#yeah sure passing affords a certain level of privilege | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

realtalk-princeton · 5 years ago

Note

How do you deal with everybody telling you you're so privileged? Everybody tells me how privileged I am because of my appearance and affluent background, but I was bullied in hs because I was really ugly/skinny back then, everybody in my family attacks me by mocking how dumb I am because I'm the only non-engineer major in the family, etc. I am thankful for what I have, but do I just suck it all up because I still have a lot more than others, even if I feel depressed and often have nightmares

Response from Clipper:

Oh boy. My first instinct passing over this question inbox was to leave it alone so that someone else could respond to it more kindly than I would, because my first response was “boo-fucking-hoo bitch, of course you’re complaining that people are reminding you that you had unearned leg-up(s) in life compared to others, instead of complaining about the rigged system(s) that gave you the leg-up(s).” But this has been in the inbox for a little while and I’ve paused to put myself in your shoes. I want to try to answer with only a little snark because, though others have asked this question from an adversarial position, I don’t think you’re actually coming from a bad place asking this.

So, how do you deal with everybody telling you you’re so privileged? My short answer: shut up and accept it. Most people aren’t telling you this just to make you feel bad for being white/rich/male/cis/able/straight/whatever. I get that it can seem that way, and that people may be aggressive in making their points. At the same time, I’m 100% sure that if you were given a choice, you’d rather deal with people telling you that you’re privileged, than swap places with someone who doesn’t have those privileges. So yeah, suck it up. You’re privileged. Congrats.

My long answer is gonna take longer to spell out. Privilege doesn’t mean you don’t struggle. It just determines what you struggle with. I like to think about it this way: Some life problems are “universal” in that everyone can and probably will go through them and suffer from them. Things like family struggles, bullying, acne, relationship issues, etc. I don’t think anybody is genuinely telling you to suck those up, because those problems can cause a fuckload of harm. Everybody knows that, everybody has friends and family who go through these universal life struggles if they haven’t themselves.

On the other hand, some issues are systemic in that they negatively impact various groups of people based on unfair things. People born into low income families don’t have access to the same resources as the 40% of Princeton families who don’t qualify for financial aid for example. People of colour face discrimination that white people don’t face. People with disabilities go through life with additional challenges that able people don’t. And it goes on and on with other intersecting slices of privilege and disadvantage. That’s where the privilege aspect comes into the conversation. It recognises that there are different sources of human strife. In a fair world, all problems would be universal and would hit us all the same. But that’s not the world we live in, unfortunately.

Your “privileged” background (whatever axes of privilege you’re talking about) precludes you from going through some very real struggles that severely impact others. It’s good that you are grateful for what you have and thankful that you don’t have some of these other struggles, but the fact is: you didn’t earn your privileges. Your accomplishes are your own, yes. You achieved them, and nobody can take that away from you. But if you were not privileged, it would have been harder (or maybe even impossible!) for you to have achieved what you have. There are some things you won’t struggle with because you’re privileged in whatever way, and those things create huge struggles in other peoples lives. Just like you didn’t choose to be advantaged in life, others without privilege didn’t earn the disadvantages they face and the barriers they have to overcome. It is unfair that many people don’t have the advantages you have.

When someone is saying that you’re privileged, they aren’t saying your life is perfect and that you can’t complain anymore. They are saying that you were helped along by that privilege and that you don’t have to face certain systemic struggles. Even as you encounter universal struggles —you mention depression and nightmares, which affect so many people— you are helped along by your privilege. Let me walk you through one hypothetical. Imagine a clone of you, with the same depression and nightmares, but who is also low-income. Would it be as “easy” for your clone to overcome depression if they can’t afford therapy? If they didn’t have health insurance? If they couldn’t afford depression/anti-anxiety prescriptions? If they had to work multiple jobs just to get by, and didn’t have enough time in the day to see a doctor? If they didn’t have the means to travel to see someone? If they had to choose between paying rent and seeing a doctor? Can you see how just one axis of privilege drastically amplifies even the universal struggles all people go through? Not only does privilege let you bypass systemic issues, but it also makes universal struggles easier to deal with as they arise.

