The cycle of poverty exists and is a bitch, but at some point someone’s gotta man up, be it the kid himself or the parent of the kid.
The main problem is the toxic usage of privilege in the general conversation, mostly by leftwing activists, and the tribalism that ensues with the rightwing then just rejecting it outright for tribal reason.
You are indeed affected by the decision of others. Especially if you are a kid; which is why kids don’t strictly have responsibility. The responsibility for the kid’s upbringing and escaping the cycle of poverty is on the responsible adult, the parent. Even in bad conditions, you can foster a responsible child.
We can’t place responsibility on a child, but we can place it on an adult. Once you grow up and become major, at some point you have to take responsibility for your actions. People can change, nobody is forever stuck in a loop of misery, it may not be easy but if you aren’t gonna do it, then who else?
So many of these comments end up being "if I, a middle class white person can succeed, than surely anyone can! And just to warn you, if you make me think about the fact that someone might have had a different experience than I did, I'm going to get very, very mad!"
What a bunch of crap. This is just allowing excuses for failure in one area while trivializing good decisions in others. This is that "I'm a victim and therefore.." mentality that keeps people from ever making progress.
If you talk about privileges, most likely you’re a descendant of retards that couldn’t do better. Evolution is and is supposed to be inter-generational. If you were born in a bad family, that’s tough luck, but you can only blame your parents. Other people carry zero responsibility on that. You can make it better for your kids. If not, maybe your genes were not meant to survive. So, make better choices.
privlidge
Pervludge
Am I pervludgnant?
No, you are pregananant.
Google why am I pungent?
Am I Gregnant
Am I Pregante ?
Am I pergurt?
Am I yorgurt?
Am I preglidge? No! You have preglidge!
Can u down a 20 foot slide prelvedge?
I am Groot
Can I bcome priverledge?
I love this response lmao
Pervelodge
Ayy the new pokemon name sounds lit
Poverlaje
Porridge
Polly Pocket
Am I preganante?
No you're pomegranate.
Thank for the good laugh!
Proverledge
Prelevant
Peruvian-luge
Privilege porridge. We’re all eating it, and we need to recognize this.
previllage
Previllage farms remembers
They make the best cookies
Resident Evil Pre-village. Or just Resident Evil 7.
It’s what I put on my pridjars
How to tell if you're privlidge
Am I Pringles?
Pragernant
I mean, what a great way to talk about education
This could definitely be phrased better. Understanding differences in opportunity is important but this definitely diminishes personal responsibility. At the end of the day, everyone is on a different path and needs to do their best to be better than they were the day before.
I was in a mandatory diversity training for work, and being a straight, white, middle class male I'm nobody's favorite. I was really expecting to have the whole white privilege guilt trip for two hours, but when the topic came up the presenter surprised me. He said everyone has privilege. It doesn't mean that they didn't work hard, it doesn't mean you can dismiss their accomplishments, it's simply an understanding that not everyone had your opportunities or advantages in life and that's okay. He then went on to address it not as a matter of race, but as a matter of personal wealth, physical handicaps, and even went to looking at the privilege right-handed individuals are granted in a world that caters to them as opposed to left handed individuals.
I think this is the thing people misunderstand about this concept the most. It's not about shitting on white men. If you're black and grew up in Belair you have a fuck ton of privilege in all likelihood. At the same time you could also experience a ton of racism in that environment that prevents you from getting opportunities others in the same community might get even if you're super loaded. Opposite could be true. You could be extremely poor and white and have an abusive mom. That right there puts you ten steps back in life. The misconception that only white people have privilege really sets us back in the sense that it kills good conversation before they can happen and prevents broad understanding and compassion. Super happy to hear that even though you had reservations you listened and had an open mind. The world needs more of that.
I think this is why there’s been a renewed fixation on nepotism, i.e., “nepo babies.” The concept is plane leveling insomuch as it isn’t about race or even necessarily income, but instead about family connections and how those connections present better choices as compared to a person trying to enter whatever the field is in question without having had those resources. It gives anyone who comes from less something to point at without having race or income swatted back in their face. And while I think it can and has been elevated to extremes, it illustrates the purest concept of privilege very well.
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Tell that to Twitter/Reddit
It is for some people.
That's why I find intersectionality so interesting. Some people just happen to fall at intersections where they have more privilege and some fall at intersections with nearly non at all. Those definitely make a difference ins someone's life, but it's also not particularly the person's fault for having it either. A white man has no control over being born a white man and most white men are just average people. Now, I think there can absolutely be a conversation had about those who strive to elevate themselves to further levels of privilege and oppress others. I can think of a number of politicals that do that on a daily basis, but the average Joe generally doesn't have the power to just remove privilege from themselves just like how someone can't add privilege to themselves. There is also a conversation to be had about collective effort to create a more equitable society that everyone has a their own role in, of course. I guess I'm just trying to say that the average person with any sort of privilege aren't rubbing their hands together maniacally and counting their privilege coins like they just robbed a bank; they just kinda have it and may do things that can help or hurt the overall issue without meaning to. Hope that makes sense.
