Becky Says...

January 2007

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Stay Tuned! - January 4

Thursday got away from me. I had several things on my agenda, and none of them got done. I hate it when that happens! But dealing with them is what I've been up to today. None are journal-worthy, at least not yet.

Meantime, I'll leave you with an enigma, entitled "Stay Tuned!" Other sizes of it are available by clicking the picture.

Stay Tuned!



Privilege - January 2

I am one who does not respond favorably to guilt trips. I remember the exact moment in my life when I realized what guilt trips were, and that they made me sick. It was back when I was a pre-teen and went with a friend to her church for a revival service. I did get guilt-tripped by the pastor that night, and once I realized it, I promised myself that wouldn't happen again. And it's true. No one since that time has ever made me do something out of guilt.

I've done things to keep the peace, I've done things to quell bullies. But I have never again wept or promised to change my evil ways (the evil in that case, by the way, was that I didn't completely honor my mother...especially when she was drunk) just because someone told me I should change.

Among other things, that means yammering at me about whether or not I am privileged, is not going to get me to do anything positive, especially if you (this is a general you, not addressed to anyone at all) bring to me a set of questions that include such things as whether or not my parents went to college and whether or not they owned their home before I moved out. Instead, it is going to make me question both your motive in asking and your definition of privilege.

I am fairly vague on the background of this privilege meme that's going around right now. I know it came from a university in Illinois. Admittedly, I haven't looked that hard. I'd like to point out that using these things to assess privilege or class is a little spurious, and is, outside its original purpose, potentially offensive. The lack of followup questions, in the meme version at least, is glaring.

It would not surprise me at all to learn that this thing got to be popular because it's fairly easy to answer the questions. They're all yes-or-no, and none of them are things we wouldn't know about ourselves. But I think it could be used as a means of making people feel bad.

I suspect all of us have our own ideas about social class. Same would be true about privilege. So assessing either one based on that set of questions is only going to show where one falls on the spectrum chosen by the question-makers. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have played along if I were part of whatever group in Illinois, and I'm damned sure I'm not going to play along with a meme using the questions.

And because this meme pisses me off, I'm not going to link to it. If you don't know what I'm talking about in this, first count your blessings and then if you just have to know, go type "privilege survey" or something similar into the box of your favorite search engine.

Oh, and as to whether or not I consider myself privileged? Well, yes I do. But that's by my definition of the term, which gives much more weight to having people love, appreciate, and believe in me than to anything having to do with money. Any privilege I've had purely in terms of money has been hard won through hard work, on my part or that of my parents. Or it's been through grace. And for any details on any of that, well, you'll just have to read the journal.

Text and photograph © copyright 2000-2008 Becky