(As a tangent, I think the discomfort around discussions of privilege is largely misplaced. Privileged people get upset when they first learn of the concept because they think they are individually being targeted/villainized for being privileged, when really it’s the systems’ fault that these inequalities exist. Some people react strongly to the concept of privilege because it clashes with the idea of individual meritocracy. They are proud of what they have, and don’t want it to be tainted with the thought that they didn’t earn it on a level playing-field, so they deny privilege’s existence and/or lash out at those who expose it. Then there are the people who do not have privilege(s) who justifiably feel cheated out of their potential due to systemic disadvantages that privileged people don’t face. There can be some animosity here towards people with privilege who don’t acknowledge the boosts that privilege has given them in life and people who don’t actively work to dismantle the systems that afforded them that unfair boost.)

So, again, how do you deal with everybody telling you you’re so privileged? I personally don’t think it’s something you would have to deal with any differently than if everybody was telling you that racism or sexism or any other systemic inequality exists. If your privilege is brought up in a way that make you feel uncomfortable, take a moment to figure out the source of that discomfort. If people are using your privilege to dismiss you and tell you that your problems aren’t real, then that’s obviously wrong. But if it’s being used to highlight inequalities that others face, I don’t see a problem with that, even if it makes you feel like your specific issues aren’t being centered at the time.

Take a moment to step into the shoes of someone who has lived life without your privilege(s), and you will probably see why these issues might be so important to people bringing it up. People without privilege face the same universal issues you face (bullying, family drama, depression, nightmares and more) on top of amplifying systemic struggles that you do not face. Yes, people can be dismissive of privileged people’s struggles, and that’s not cool. But on the whole, I’d rather retain my privileges and have them called out from time to time, than face systemic disadvantages that are not being changed fast enough.

1 note · View note

exxar1 · 5 years ago

Text

Episode 4: Waking Up

11/14/2020

Good morning, folks. As I write this, I’m sitting in my living room, listening to an Apple music channel of classic Christmas carols, while late morning sunshine streams through my front window. I have just finished putting laundry in the dryer and washing the few dishes in the sink that piled up during the week. My McDonald’s iced coffee is almost gone, and I’m feeling ready to face the day.

I have a couple hours before I have to start getting ready for work, so there’s not a lot of time to hammer out this blog entry. I don’t have a lot to say for this episode, but I have been feeling somewhat strange for the last couple weeks. Not ‘strange’ in the physical sense, but ‘strange’ as in ‘there’s something happening with me that I can’t quite explain’.

And now I’m going to try to explain what I’m talking about.

Per my usual work routine, I spend 5 ½ hours every morning, Monday through Friday, in the lobby of Walmart, greeting customers and making sure everyone is wearing their face mask. And, as usual, I have nothing but my own thoughts and the occasional conversation with co-workers to keep me company. But mostly just my own thoughts. And boy, my brain lately will just not shut down – or even go into standby mode. It seems that all I can do lately is just think, think, think. Here’s a sample of what tumbles through my head from morning until night every day:

· Is the ballot recounts for the national election close to being done? Will Trump retain his presidency (I hope), or will America finally get its first female president? (Yes, you read that correctly.)

· Spencer Klavan of the “Young Heretics” podcast so damn good looking, and the fact that he’s also a “Super Mario Bros” fan in addition to being ivy league educated and possessing near-savant level human intelligence has forced me to finally admit that I have had a massive crush on him for almost four months now. (I just wish he wasn’t such an avid gym rat. That’s such a turnoff. Well, that, and the fact he already has a boyfriend.)

· I need to start working on the story ideas that came to me a few weeks ago. There’s two really good ones that I know would make excellent short stories, or, at the very least, novellas. One’s about a superhero called The Red Mask, and the other is about cats and dogs that are created with a sophisticated AI that allows them to look, feel and behave exactly like real animals but without all the maintenance and mess that pet owners have to put up with (such as feeding them, combing them, bathing them, walking them, training them, cleaning up their poop, etc.).

· Oh! A circuit court judge in Georgia just ordered a bunch of ballots to be thrown out in that state’s recount!

· Spencer Klavan liked one of my tweets about Young Heretics!!!!

· Should I have McDonald’s for lunch or the apple I brought with me? The apple. Definitely the apple. Need to stay healthy.

