Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner. Thank goodness for government-sponsored low-income lunch program. That was my only meal many days. Naturally I was surprised when recently I got informed I have white privilege by a bunch of spoiled children who've never known a day of hardship in their lives. I'm…
Don't think for a minute that our white privilege isn't the major reason we can reflect on having been poor, rather than continuing to live that reality.
John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
151–160 of 262 posts
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the inventory of my life. I remember those months as a kid when the cupboards were bare, and so I'd just shrug and go to bed without dinner. Thank goodness for government-sponsored low-income lunch program. That was my only meal many days. Naturally I was surprised when recently I got informed I have white privilege by a bunch of spoiled children who've never known a day of hardship in their lives. I'm…
You do have white privilege. White privilege isn't being treated better because of your race, it's not being treated worse. White privilege is not remembering the last time you were pulled over for nothing. White privilege is not being afraid of the police. White privilege is getting let off with a warning. White privilege is expecting to be judged on your merits. White privilege is getting the benefit of the doubt.…
From a more pragmatic stand point, I think we need to be more nuanced in framing these issues because it can be rather easy to alienate those who might otherwise be receptive to the goals of a more just and egalitarian society when you don't take the totality of their experiences into account. Again, taking my own experiences into consideration, I usually fluctuate between minor annoyance and outright dismissal when someone who grew up in a stable two parent household that stressed the importance of education, attended decent schools where they didn't have to fear for their safety on a daily basis, lived in neighborhoods where straying farther than 20 feet from your front door didn't mean you where going to get jumped, got to go to college with a bunch of kids from similarly privileged backgrounds and now makes $180k in SV, wants to lecture others about privilege.
Also, I don't want to be dismissive of your list, and I definitely want to be careful in making assumptions about your background, but some of those things sound more like middle class white privilege than plain old white privilege. I know some poor white folk, I grew up around them on my family's first stop when immigrating to this country, and they tend to be afraid of the police, for good reason, and don't usually get let off with a warning.
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#153- Lying about where you grew up - Being ashamed of free school lunch - Being embarrassed and made fun of for wearing the same sorts of clothes every day - Not wearing a coat in winter because you are embarrassed wearing the same coat for years - Only ordering an appetizer over lunch at a job interview - The soles of my $10 sneakers came off in P.E. - Not playing any of the video games your coworkers played growing up…
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#154Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#155This needs a retitle of "Being poor in the USA". You need to talk to someone who grew up in the DDR or the CCCP to get some perspective (although I bet people from the so called third world would have quite something to add, too!). I am a little better as I grew up in socialist Hungary. Some memories that this article brought up: off-brand toys? You couldn't even buy LEGO until like 1982 for Hungarian forints. A few…
This isn’t a competition. This is supposed to give those who are less poor some perspective. So for you, this article is not so useful.
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
"clerical error lost paid ticket" Sounds like they paid their fine and then got caught in the system as the result of a clerical error?
Yes, and that is unfortunate, but it was preceded, and followed, by breaking the law.
He made a mistake, paid his fine and that should have been that.
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Basic income" would go a long way. People will try to work to make their lives better, whether they're "poor" and "rich". Not needing to worry about food and shelter would make life much easier. And I mean "basic income" for everybody. Not just citizens. Even immigrants. "For the widow, the orphan, the foreigner." - Deuteronomy 10:18, Zechariah 7:10, Matthew 25:31-46
I like how you turn a voluntary charitable contribution into forcing other people to pay. If you aren't poor, you should already be making contributions to the poor since you have such high moral standards.
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#158Many of the psychological issues can be overcome by not giving a flying fuck about what others think about you. My father died when I was 17 years old and my brother was 18 years old. My mother became an alcoholic and for the next 5 or 6 years I saw her sober less than 10 times. There were days in a row when we didn't had what to eat. She prioritized alcohol, cigarettes and coffee over food. We were so poor that my b…
One thing that you fail to acknowledge is that in rich countries smart poor guys don't get girlfriends. In East Europe being poor is/was considered normal, and as such, getting a GF in that situation is much easier and it will make wonders to your self-estime. This will hardly ever happen in the western rich world: I was luckier because I used to eat at my ex girlfriend (present wife).
I think that my years of poorness increased my motivation and desire to succeed in life drastically
No, it didn't. You just hit a jackpot: niche IT for a foreign company. Probably the best you can get worldwide (as an employee).
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#159> Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket. That's being smart, not being poor.
This is a problem the poor everywhere face. Those with wealth looking to reassure themselves about their moral and intellectual right to their position.
Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
The laws don't have to be unjust for the enforcement to be biased and discriminatory. Even when the enforcement is unbiased, and that's a pretty big if, the consequences aren't nearly the same for the poor as they are for the rich.
Sure, but I think most people would agree that the problem is not that the law is enforced for poor people, but that sometimes rich people can get away with breaking the law.
Another issue for me is that things like fines obviously carry a punitive function, people break a law and you want to punish them financially and deter the future behavior. When it comes to something like jail time, the rich and the poor are punished the same, again assuming an unbiased justice system. Six months in jail is more or less the same whether you're rich or poor. On the other hand, the punitive effects of a fine vary greatly based on your wealth. A $300 speeding ticket might be a lesson in the importance of obeying traffic laws and a minor annoyance if you're middle class. On the other hand, if you're living off of $1100 per month, that could be the difference between being able to make rent or not. It isn't that the poor should get away with breaking traffic laws, traffic deaths are a huge issue so they definitely shouldn't, but the punitive effects of the fine shouldn't be so vastly different based on income. I believe some countries, I seem to remember it being some Nordic countries, base fines off of income levels.