I found a meme in the Racialicious series about race and class. If you get the chance, you should definitely read it. What you do id bold all the things that apply to you. I found this meme to be interesting but also flawed (read my answers) below. It made me realize the privilage I do have that I often don’t think about. Yet, I think it can also be misleading as well. Most of all, it shows that privilage is really in the eye of the beholder. Certain things on the list (having books in the home, going to free art and natural science museums) aren’t sign of privilage to me. A commentor on Racialicious pointed out that some of the items on the list are classist because they assume that poor people don’t do certain things, such as having books in the home. I agree with that assessment. I did have a lot of books in my home and my mother always read me to me. That being said, I definitely was poor as a child. I got a lot of books, in addition to clothing, from the second hand store . The books would come in a little bundle for about a dollar and I would ask my mother to buy them for me. I went to museums but often the museums were free. I didn’t get a computer until hs and the first computer we had was given to us. In my junior year of hs, my grandmother and mother brought a new computer on credit. I took figure skating lessons for a few months but stopped when my coach told my mother that I wasn’t going to get very far in the sports and that it wasn’t worth the money that FS costs to keep pursuing it in a serious manner. I also took gymnastics at the local YWCA for a bit. I lived in Germantown all the way up to my marriage and if you know anything about Philly, you know that Germantown is not one of the upper or middle class neighborhoods of Philly. When I went to HS and especially college, I never felt privilaged compared to my classmates. I encountered people in college who went to prep schools that cost the same tuition as a university, and not a state university but a private university that ranks high in US News and World Report annual list of best colleges and universities. I saw classmates who drove Lexus’s, Acuras, Range Rovers, and the whole gamut of luxury cars. Not used cars either but new ones. Everyone knew their parents were paying for them because those kids never had a job a day in their lives. I didn’t have a car because I usually took mass transit to school and places I wanted to go. So I definitely didn’t feel privilaged compared to many (most) of my classmates.
Then again, the fact that I looked at the lists in US News and World Report may say something about my class too. Attending college was never a question for me. I knew I was going to college. There were people in my high school who weren’t sure if college was an option for them. They were in the minority but they were there. In my neighborhood, most people didn’t attend college. Most people in my family haven’t attended or completed college but I knew I was going to college.
I took other things for granted as well. The trips to the Jersey shore seemed like nothing to me. Yet, I remember watching the local news in Philly a few years ago and seeing a story about a group of kids in North Philly who were going to some type of tournament out of town. They were thrilled because most of them hadn’t been off their block unless they were going to school. I thought that was so weird because I seriously took for granted that people went to museums, downtown, and to the shore. There were other things I thought were normal too. When my mother married my stepfather, we always went out to dinner every Friday because he said that my mother should have a day off from cooking. It was nothing to go to the Olive Garden or get some subs. As a kid, I seriously thought these things were normal for everyone, including poor people, because I considered myself poor. Now, I know that there are a whole lot of people who don’t take these things for granted at all.
So am I privilaged or not? I guess the answer is really in the eye of the beholder. In some ways I am and some ways I’m not. Even now, I feel as if I’m stuck in the middle. I have one foot in the door of the middle class yet one foot in the door of the working class. I guess it’s a different type of double consciousness for me.
If your father went to college, take a step forward.
If your father finished college
If your mother went to college
If your mother finished college
If you have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
If you were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
If you had a computer at home
If you had your own computer at home
If you had more than 50 books at home
If you had more than 500 books at home
If were read children’s books by a parent
If you ever had lessons of any kind
If you had more than two kinds of lessons
If the people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
If you had a credit card with your name on it
If you have less than $5000 in student loans
If you have no student loans
If you went to a private high school
If you went to summer camp
If you had a private tutor
If you have been to Europe
If your family vacations involved staying at hotels
If all of your clothing has been new and bought at the mall
If your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
If there was original art in your house
If you had a phone in your room
If you lived in a single family house
If your parent own their own house or apartment
If you had your own room
If you participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
If you had your own cell phone in High School
If you had your own TV in your room in High School
If you opened a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
If you have ever flown anywhere on a commercial airline
If you ever went on a cruise with your family
If your parents took you to museums and art galleries
If you were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.
In childhood:
If your body does not bear long-term signs of malnutrition. (For example, my teeth are marked up from poor nutrition when they were forming.)
If you had orthodontia.
If you saw a doctor for anything other than emergencies or school-mandated shots.
If you heated your home with clean-burning fuels or had properly vented heating.
If you grew up in a house without vermin.
If you had running water.
If you had a basement or foundation under your house.
If you had an indoor toilet.
If your parents and immediate family were outside the criminal justice system.
If you yourself remained outside the criminal justice system.
If your parents had a new car.
If you never went barefoot so that you could ’save your shoes for school.’
If your parents never argued in front of you about having enough money for food to last out the month.
If you ate hunted and fished meat because it was a recreational activity rather than as the major way to stock a freezer.
If your laundry was done at home in a washer rather than in a lavandaria. (Laundromat)
If your hair was cut by a professional barber or hair stylist instead of your parent.