· I can’t believe all the idiots on social media that not only voted for Biden/Harris but actually think that he will make a good president. What the hell is wrong with them???? Anyone with half a brain can easily recognize what Trump has done for this country, and it scares the shit out of me that the radical left (capital ‘R’, capital ‘L’) just might get their foot in the door of the White House. What the fuck is wrong with half of America right now??? It’s all that “white fragility”, “systemic racism”, “white privilege”, “black lives matter” bullshit!!! How the fuck did that horseshit gain such powerful traction in this country????Robin Deanglo and Ibram X Kendi and all their pathetic followers are so full of shit they ought to open their own manure factory!!!!

· Yay! The 2021 “Super Mario Bros” and “Star Trek” wall calendars I ordered on Amazon have shipped! They’ll be here Tuesday!

· And that reminds me, I need to start working on the photo calendars that I give to my family every year for Christmas. Maybe I should do that this Saturday morning before my shift at Check City.

· Oh. Time for my break. Yay! Coffee!

And…repeat. That. All of that. Over and over all day long – creative story thoughts, political thoughts, work thoughts, checking my phone three times an hour to review the latest posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay on top of all the latest news and current events that serve to fuel my new woke self. Texting friends and family about this and that. On and on and on...

Hhmmm. My new woke self.

The other day, as this new thought occurred to me, I mentally reviewed everything that’s happened to me this year, everything that I wrote about in that first blog episode. I also thought about my recent self-examination of my whole life up to this point, the stuff I covered in episodes 2 and 3 of this blog. Then I thought back over the last two weeks: the sudden and unexpected passing of Aaron; his memorial service that I made an emergency trip home to Idaho to attend; and, finally, this new, strange…’wokeness’, for lack of a better term, that I now find myself in.

I honestly don’t know how to precisely describe it. I’ve been trying all this week to come up with apt, specific words and/or phrases, and then, finally, I thought of something. I’m a huge fan of the reboot of “Battlestar: Galactica” that was done by Ronald D Moore on the SyFy channel in 2004. It’s been a few years since I last binged all 4 seasons of that terrific show, but I was thinking about it the other day as my mind wandered, and it suddenly occurred to me what this new ‘woke’ state that I’m in feels like: the Cylon sleeper agents (who looked and acted like real humans) that were suddenly awakened to their true nature.

Yeah, I’m not kidding. Yes, I know how that sounds, but let me explain. I really feel like that, somewhere deep in the core of my brain, a metaphorical ‘switch’ was flipped from ‘off’ to ‘on’ along about late August or early September of this year. The world around me did not change, but my perception of it – as well as my perception of my place in it – did fundamentally change. I realized this week that for pretty much all my life I’ve been coasting through it. Everything that I’ve done and accomplished took no real effort or sacrifice on my part. Everything after high school pretty much just happened naturally. I decided to join the Army on a whim. When that didn’t work out, I came back home and enrolled in college. I spent 4 ½ years doing what I loved – reading, writing, discussing reading and writing – and I came out with a Bachelor’s in English. Again, no real effort. I coasted through on my natural talents. The only real work was in the core classes that I needed for my degree, like math or biology. But those were few. And then, after college, instead of putting my degree to use, I just settled for a day job in retail and then, later, in an elementary school. And then, in 2012, on a whim, I quit my job and moved to Las Vegas. Once again, I found a cushy day job where I make really good money, and…then 2020 happened.

In other words, I’ve never been an active participant in my own life. I just kinda let everything happen and went with the flow. I even had this same attitude in high school and it drove my parents and teachers absolutely mad. I didn’t care about being valedictorian or captain of the sports teams or even being the best damn piano player this side of the Rockies. All that mattered was hanging out with my friends and making sure the VCR was set each week to record the newest episodes of “Star Trek: DS9” and “Star Trek: Voyager”. And, without consciously realizing it, that’s been my attitude for my whole damn life. I’ve never cared about the world beyond my own front door. If it didn’t affect my life directly, I never paid it any attention. That’s especially true for politics. No matter who sat in the White House, my life never changed. So I figured, why bother? I’m perfectly content to live a quiet, solitary existence, and the rest of the world can do its own thing.

Except that now I’m no longer content with my quiet, solitary existence. Something within me fundamentally changed this year, and there’s no going back.