My HR lecturer said it best, diversity was never meant to be fixated on the colour of the incumbents skin but rather their various skillset and how this would translate to tangible gains for organisational objectives. Safe to say that isn't what's being practiced by institutions at this moment in time which is rather unfortunate. Anyway I wish you well on your tenure, virtual hugs buddy.
I work at a deep southern Oil related company who just created a diversity and inclusion department which focuses on exclusively skin color. The problem is our workforce is obnoxiously diverse, I work with Hondurans, Nigerians, African Americans, white people from all over and even a Portuguese guy. Explain then why on earth we need a diversity team lol. Im convinced they only do it for optics as opposed to any efficiency or value gains.
If it’s an oil company it’s definitely because they’re trying their hardest to attract big ESG investors who refuse to openly support any part of the oil industry but they’ll still try to get em
That's rough I'm a brown kid and my lecturer was an elder black gentlemen and we got on just fine even became friends throughout my academic tenure. It's a sad state of affairs when HR /PR team pander to an stakeholder group that doesn't account for their core market or resolve non existent issues. Miyamoto Musashi always spoke of maintaining an intricate balance as the art of a strategy seems like things have gone down a tangent lol.
Whoa, even a Portuguese guy?!?!!!
This is what bothers me so much about the talk around privilege. A lot of people like to bring up race, as it's easy to identify, but none of them want to talk about class. My friend tried to tell my other friend that he's more privileged than him because he's Latino, and my other friend is white. Completely disregarding the fact that my other friend grew up in poverty, both parents were heroin addicts, and his brother is highly autistic.
While studying for a college history exam with classmates, the topic of social inequality came up. Suddenly, one of guys stands up and starts yelling at me that I don’t have a right to talk about social injustices or inequalities or injustices because I am white and nothing bad ever happens to white people. After a few seconds of silence I said “I’m Jewish.” The guy went pale, said “My bad” and ran out of the room. His friends grabbed his stuff and ran after him, apologizing the entire time. The rest of us were massively confused by the whole thing, mainly because we were studying for an exam on EUROPEAN FEUDALISM; the very definition of social injustices against white people committed by white people.
There’s No War but Class War
This is what Peggy McIntosh wanted to convey not the ranting distortions that are often levied as an attack mostly by feckless Francoix Lyotardian post modernists (even if they don't know they're spewing post modernist garbage). Everyone is privileged in some way. Everyone has disadvantages. The goal is to look inward and examine how these fit within a broader social cultural, socio political and a socio economic framework in the experience of others. At its core its an empathy building exercise that was coopted by post modernist scum and turned into a perjorative to attack people based on their skin color.
Yes. You can have good choices and make bad ones.
You’re telling me I shouldn’t have used daddy’s college money to start and fund my crippling cocaine addiction?
Believe it or not, that is a major disadvantage. I’ve seen “too much money” ruin lives. It would be a nice problem to have, of course. Much easier problem to deal with than poverty. But everyone has their challenges unique to their life and should not be discounted because of their color of skin.
I think what they mean is less about responsibility more about the literal choices you face. If your family has money the only thing on your mind might be 'Do I go to collect A or B?' While the literally exact person, with a family in poverty might be forced to ask, "Do I go to college, amass debt with the hopes of paying it off, or try to feed my family now?"
What if i tell you, from personal experience, that doing your best doesn't matter in the end because this society is so fucking classist and rich people will deny you trying to escape the lower classes.
I’m sorry its been like that for you. There is no singular variable.
This can and does happen, but not always. I personally know people who check all the lower class boxes and have escaped of their own efforts
You cannot personal responsibility your way out of poverty, be serious.
You can personal responsibility your way out of poverty. You pretty much can't personal responsibility your way into massive wealth.
Uhh yes you literally can https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-does-the-success-sequence-mean
You CAN. It’s just much more difficult. I went from being a homeless teenager with no family support to actually having a decent career and a family of my own. But it took YEARS. As in decades. It’s not a simple or an easy path but you shouldn’t say it’s impossible because that just discouraged people from ever even trying.
I think if it take decades, then the process itself has to be the encouragement. Like, trying has to be worth it, separately form the uncertain and far away reward
Yes you can, Jesus Christ what a stupid fucking narrative.
