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John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

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Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#231

Post by roryisok »

dsr_ wrote: post #176
roryisok wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being rich is worrying about North Korea instead of looking forward to blissful oblivion Are people in America actually worried that NK is going to nuke anyone? Kim Jong Un knows if he ever fires one of those, it's game over for him. They're a big-ass bargaining chip. Threatening to fire them is the only reason he has them at all. He'll never actually do it.

Not many, no. People in America are concerned that Trump is going to order an attack on NK, which will end up with the destruction of Seoul and the Chinese army moving in to newly-unified Korea for peacekeeping.

OK, I'm worried about that too. But like the nukes, the artillery pointed at Seoul is also a bargaining chip. If they start firing, its game over for them.

But I take your point that the idiot in the blond wig could start firing first

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#232

Post by Torgo »

gerbal wrote: post #133
philovivero wrote: post #96

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…

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.…

>White privilege is not being afraid of the police.

Ian Murdoch, RIP.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#233

Post by merpnderp »

novia wrote: post #11
merpnderp wrote: post #9

Being poor must in part be not knowing how not to be poor or having felonies or depression holding you back. I failed out of college and barely scraped one month of rent for an apartment. I got a shit job working the dock in a light bulb warehouse. I made friends with the truck driver who picked up orders who told me about an opening on their better paying dock. After half a year my hard work caught the eye of HR who…

Are you a baby boomer? You sound like a baby boomer. You're basically saying, "I don't see why all these poor people don't just get a good job."

I have a friend who's here illegally. Last year he billed his largest customer $160K for concrete work. He stays so busy he never has time for anything. He has more odds stacked against him than any american who isn't sick, and he makes more profit on a 3 day job than most people make all month.

But first he spent nearly a decade working for a construction company learning the ropes and working his way up to #2. Then he quit to be his own #1.

How many americans griping about their minimum wage coffee job want to shovel concrete, dig holes, and do beautiful work for 8 years?

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#234

Post by [deleted] »

babesh wrote: post #104

- 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…

[deleted]

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#235

Post by fweespeech »

micahbright wrote: post #192
fweespeech wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all in this world together and some of us do make those contributions. You are just angry we want you to contribute at all and I feel bad for you. It must hurt going through life thinking no one cares if you suffer or die.

I'm angry you want to force me to contribute - you douche. I've been contributing to the poor my whole life

Lol :)

And so you get angry at people on the internet that suggests it should be mandatory.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#236

Post by five_dollars »

shadowtree wrote: post #105

Being poor is living in an illegal cellar flat. Being poor is wiping off the mold from your shoes before putting them on. Being poor is buying second hand - unironically. Being poor is working harder than your peers. Being poor is not being able to fully relax, ever. Being poor is a chip on your shoulder, that never goes away. Being poor is a voice, deep within, saying nothing lasts, it is all an illusion, tomorrow y…

Minus the illegal flat(we had a dilapidated house), I could have written this exact thing.

I hope you got out like I did.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#237

Post by fencepost »

philovivero wrote: post #96
jachee wrote: post #23

I lived this. Being poor is growing up between the trailer park and the dump. Being poor is skipping homework to help repair the $600 car so dad can make it to work tomorrow. Being poor is your mother crying over a $100 invoice for the dental service you just received for the first time in living memory. Being poor is quitting junior college early, because your Pell Grant ran out, and a $12.15/hr opportunity is over…

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…

Interestingly, Scalzi has also written about this in a way targeted at tech folks: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...

Long term I think his article on being poor may be longer lasting and more influential than anything else he does - with the possible exception of taping bacon to a cat. http://whatever.scalzi.com/about/the-canonical-bacon-page/

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#238

Post by makomk »

delazeur wrote: post #209
philovivero wrote: post #96

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…

I am also white, and I also grew up poor. I agree that many (though far from all) of the college students who talk about socioeconomic inequality are spoiled brats. However, you have misunderstood what "white privilege" means: it's not that your life has been easy, it's that the same situations would have been even harder if you had not been white.

In theory that's what it was originally intended to mean, but these days there seem to be an awful lot of people who think it does mean that if you're white your life has been easy and you brought every hardship on yourself. For instance, this tweet was doing the rounds a few days ago: "Imagine sucking so fucking bad that being a white guy is hard for you?"[1]. 26,000 retweets, no ambiguity whatsoever, no real pushback or criticism of it that I saw at least on the left.

[1] https://twitter.com/mikeyfrecks/status/896362940634472449

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#239

Post by Rzor »

namlem wrote: post #202
emodendroket wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to minimize racial discrimination, but telling poor people about their white privilege seems not all that different from conservative finger-wagging about how American poverty isn't "real" poverty. Also, even if you only looked at white people American police shootings are at a much higher rate than comparable countries.

White privilege is a bad term. Trevor Noah once said that in South Africa, they call it the "black tax," which I think is a much better term. It's not a benefit that's conferred onto white people, it's a cost that imposed on non-white people.

Isn't this a glass half full/half empty situation? Why the cost imposed on non-whites doesn't get to be called a benefit on whites since they are exempt from payment? I know I'm arguing semantics, but it is interesting the change in nomenclature.

Re: John Scalzi: Being Poor (2005)

#240

Post by micheljones »

archagon wrote: post #218
micheljones wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Racial superiority' is also a 'sociological concept'. I hope you'll start to see the issue there.

Er, not at all? Racial superiority is not a concept in any reputable subfield of sociology. Privilege is not someone’s misguided opinion, but a concept founded on years of research. I am disturbed by this false equivalence.

I used to feel white guilt like you, but then I took an arrow to the reeeeeeeeeeeee.
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