I am awake. (But, unlike the Cylons, I’m not about to start murdering humans.) I’m certain that it was God’s hand that reached down to flip that invisible switch in my brain, but now that I have rejected my former sleeper state, I don’t know exactly what to do. For the last couple weeks, I have felt nervous; anxious; excited; jittery; like a live wire that’s been cut and is now flopping on the ground, shooting sparks and energy. I have to constantly resist the urge to grab total strangers off the street and shout at them to “Wake up!” The world around us is changing, and we can’t live as sleeper agents in our own lives. Everything that’s happened in 2020 is going to shape the future of this country and the lives of everyone in it, and no one can afford to not care and just keep living their quiet, solitary lives.

This is why I scream on social media about the stupid mask mandates, and the ‘lamestream’ media, and politics, and everything else that I’ve been ranting and raving about for nine months. And yes, I’m sure some of my friends think I’ve gone crazy, and more than a few have probably unfollowed me. I don’t mean to alienate folks, but I have to put this energy somewhere or I’ll go crazy.

One of biggest changes that I have noted is that I no longer have a desire to park in front of the TV in my time off. I still have a few regular shows that I watch each week, but my passion has turned to reading and podcasts. I renewed my Audible.com membership a few months ago, and I have started stockpiling audiobooks on various subjects: biographies of the Founding Fathers of America, non-fiction books on artificial intelligence and other new forms of technology, books on world history, western literature and Greek philosophy. (I recently began listening to a series of lectures from Boston University on Plato’s “Republic”). And, of course, the highlight of my week is a new episode of “Young Heretics” every Tuesday. (And no, it’s not just because of my crush on Spencer Klavan.) I also have started carving out an hour here and there each day to grab my laptop and write a few paragraphs of new stories or just jot notes for upcoming stories.

I really, honestly feel as if something is coming. I don’t know what, I don’t know when, but God woke me up for a reason. He’s got something planned for me, and I need to be ready for it. I’m pretty certain the world is not coming to an end anytime soon, and I’m sure 2021 will be a better year for our nation than 2020, no matter who’s sitting in the White House. And yes, Lord willing, this stupid “pandemic” will also be over sometime soon. For me, personally, 2020 was the year that changed me and got me ready for whatever is coming. A fire’s been lit under my ass, but I’m not sure where yet where I’m supposed to be jumping up and running to.

I am sure, however, that It’s time to be an active participant in my own life.

Hey mom and dad, I really do care now, and I really, truly want to do my best. I want only top grades and to be the captain of…something. It only took twenty-six? Twenty-seven years? But now I’m going to be that grade-A student that you and Mrs. Tutty and Mrs. Jones and Mr. Walker always knew I could be.

Better late than never, eh?

#life #Christian #gay #politics #truth #woke

0 notes

viralhottopics · 8 years ago

Text

Viola Davis: Im pretty fabulous

Her extraordinary performance in the upcoming Fences has seen Viola Davis tipped for an Oscar. But her success has taken a huge amount of self-belief. She tells Alex Clark why it is only through demanding respect that you get the parts you are due

Its the run-up to Christmas and everybody in Los Angeles, which to a Brit feels unseasonably sun-drenched, is bemoaning the chilly weather; as we settle down in the Beverly Hills hotel, Viola Davis draws a warm jacket around her shoulders. Not that shes complaining: throughout our conversation, she is determinedly upbeat, celebratory, optimistic. She radiates a sense of excitement and satisfaction that, at 51, all the hard work is really beginning to pay off.

Five years ago, when Davis was playing the role of the maid Aibileen in The Help, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, she told me that, as a dark-skinned actress in Hollywood, she had done what it was at my hand to do, even if that didnt give her as much scope for her talents and energies as she would have liked. Ive had to sink my teeth into a role that was probably a fried-chicken dinner and make it into a filet mignon.

Now, with film roles coming out of her ears, the lead in the TV drama How To Get Away with Murder and her own production company, she is opposite Denzel Washington in the film adaptation of August Wilsons Pulitzer prize-winning play Fences. (After our meeting, she begins 2017 by winning a Golden Globe for her performance, saying in her acceptance speech that the film Doesnt scream moneymaker, but it does scream art and it does scream heart.) Surely the role of Rose Maxson is a filet mignon.