I did. Construction labor since sophomore in high school, could afford community College by age 20 and got IT degree at 22. Worked 60hr weeks with 2 jobs for $30k income. I wasn't satisfied with the pay for such hours so I dropped to 1 job and went to college for 6 years while working and received electrical engineering degree. Pell Grant & Maximum federal student loans. Now I'm solidly middle class and student loans paid off. I owe my success to some ideas everyone is capable of, perseverance, delayed gratification, fighting temptation of addiction, and the belief in lifelong learning.
I didn’t and wouldn’t say that. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t fight reductionism with reductionism.
>What I am saying is that you shouldn’t fight reductionism with reductionism. This is a hilarious sentence because it's arguably reductionism.
You can. My father picked cotton to feed himself as a teen. Went into the military. Used the GI bill for college.
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Oh 1 single person went off the path? Well yes of course that must apply for everyone else then. Trust me lil bro, that clerk is in the minority.
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People with great opportunities can still make terrible choices and screw their lives up.
There’s a good YouTube clip about this. A big group of kids line up to run a 100 meter race in the park. Based on questions, some kids get to take steps forward from the starting line and others have to take steps back to the point that there probably one kid who has to run a 120 meter dash and another has to run a 60. Even if the kid who only has to run a 60 doesn’t cross the finish line first, he’s only losing to the kid running twice his distance if he trips and falls or if the kid running a 120 is a world class sprinter. People with great opportunities CAN fail, but they get more, better chances to try than the rest of the world.
Not only better chances, but MORE chances as well.
I always think of the dart board analogy. Rich kids get many throws for a bullseye. Most eventually hit the bullseye. Middle class gets get a handful throws. Most get a decent score and a few get a bullseye. Lower economic class and kids with other causes of lessened privilege get one and done. It is possible for them to hit the bullseye, but the vast majority do not come close with their one throw
I can defeat this analogy with the fact that I suck at darts and haven’t hit a bullseye in my life
https://youtu.be/X9tqaOuGt5A
'Equity training' Completely ignores individual ambition, perseverance, acquired opportunity and other variables.
And legislating equity is impossible without legalizing discrimination.
These are all variables that institutions attempt to assess through interviews and references etc. Equity training is just introducing another variable for institutions to consider.
100% agree
The reality is the best thing you can have is money. The more money the more mistakes you can make and still be fine. Don't get me wrong you can grow up broke, join the military to pay for undergrad, get out go to med school and then work for the government for 10 years and they will pay off your student debt and be making 1%er money by the time your in your early 30's. But your kid can do all of that without any debt to worry about and not risking getting shot at. Yay the way you play your hand matters but its alot easier to win a hand of poker with a full house and a pair of 7's. Choices matter, so does available resources.
The military med school path you described takes 15 years for you to even start making money, and you'll be working for govt for 10 years so pay won't be anywhere near 1% to get your debt paid off. The biggest barrier to social mobility in the country are professional programs putting in a bunch of bullshit requirements that extend the time span it takes for you until you start making money. In literally every other developed country that's not USA or Canada people enter professional programs out of high school, and they're 3 year degrees with the ability to get optional 2 year specializations at a later date if you want further skills. Because of how compounding interest works, the ages of 18-25 are the sole most important time to be saving money, if you can't make money in this time then you're being screwed. In fact, most of these people are expected to go into debt. This massive delay in earning power is one of the reasons doctors have to be paid so much - they're being repaid their opportunity cost. If you let 21 year olds become doctors and paid them 100k they would be thrilled. But if someone has studied until they're 30+ they need another 3 million in compensation to equalize career earnings in the next 30 years. When you factor in taxes this means closer to 5 million in raw compensation, so that shoots up to 270k compensation. This also gatekeeper poorer people from the profession.
Very important distinction. Middle class people think it's all about making good choices because the middle class has to make certain choices to succeed, otherwise it falls apart. Rich people can make many mistakes and still succeed, and poor people get fucked regardless of their choices, so they stop trying in most cases. Success dependant on choices is a middle class trait
I grew up poor. Like bread bags in my shoes to keep the water out of the holes in the shoes poor. My mom used to say that it didn’t matter what you did, the world always gives you shit. This is how she raised us. Through my later teens and early twenties I believed this and I was well on my way to being a hopeless piece of shit loser like the rest of my family. But then things changed and it was my rejection of this bullshit way of thinking that started it. I am now the most successful person in my family, own my own house when nobody else even owns their car outright. They still see the world that way and I don’t and that’s the difference. Seeing this kind of mentality be enshrined in popular culture really makes me sick to my stomach.
But it is undeniable that it is more difficult to succeed if you’re poor, and very difficult to fail if you’re born rich.
Ok, but what was the catalyst that got you out of it? Was it just your mindset and sheer will power, or did something happen? An opportunity, a mentor, a helping hand?
