Saturday, March 29, 2008

Privilege Meme from Peripatetic Polar Bear

From this link, http://theiceflue.typepad.com/the_ice_flue/2008/03/gettin-all-priv.html#more ,here's a meme about privilege. You're supposed to bold those that are true for you

Father went to college. (GI Bill after WWII)
Father finished college.
Mother went to college. (GI Bill after WWII -- mom was an Army nurse)
Mother finished college.
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. (one uncle by marriage was an attorney in a small town in southern Indiana)
Were the same or higher social class than your high school teachers.
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.(considering all 8 of us maxed out our library cards every week, we probably had more than 500 books in the house at least until kids started moving out. Heck, I'm the only bookreader in my house, and I am pretty sure I have at least a couple hundred books right now.)
Were read children’s books by a parent.
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 . (5th of 6 kids means money was going toward college expenses before I could grab it for lessons)
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. (parental dead bodies before this would've happened. I think I only touched one of my mom's credit cards once or twice by 18)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs. (parents paid for tuition/room/board at a college we agreed upon considering costs as well as academic programs. Undergraduate degree only, and they were quite annoyed when I paid $150/semester for tuition/fees in grad school at the same university. I pointed out that they usually want you to have taken the course before you TA'ed it; therefore, not an option in undergrad days)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
Went to a private high school.
Went to summer camp. (Does Girl Scout camp for 1 week after 4th grade count?)
Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
Family vacations involved staying at hotels. (Most vacations were to my grandparents' homes, but some were to destinations that meant motels. We also did a few trips where we rented a condo at the beach to cut meal expenses.)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18. (Three older sisters and a girl down the street who was my age but much taller were sources of hand-me-downs. My mom sewed a lot for us, including my prom dress.)
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. (HA! not a chance for even a hand-me-down)
There was original art in your house when you were a child. (Sort of, if you include a [bad] painting I did in middle school and a paint-by-number that my parents did together before they decided to have children)
You and your family lived in a single-family house.
Your parents owned their own house or apartment before you left home. (I think the mortgage was paid off (13 years early, IIRC) in my senior year in high school. They moved to a different state -- but I found them! -- while I was in college and probably picked up a mortgage again at that point.)
You had your own room as a child. (after enough siblings grew up and left home. At 11 I had a room to myself when college was in session. At 13 I had a room of my own year-round, but I was only allowed to paint one wall because the room had been painted 2 years earlier when my oldest sister went to college and my youngest sister moved into it.)
You had a phone in your room before you turned 18. (we had one phone, 2 jacks. One jack in the dining room, the other in my parents' bedroom. Privacy on the phone was unlikely and fragile when achieved)
Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course. (We did some vocabulary work in my advanced English class and had filled out a bazillion multiple choice tests with number 2 pencils over the years, but no specific SAT prep class. Got 1400 anyway -- see books, above.)
Had your own TV in your room in high school. (we could have clock-radios or stand-alone radios)
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. (I was 16, about a week and a half from turning 17)
Went on a cruise with your family.
Went on more than one cruise with your family.
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. (mostly museums. Loved the Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh, esp. the dinosaur bones and the stupid diorama of a lion attacking a camel driver.)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. (didn't know dollar amounts, but certainly knew we were trying to conserve energy & money during the major energy crisis years ('77 and '78?) as my mom kept the house freakin' cold. I still do -- winter thermostat setting is usually between 60 and 65 degrees F)

What gets interesting is thinking about this and seeing what items mean privileged to me, and which seem ordinary. To me, the idea of having books around is unremarkable. I think it's really odd when I go to someone's house and see only a few, if any, books. Our schools did field trips to the museums and such in Pittsburgh, but we only lived in the suburbs so it wasn't too far. Looking at my childhood now, the most striking thing is color, or lack thereof. I never, ever had a black student in any of my classes all through public schools. I did have one black teacher for one year in high school when the regular teacher for that class took a sabbatical. My high school class had nearly 500 students, and not one of them was African-American. We had 3 or 4 Asian-American kids, but otherwise, European-American all the way.

2 comments:

Mrs. G. said...

Great meme. You did have it pretty good. So did I. The books alone are a luxury.

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