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Privilege 101

The worst thing about being privileged is not knowing in what ways you are. I never once considered being a U.S. citizen a privilege, even though I know that we have privileges such as freedom of speech. The article didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know before, but it did help with the ignorant state I was in. A lot of us become ignorant to what we have, and tend to act selfish for what we want. This piece of writing opened my mind like my mom would when she used to chastise me because I would not stop crying over a toy she would refuse to buy me. We don’t see those little things until someone refreshes us that we aren’t as “under privileged” as we think.

As the author explains the transgender community, you can see the privilege that us heterosexuals have over them. We are able to use the restroom society has assigned to us, they are FORCED to use the one “biologically” given to them because the ignorance of some people is that they’re scared of “what might happen” and it’s against their religion. It’s a huge factor in how humans get to live their life when you think about: You get to walk around with no fear of getting called out, you’re not just an “it” to conservatives, and people aren’t confused on how to act around you. There’s many more unexplainable things, I am one hundred percent sure of that, but I have more privilege than they do because I’m not transgender. And like the author said, “Acknowledge that the privilege exists…”, which is the first part to accepting that you are more privileged than others and grow to accept others without viewing them as a different species.

I really specifically liked this article because I’m known as a minority being both a woman and being of Hispanic descent. I know my brother is aware of his privilege as a male, he loves to mention it all the time, but he’s one of the most accepting people that I know. He believes that all women should have the same rights as men, and that the trans community should feel free to use whichever bathroom they feel comfortable in and marry whomever they wish. It’s one of the only things my brother and I can agree on, as you can tell we’re liberals. We have been surrounded by conservative Hispanics most of our lives that when we were finally opened to the people that weren’t conservative and close-minded, we fell in love with accepting the people that our usual people didn’t accept. It was refreshing for both of us, and when we go home most of the people there know not to bring up those controversial subjects because they would lose with their religious shit that seems to cloud their head and causes them to become blind to the one thing that every conservative seems to forget: We are all human.

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A Temporary Matter

           When something tragic happens in people’s lives, people tend to have different reactions and do different things to cope with that matter. In “A Temporary Matter” the author, Jhumpa Lahiri, writes an extraordinary piece of a couple Shoba and Shukumar, where Shoba loses her baby after going into labor and Shukumar was off at work at a business meeting and unable to attend to her when she was giving birth. This caused a delay in their relationship and made them grow distant from each other to the point that they would intentionally avoid seeing each other in their own household.

           This particular piece of writing appealed to me because of events in my life when losing someone caused my whole family to feel as though we had to become distant and avoid conversation of our loss. When people lose someone, they lose that specific relationship that the person that died had with them. When I lost my best friend, I felt like I had lost my sister opposed to when my best friend’s mom lost her daughter. It’s the same person that we loss, but very different relationships held with that person. In this writing, Shukumar was supposedly not at the hospital to see Shoba give birth, which he wasn’t, but he was able to see his son before he was set to be cremated. Shoba hadn’t wanted to see the baby or the gender, so they sent the baby to get ready for cremation before Shukumar asked to see him.

           As a person who doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a life the way Shoba and Shukumar did, I was able to understand why they were responding to it the way they did. Shoba worked longer hours, came home with files in her hands, and decided to avoid the conversation with Shukumar about having more kids or making kids so she wouldn’t put herself through it again. Although the point of view is in Shukumar’s eyes, any woman who knows that losing a baby is hard on a woman because have to carry it, knows that simply losing a baby is a setback. That’s why even though this piece is in Shukumar’s point of view, you’re still able to feel sorry for Shoba.

           I personally loved the piece, because somehow my feeling towards men after they lose a baby is more sympathetic… I hadn’t understood that even if they weren’t carrying the baby they wouldn’t be able to comprehend the emotion of loss the way a woman would. I was very wrong, you could see a change in Shukumar from the way he described how he missed the old Shoba and not for selfish reasons, but because he cared for her wellbeing. He created the image that he wasn’t as strong of a man that he thought he could be, he showed weakness in staying home and not being able to do anything with his life. He cooked for Shoba and had conflicted thoughts, but did his best to help her before helping himself even though he didn’t know how to approach her to open her up to him.

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The Empathy Exams

        ‘The Empathy Exams’ written by Leslie Jamison is a description of her job in life. Being a Medical Actor, the author is given a life that is taken over by a script. She indulges the reader with different Medical Actors in which their situations must be and then shares the most important part of her job which is the score sheet. She states that the most important question on the score sheet is whether the student was empathetic enough. Which is why I’m guessing her essay is called ‘The Empathy Exams’.

        Throughout her essay, we are given multiple people in which the author has either become familiar with or has studied a script for, she foreshadows many things and even knows the reaction the student should have in certain situations. She informs us through her writing that she must have done this for a while. Most of the students must fall for her acting because at moments in which they ask certain types of questions, she has let them hit her with compassion which is a sign of empathy. If a student can be compassionate towards a patient that they know is acting, they are given extra points because their concern is a huge part of what a doctor should withhold.

        At one point the author details that if a student can ask a question that ‘needs to be listened to’ then its showing several signs of empathy. As a doctor, you are required to listen closely to everything your patient says even if it’s the smallest hint towards how the patient is suffering. I think that I can agree with the author and signs of empathy. If a doctor shows that he/she is really intrigued by your story and is able to grasp information from you to help you, it’s one of the best things a doctor can do to get a better inside look at a patient and whether he/she can become comfortable with their doctor.

        Personally, I have spent multiple day and nights in a hospital because of my grandmother. At one point I was the only person able to take care of her because everyone else was too busy with their jobs to give her that time. I met several doctors and because my grandma only speaks Spanish, most of the time I had to translate. Because of the fact that I had to translate because some of these doctors weren’t able to speak Spanish, I made it my job to figure out whether or not they were compassionate enough towards my grandma. Through this time at the hospital, I was able to tell between real empathy and now because of this essay I have come to figure out which doctors really cared and which didn’t. Her heart doctor was one of the only doctors to share empathy with my grandmother through me, because although I was translating he always tried to make her feel better by making a joke or telling her how beautiful she was. Even just asking how she was dealing with everything.