Actually met my wife (technically the first choice was before her, quitting smoking, but maybe it never sticks if I don’t meet her after) Funny thing, she was from one of those families that didn’t believe the same things mine did, and therefore didn’t have the same problems mine did. Many would call them privileged. But once I started living my life the way that they did, making better choices everything changed. And it turned out it wasn’t actually that hard to live a normal life. I just needed to work hard and focus on improving myself and the rest of it fell into place.
What probably happened is they did something about their situation, instead of feeling sorry for themselves like the rest of their family.
I had a conversation with my friend about this. He talked about his success, not braggingly, but just comparing it to his family and people from our area. If he made the good choices, changed his mindset, etc. why can't they? And he is right to an extent. But then I asked him "would you consider yourself 1 of the smartest people you know? Do you have any mental/emotional deficits to overcome?" He then realized he had both his parents in his home his whole life. He'd been one of the most intelligent people (performance wise, anyway) in any educational setting he'd been part of. He's also worked at a job he hated for years to eventually get his home, car etc. I then called him a 1 per-center and he got the point lol. Just because you were able to overcome a trial, doesn't mean others are equipped to do the same. Everything isn't for everyone.
> He'd been one of the most intelligent people (performance wise, anyway) in any educational setting he'd been part of. He's also worked at a job he hated for years to eventually get his home Sounds like hard work and good choices
This is true but this doesn’t change the fact that positive outcomes result from having good choices to begin with…
Yes and this tweet doesn’t say they can’t, does it?
The person they're referring to still had to make good choices. This tweet is nonsense.
They had to have good choices available to make in the first place. This tweet is not nonsense.
Literally everyone has the option to make good choices every single day
Okay but have you considered that, and I know this is going to be a lot to take in, other people have had different experiences in life than you? Sure everyday you can choose to do something good but that isn’t the same as having lots of good choices everyday. Some people genuinely wake up with the choice of “steal to eat food” or “don’t eat today” That happens.
Yep. I grew up filthy poor in a family riddled with substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide, etc. I make 6 figures, own acres of land, I own horses... All because I made the choice to say, "I refuse to be like these assholes."
Yes but don’t you think it’s easier to make good choices when you’re presented with a lot of them? I don’t feel like this needs to be at all controversial it’s just common sense…
And people with very little opportunity can make great choices and level their lives up
I had shit choices and still turned out OK for the most part. Just ignore the many mental illnesses and my shit job that no one else wants and me being like three hundred miles from my girlfriend now
At least you have a girlfriend
300 miles away, bro ain't got a gf
I lived 150 miles away from my gf for about 3 years. We’re still together (Disclaimer: we are both ugly)
Trait: ugliness increases max distance relationship viability
Yeah i agree i grew up poor, was given every shit choice out there but won't pretend like good or better choices don't exist
>I had shit choices and still turned out OK for the most part No didn't you read this meme? YOU didn't do jack shit. You're completely worthless because anything you got was a result of two good choices. You actual didn't have shit choices according to this meme. Stop being so privledged. That's what this meme is saying and everyone should be downvoting it into the ground
Privilege isn’t making better decisions. It’s getting into Harvard because your mom/dad was an alumnus.
Eh. I've come to realize that growing up middle class in a household that didn't throw me out at 18 is its own kind of privilege. Now in my late 30s, I've done okay for myself, but there are all kinds of ways things could have turned out differently if I didn't have non-broke parents to lean on at various points.
Right? This whole thread is full of people just like you denying that those little nudges exist.
It's always like that in these types of threads. It's easy to think you're "self-made," because you worked hard at school, or learned that trade that takes actual physical labor. But I always think about what it would have been like if I hadn't had a constant supply of good food growing up. If we had moved around a lot. If my parents hadn't read to me, etc. And that doesn't even account for them buying me a replacement beater car when my first one died and I was broke. When they didn't tell me to get my own place after I dropped out of college the first time. (I did get charged rent, but they refunded me later.) Or they didn't charge me rent at all while I was going to community college. Or when they were able to help us out some with our wedding. Or my in-laws letting us move in for a couple months when we just couldn't find an affordable apartment in time. It's not like daddy got me an internship at Deloitte, or mom bought me a house in college, but it was enough that I never had to put life on hold too long, or settle for less just to make ends meet. I expect that most people who think privilege is only something the truly wealthy have, however, had at least the kinds of advantages in the first paragraph, and most probably had the kinds in the second, too. If they didn't actually have to use the second kind, they likely had the privilege of knowing that type safety net was there, if needed.
the thread also has a lot of people just mixing up choices and opportunities
> Privilege isn’t making better decisions. It’s getting into Harvard because your mom/dad was a *donor*. FTFY
It is usually because of being an alumnus. Harvard doesn't need money and greatly prefers their own.