She bursts out laughing. This is absolutely a filet mignon a medium-well filet mignon. And Davis clearly relishes every bite: her performance as a wife and mother in 1950s Pittsburgh, struggling at every turn to hold her family together, to absorb the rage and disappointment of her husband Troy and to protect her sons innocence and ambition, is electrifying so involving that it invokes an almost physical response. We watch as Rose is beguiled and charmed by the charismatic, storytelling Troy, unable to chide him for his excesses without dissolving into mirth, and as she seeks to intercede on others behalves to limit the damage his temper and pride cause. It takes almost the whole film, however, for Rose to voice her own feelings and desires.

youtube

That was the role of womanhood in the 50s, says Davis. You were an instrument for everyone elses joy except for your own. The 50s in America had the highest rate of alcoholism and depression. There were whole manuals out there that were being passed out about how to make your husband happy put on make-up when he walks through the door, after a long day of work, dont weigh him down with any of your problems, ask him about his problems, greet him with a smile, make sure the children are fed and theyre clean, his favourite meal is on the table, and nowhere in that manual is anything about her joy, and the centre of her happiness.

She has been here before, and with Washington; they are reprising the roles they played in the 2010 Broadway revival of the play, for which they both won Tony awards; and they are rejoined by Russell Hornsby and Mykelti Williamson as Troys son and brother respectively. Part of Wilsons 10-play Century Cycle, in which the playwright chronicled the experiences of African Americans decade by decade, Fences transition on to the big screen has taken so long because its author, who died in 2005, insisted that its director be black a simple demand revealingly hard to accomplish in Hollywood.

Now, Washington himself directs, and his key artistic choice is apparent the moment the film begins: he has preserved the works theatrical origins, with nearly all the action taking place in a confined domestic space, and dialogue ranging from quick-fire ensemble scenes to extended soliloquies. The effect is disconcerting we rarely see such unfiltered staginess on film but always riveting; there is not an inch of slack, a word wasted.

Davis herself has two show-stopping speeches, in which she first rails at life and at last attempts to make her peace with it. What was different about playing Rose this time around? She replies that she had been sitting with this narrative for so long and never quite got the ending until I did the movie. And I keep saying to myself that the reason I didnt get the end is because she is at a place that probably most of us as human beings never get to, and that is a place of forgiveness and grace. I think that most of us spend a lifetime holding on to the past, even when we feel like were letting go a bit.

Maid in Hollywood: a scene from The Help with Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark, and Bryce Dallas Howard and Ahna O Reilly. Photograph: Dale Robinette/DreamWorks

She holds close to the advice of psychiatrist Irvin D Yalom that one must give up all hope of a better past. Davis herself grew up in extreme poverty; she has spoken powerfully about the series of makeshift dwellings she, her parents and five siblings occupied in Rhode Island, about hunger and lack of sanitation, about her fathers violent abuse of her mother. The letting go seems to take two distinct but related forms: allowing herself to feel good about what she has achieved, and building platforms that will help broaden the possibilities for a new generation of actors, writers and directors of colour.

She cites her delight at seeing Shonda Rhimes, the producer behind Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away with Murder, accepting a Norman Lear achievement award in Television last year. She said: I happily accept this award because I deserve it. I LOVE IT. Absolutely love it. Its the waking up and understanding that OK, you may not be the best person out there, but youve put in enough work to understand that you deserve what youve got, that that is what is at the end of hard work. The happily ever after comes after youve done the work. And to literally understand, especially as a woman, that a closed mouth doesnt get fed, youve got to ask for what you want and expect to get it.

I remark that its noticeable how often women play down their successes; how they will even deflect minor compliments on appearance. Why does she think that happens? I think tapping into ones power and ones potential is a very frightening thing, she replies. And for women its a very new thing. It is. I always used to feel that self-deprecation was an answer to humility that people would see me as a humble person the more I put myself down. And people do say that: Oh! I ran into so-and-so and they kept saying, Oh, my work in this really sucked, and they were great! I just thought it was so refreshing that they said that! And I often think to myself, what if someone says, You know what, Im confident, Im really happy about the work I did. I really felt like I gave it my best and it came out great, the same way men do. Why is that not seen as humble?