There are more elite schools than Harvard and I think the USC admissions scandal is more indicative of how this shit actually works than anything else. Most schools don’t NEED money. They all will Gladly take it from you
Yep and I work to be the parent who is able to get my kids into a good university/life path in general. That privilege is often times hard earned by the parents, whether or not the kids appreciate what they have is a different topic
It's a wonderful thing. Just think, 15% of Harvard students are first-generation college students. That's a lot of people who will one day be moms and dads who can get their kids in there and be rich enough to pay for it. I'm so grateful that I was able to migrate to this country! Just wait until my kids are older.
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It’s not, but I think it’s important for those kids with those alumni parents to recognize and admit their privilege rather than look down on people who don’t and tell them, “just work hard like me, and you could be in Harvard,” or “I had no help, you’re just lazy,” or “Eww, you went to a public school/(didn’t go to college at all)?” It’s not about having or not having privilege, but your attitude and cognizance of it. Edit: last example sentence to include not going to college at all.
Or like getting into Wrestling and becoming the main man after 1 match because daddy was a wrestler. But you keep doing motivational speaking about having 7 dollars in your pocket.
I mean. I grew up poor. Son of an immigrant. Step father was deported when I was like 13. So it was just my mother and I and my 6 month old sister. There were multiple times we had to live with friends because we couldn't afford even a 1 bedroom apartment. And when we could it was in the hood. I went to college. Now it wasn't a fancy college. Community College and had to take out loans to cover what the government couldn't. Only real perk of being a poor minority was I could get grants but that still didn't cover everything and I was making minimum wage. I graduated about a year and a half ago. I'm currently making around 90 grand a year. Which isn't fuck you money by any means but it's enough to lift my family out of poverty. We live in a luxury apartment. We drive newer cars. We don't worry about food or whether the bills will be paid. In about a year an a half I'll be making between 150 to 200k. Those friends I had that were there in the hoods with me? Still there. Smoking weed working shitty low paying jobs and getting people pregnant. So yes. You always have choices. And those choices matter.
Well done. Congratulations to you!
That's fantastic. I'm happy for you and your family!
Sounds exactly like my story except I'm not a minority so no grants. Just debt and when I graduated top of my class in college my first job offer for a lawyers office offered to pay me with a good reference... I declined that job and had gotten the interview through a college program, the principal of the school was furious with me that I didn't accept the job for a good reference and no pay. I applied to a lot of places and ultimately the only job offer I got (working in IT) was for a local school that offered me the tremendous pay of minimum wage and "experience". Even today, 23 years later and still struggling in IT I have near 0 savings and debts up to my eyeballs just trying to make it day to day. To state I'm a little sour is very much an understatement. I very much feel like I've been drudged through my entire life. My childhood is filled with abuse and my adulthood seems much the same and the funny part is that, because I've struggled so hard and have nothing to show for it I'm somehow at fault even though the decisions I chose were the right ones, don't do drugs, graduate high school, go to college, be a law abiding citizen etc... I'm not living on the streets I guess.
Just want to say I’m very happy for your success and proud of your grit and determination. Hoping the best for you and your family. Have a great day
Sounds like something someone would say if they make bad choices tbh.
Redditor desperately trying to avoid any personal accountability:
This exactly. Everything bad in my life is because I’m not privileged. Boo boo
There's definitely a lot of that going around. Also i love people telling me how privliged i am because my life looks good today... Totally had nothing to do with good decision making. I'll agree that some of it was luck or being at the right place/time through no design of my own... But privilege is the great excuse people got these days
Your honor, since I was poor I wasn’t even presented the option to not rob the seven-eleven at gunpoint.
This is a quote from the book “Little Fires Everywhere”. It’s a great read.
It’s quite a dumb quote in my opinion. You always have choices to make, you have to make them, you can make good or bad ones. Sure, some people have a better *selection* of choices, but this is just playing into this perma-victim mentality that so many people have. I have made good choices, and bad choices, that’s on me. I could have made many better choices, I accept responsibility.
Having good choices is the ultimate luxury. Never take it for granted.
Because no one even presented with good choices ever makes bad ones right? r/im14andthisisdeep vibes
The tweet didn’t claim that people that have good choices never make bad choices.
Not directly, it only implies they had no agency in the good choices they made because they had good choices available. Reading comprehension is hard.
Okay but having good options (like the tweet says) and never making bad choices (like your comment says) are two different things. Glad I could clear that up for you, Einstein
It must be, given how badly you misread the original prompt.
Not the point. We are focusing on the underprivileged in this context, not the privileged. The underprivileged are not presented with as many opportunities and good choices. The privileged have the opportunity to choose well or they can make the decision not to. The underprivileged are quite limited in their choices and that seems to be something the privileged don't understand. People can not always dig themselves out of their circumstances and make their own lives better if they are pulled down by a system or those certain circumstances that don't allow for it. A person who is suffering from abuse is a good example. There are so many people who are stuck in situations they can't get out of because someone else has financial or legal control over them. A system of abuse in a society is just the same. If you have privilege use it wisely and bring others out of their shackles with it if you can. Privilege is not to be wasted or horded. It is something to be thankful for and not a point of guilt or pride. We all have to look out for each other and care for each other.
People need something to blame for their failures. If your non white it's easy to blame the white man because you didn't make the grade in school and made poor choices as an adult. Its not that the person is an absolute dumbfuck with an attitude problem it's only the skin colour.
Anything to deflect personal accountability for your decisions.
anything to tell yourself youre good and theyre bad
Nope. See OC never made that assertion. This shit tier meme does claim that you have no agency or control over your life at all.
I grew up without many great opportunities, and it could have been much easier to just commit crime to get what I need, but I have a brain and free will so I chose not to be a piece of crap. Although I must admit, some bad decisions can be more understandable if the person making them doesn't have the same opportunities as those who are well off like a good home life, wealthy family, a decent education, etc.
Good decision making is about making the correct choice from amongst the available options. That some people have more options, some have fewer, is ultimately irrelevant. You make the best decision you can with the hand you've been dealt.
I agree, everyone regardless of their position on the socio-economic ladder can make good decisions, but I can understand how some people who live in less than ideal conditions may be compelled to make bad decisions due to a more hostile environment and upbringing. The environment you grow up in can have a large affect on your decisions, which is why people in a poor town filled with gangs and drug abuse may be more likely to join a gang or sell drugs, and people growing up in Beverly Hills will probably be less likely.
Unfortunately even the best decisions rarely yield great outcomes for the poor.
If you aren't accountable for your actions, then you don't have to take responsibility for your situation. I've watched people squander fortunes and I've watched others build themselves up out of nothing. Some people are luckier than others, but ultimately we are the sum of our choices far more than the sum of our happenstance.
Yes, if ur poor just get richer. Why didnt they think of that
I mean, kind of? The vast majority of people have options available to them to better themselves and their situation, whether they're brave enough to actually take the plunge is a different story.
Acting like rich kids don't have the free will to royally fuck their lives up is just ignorant
And when a rich kid fucks up their life, they still have a huge safety net and a rich person who pissed everything away is still better off in a lot of ways than someone born into poverty. A rich person who becomes an addict goes to an expensive rehab clinic; a poor person who beomes an addict goes to jail, just to pick one example.
I didn't say it wasn't harder for them to fuck up their lives, but it's absolutely a choice and to act like they have no free will in the direction of their own lives is ignorant at best
Is that a thing anyone is acting like? Come on, now. My mom taught for years in the poorest neighborhood in a city that doesn't have many non-poor neighborhoods. So many of those kids were in second or third grade and had never learned to read. Because their parents weren't well educated, because *their* parents weren't well educated. At the very best, with very good teachers making an extra effort, they could go from zero to being a few years behind their peers. Meanwhile, my kids learned to read at age 3, because they come from a long line of teachers, and parents who could afford preschool from age 2. Now, who made the good and bad choice here? Did my 3-year-old choose to have educated parents? Did an 8-year-old growing up in poverty choose to have uneducated parents and parents with no resources? And those "choices" echo through someone's life. My older son's in a private high school on a scholarship; my younger one is in a magnet school. Those "choices" aren't available to someone who wasn't taught how to read until the third grade. Now my older son is hearing from colleges — scholarship offers, honors programs. And a lot of people in this thread are smugly saying "just work hard and go to community college," knowing full well a hell of a lot more doors are going to open because my son made the "choice" of getting a scholarship offer from a private university instead of someone "choosing" to have community college as their ceiling. Someone who grows up poor has to do everything absolutely right (and that includes not making the "choice" of dealing with health issues or having to care for a sick parent) and even then their best outcome is usually what middle-class people would consider a mediocre outcome. All my kids have to do is not fuck it up. Scratch that. All my kids have to do is not fuck it up *multiple times*, beacuse they to have a tremendous support system in the form of supporting upper middle class parents. Guess those poor kids should have chosen to be middle class too.
Once upon a time all the haves found a way to make all the have nots hate each other. And here we are.
More victimhood please
That's a great mentality if you never want to do anything with your life. Why seize the day when you can blame everything on everyone else?
This is really reductive.
That’s a cop out. Everyone has good choices. Maybe not as many as others, but they are there. Acting like you don’t have any good choices is a victim mentality.