Motherhood has given me a different telescope to look at life: with husband Julius Tennon. Photograph: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images

Her increasing ability to feel comfortable with her achievements is linked to an awareness of her emerging position as a figure of influence. The more Im pushed in a position of leadership and I know I have to be the mouthpiece for so many other people who cant speak for themselves, the more confidence Im gaining. And that extends to the way she views her own past and the more she shares her story. She explains: I can hear myself say, Oh yeah, I took the bus five hours just to get to the theatre, then took it five hours back, and Im listening to that, Im being an objective observer, and thinking to myself I did that? Its like looking at an old picture of yourself when you felt like you looked bad, and you go, Wow, I was fabulous! Thats how I feel about my life now that Im looking back at it, and Im like, Im pretty fabulous. I really am. Im pretty fabulous.

Back in 2011, when we talked about Daviss commitment largely via JuVee, the production company she founded with her husband, Julius Tennon to addressing the limited opportunities afforded people of colour by the entertainment industry, she expressed her hope we wouldnt be having the same conversation in five years time. Naturally, because challenging entrenched privilege takes time, we are, but it has shifted ground. Davis herself is scheduled to play the part of Harriet Tubman, who liberated slaves in the Civil War era, and to star in Steve McQueens Widows, a revisiting of Lynda LaPlantes TV series co-scripted by Gone Girls Gillian Flynn. Its not even a role that would be necessarily written for an African American, but not according to him. Hes like: Why not?

Davis brings up The Help, and says that although she loved making the film, she understands the criticisms levelled at it that women of colour were once again placed in the role of maids, and not portrayed as tapping into their anger as much as they could have. Tapping into all the things they could have been other than the maid. Partly, she thinks, that relates to the image of the black maid as a nurturer, a second mother, so that even within the movie, there are certain things that are not going to be explored, if it somehow messes up the memory of what the audience had, that perfect mother. She couldnt be angry. She couldnt be sexualised. Shes gotta stay that image that brings us comfort and joy knowing that we were loved and nothing more than that.

Davis loves the riposte to that one-dimensional figure provided by the character of Annalise Keating, the firecracker law professor, ambitious, potent and flawed, that she plays in How To Get Away with Murder. Its blowing the lid off everything that people say we should be, especially as a dark-skinned woman, that you cant be sexual, you cant be unlikable, you can be angry but with no vulnerability, you cant be damaged, you cant be smart. It blows the lid off all of it. And even if its not executed all the time in ways that people like, it doesnt matter. What matters is that shes out there. Thats it. Shes out there, shes on screen, shes making an impact.

In the 1950s women were an instrument for everyone elses joy except their own: Viola Davis with Denzel Washington in a scene from Fences. Photograph: David Lee/AP

Another fundamental has changed in the past five years; in 2011, she and Tennon adopted a baby, Genesis, who is even as we speak frolicking in a nearby hotel room. When Davis and I are done, her babysitters release the six-year-old to bound along the corridor and leap into her mothers arms, asking whether she can go and buy a swimming costume in the hotel boutique and head for the pool. Her mother observes that in such a luxurious joint, its a purchase that could easily come to a couple of hundred dollars, but concedes that theyll work something out (you imagine somebody might be despatched to Gap).

Davis combines motherhood which she says has changed her utterly, and given her a different telescope through which to see life with work by clever stratagems and good planning; often taking Genesis with her, only making one film a year, having a TV shooting schedule that allows her days off and free weekends. She claims to live by two mantras Im tired, and Im doing the best I can but she doesnt look remotely weary. And things might be about to get a whole lot busier. She was the first African American to win the outstanding lead actress in a drama series Emmy award for her role as Annalise Keating; alongside numerous other awards, she has hitherto been nominated for two Oscars for The Help and Doubt. But now her role as Rose Maxson is being spoken about as a cert for nomination and a very strong contender to win her an Academy Award come February. Has she allowed herself to think about it? She pauses, laughs, parries.

You know what I know about that? Because I dont know if thats going to happen or not. But what I will say about this is, and this is how I keep my perspective, whatever happens, Ive gotta go back to work. The carpets are going to be rolled up, the people are going to stop calling like that, and Ive gotta go back to work. And you cant bring that Oscar on a set, and that Oscar cant do the work for you. You gotta do it. Thats what Ill say.

Fences is released on 10 February