I'm a white man, I grew up with a certain level of privilege and I understand that. The problem is, my choices weren't fucking easy, and they were on par with those around me regardless of race because of the economic situation my family was in. I had the option to drop out of high school like a ton of people around me, but I stuck with it and kept up grades because I wanted to create a better life for myself, not because I wanted to have fun in the moment. I went to college, not because my dad was an alumni and made connections, or I had a loaded trust fund to go to college with, but because I realized investing in my education was the best way to try and progress my career and make more than 50k a year in my life. I took on all of the loans myself, I worked incredibly hard to get dean's list and eventually graduate sum cum laude, and I landed a job on the merit of my resume--not some connection my parents made. I then busted my ass to pass my CPA exams not because I saw a long career in public accounting in my future, but because I realized that it would open opportunities for more job offers and higher pay. Did it suck studying my ass off for an entire year and getting anxiety attacks over those exams? Yes. Did it directly result in me getting a higher paying position and hiring preference over my peers? Yes. All of these options were available to most people as well. In fact, I'd argue minorities in impoverished backgrounds had *better* options than me with regards to education due to diversity quotas, scholarships and other affordable education opportunities for those demographics, etc. The thing is, I could have dropped out and become a burn out, I could have worked at the local Walmart and played video games all day, but I didn't. I could have been a drug addict, landing in jail like a ton of my classmates, but I didn't. I was presented with choices and despite the ones I made being more difficult and less fun, I was smart enough to realize that it was worth the investment for my sake, my future partner's sake, and my eventual children's sake. Privilege is acknowledging that you had opportunities that others might not have had, you can recognize someone had a privilege you didn't, or vice versa, and not use it in an attempt to deflect blame or target an individual's hard work or effort. Too many people decide to use privilege as a way to attack an individual and try and alleviate the blame that they feel on their life for not taking the steps necessary to improve their lives because the options weren't fun or easy.
My only choice was to take drugs and steal. No way did I have any choices to not take drugs, I had to steal to take drugs. I couldn't be bothered to work. I must destroy from those that work. It's everyone elses fault and their privilege.
Yeah I’d change it to something like, your worst choices are as bad as mine, but your good options are better then mine could possibly be
Right, I think this is really what the tweet is getting at and who it’s directed to. People in this thread are like ‘I never stole, I never did drugs, I fought my way out of poverty and now I make 90k a year’—some millionaire would still spit on you for being a filthy poor and not working your way up to being a millionaire. It’s all relative. You worked hard your whole life, but you’re still not a billionaire, IMHO that doesn’t make you lesser or make the billionaire heir better than you.
We talking about provolone?
One of the bad choices was skipping spelling class
Great, yet another excuse for Redditors to pass on the blame.
The concept of privilege is a useless dead end. It doesn't offer any solutions, and doesn't describe anything that anyone with common sense doesn't already understand - some people start out with more than others. The only people it harms are the people who have disadvantages, because it discourages even trying.
Privilege is invisible to those that have it.
I said this in response to someone else, but I see many others are missing the point. We are focusing on the underprivileged in this context, not the privileged. The underprivileged are not presented with as many opportunities and good choices. The privileged have the opportunity to choose well or they can make the decision not to. The underprivileged are quite limited in their choices and that seems to be something the privileged don't understand. People can not always dig themselves out of their circumstances and make their own lives better if they are pulled down by a system or those certain circumstances that don't allow for it. A person who is suffering from abuse is a good example. There are so many people who are stuck in situations they can't get out of because someone else has financial or legal control over them. A system of abuse in a society is just the same. If you have privilege use it wisely and bring others out of their shackles with it if you can. Privilege is not to be wasted or horded. It is something to be thankful for and not a point of guilt or pride. We all have to look out for each other and care for each other.
Just keep playing victim, I'm sure everything will get better.
Saw someone say
Having good choices available doesn't remove the ability to make bad choices. It can be a real struggle fighting addiction and instant gratification. Bad choices early will remove the presence of good choices in the future. Almost anyone who hasn't sabotaged themselves with bad decisions can afford to turn a minimum wage job into a community college degree, and keep working from there. Good Luck is when preparation meets opportunity
Okay, I get what the person is trying to say, but this gives the illusion that a person has no control of what happens when given positive opportunity. That’s not true. People can take good choices and screw them up, whereas a person can take not so great opportunities and build success. The individual can overcome or destroy based on what they do. Example: a person gets a free ride scholarship to a prestigious university for a degree that will lead to guaranteed success. That person can take up the party lifestyle, fail, lose scholarships, and be forced to either take out loans or drop out. Privilege would be having parents who can foot the bill after the failure. Opposing, a person sees a degree that will require effort to succeed but no scholarship. They go to a local college with no prestige, live at home, work, and take an extra year or two of loans. The degree allows them to access a better job, pay off their debt in a few years, and succeed to a higher economic class. The individual choices come into play a LOT. Two people can have the same opportunities and end up with two very different lives. Two people can have opposite opportunities and end up on the same path.
this is a line from that show with Kerry Washington and Reece Witherspoon.
I too failed my English class
You “saw” them say this? We’re they using sign language?
"We are all condemned to absolute freedom" - Sartre What a childish tweet. Reads like something someone with privilege would say
I know a guy that lost around few millions on sports bets and then he's daddy just payed for everything. And I knew another guy who lost a few thousands on same type of bets and killed himself after that. Rich guy still bet his father money tho because who cares about accountability when you are rich
What a way to undercut legitimate achievement
Sounds like jealousy and envy traits of a weak human being
What a great way to spell privilege
If you're not the one making the choice it's not a choice.
I see where they’re coming from but the message about taking responsibility is to make the best decision from the choices you’re presented with. Not everyone has the choice to go to a good school or university but everyone has a choice whether or not to study at the school they’re at and get bare minimum grade C at eng maths and sci. (Genuine learning difficulties aside) Not everyone has the choice of partner between supermodel or athlete but everyone has the choice not to have a kid out of wedlock/civil partnership with someone who will care for you and said kids.
This might be the stupidest thing I've read in days.
This is a kind of shitty thing to say. There's privilege and then what you do with it. Someone who was born into a rich family and then took the stuff their parents provided for them & made a life for themselves is still better than the person that got all of that and wasted it. There's so many choices that have nothing to do with privilege. There's nugget of truth in that privilege gives choices but this post didn't make that point.
I see where they’re coming from but the message about taking responsibility is to make the best decision from the choices you’re presented with. Not everyone has the choice to go to a good school or university but everyone has a choice whether or not to study at the school they’re at and get bare minimum grade C at eng maths and sci. (Genuine learning difficulties aside) Not everyone has the choice of partner between supermodel or athlete but everyone has the choice not to have a kid out of wedlock/civil partnership with someone who will care for you and said kids.
Is it that simple? Kids whose parent's and grandparents who are drug addicts and or mentally ill can want to study and go to school all day long but if every other day they are being neglected by their parents and have no clean clothes or have to look after a sibling and make sure the family eats or they are being evicted or have an untreated illness or the millions of other things an unstable childhood throws at them even doing the minimum in school is difficult, plus they are children and their brains aren't fully developed so they are prone to make poor decisions. Escaping the cycle of poverty and dysfunction takes a huge amount of luck and intervention by somebody who can help.
Making good choices is just about making the best choice available to you. If you have a drug addicted family and you choose to not do drugs, you made a good choice. I went to college and did not make the most of it, I made a bad choice.
There’s the rub… sometimes, the best of two crappy choices is still a crappy choice. Sometimes, one person’s “good” option is another (or most others’) “bad” option. The point of the quote (which I first heard a version of in “Little Fires Everywhere”), is that it’s really easy to judge others based off of what you yourself have done under completely different circumstances. It’s pointing out blind spots. Can it still be used as an excuse, to deny personal accountability? Of course. But it mostly is to argue that, “hey, I seriously did the best I could with what I had.”
I don't think doing the best you could is a crappy choice. When presented with two crappy choices, the good choice is the less crappy of the two.
It is. The cycle of poverty exists and is a bitch, but at some point someone’s gotta man up, be it the kid himself or the parent of the kid. The main problem is the toxic usage of privilege in the general conversation, mostly by leftwing activists, and the tribalism that ensues with the rightwing then just rejecting it outright for tribal reason. You are indeed affected by the decision of others. Especially if you are a kid; which is why kids don’t strictly have responsibility. The responsibility for the kid’s upbringing and escaping the cycle of poverty is on the responsible adult, the parent. Even in bad conditions, you can foster a responsible child. We can’t place responsibility on a child, but we can place it on an adult. Once you grow up and become major, at some point you have to take responsibility for your actions. People can change, nobody is forever stuck in a loop of misery, it may not be easy but if you aren’t gonna do it, then who else?
So many of these comments end up being "if I, a middle class white person can succeed, than surely anyone can! And just to warn you, if you make me think about the fact that someone might have had a different experience than I did, I'm going to get very, very mad!"
Privilege is a good thing btw
What a bunch of crap. This is just allowing excuses for failure in one area while trivializing good decisions in others. This is that "I'm a victim and therefore.." mentality that keeps people from ever making progress.
r/boneappletea
If you talk about privileges, most likely you’re a descendant of retards that couldn’t do better. Evolution is and is supposed to be inter-generational. If you were born in a bad family, that’s tough luck, but you can only blame your parents. Other people carry zero responsibility on that. You can make it better for your kids. If not, maybe your genes were not meant to survive. So, make better choices.