Privilege comic...

[ErinE]

***This isn't intended to dismiss the overwhelming benefits of a good education, a supportive family, and adequate financial resources.***

 

My issue is that the phrase becomes an attack on the person's background, not a rebuttal to the argument. If checking privilege means checking the assumptions, then please say "Check the assumptions." But don't attack the background of the person making the argument.

 

To say, "Check your privilege," to me, means, "If you really thought about yourself and your background, you'd change your mind," which isn't an argument. It's an opinion. You're not trying to persuade, you're trying to dismiss. What if the person with a privileged background, having "checked the privilege," still doesn't agree?

 

Or what if two people, each with varying amounts of privilege, debate?  Who tips the scale on privilege? The African American female, with an executive father and doctor mother, holding multiple Ivy League degrees? Or the extremely poor white man, with no father and a disabled mother, who's worked since high school to support his mother and can't afford college?

 

I'm uncomfortable with the idea that a debate involves the weighing of debaters' backgrounds to consider the merits of the argument.

[Murphy101]

I wonder if anyone can tell me if this is worth reading...

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/12/linda_tirado_on_the_realities_of_living_in_bootstrap_america_daily_annoyances.html

[LucyStoner]

Hmm.. I tried playing this but got frustrated fast - not because it was hard to stay afloat, but because the scenarios were so worst-case. For example - you get a job but it's a crappy one with zero health insurance and no sick time. Even the worst jobs I've ever had (fast food!) gave you some sick time. Then you had to buy health insurance through Obamacare and didn't qualify for state insurance even though you have a child and only make $1200 per month.

 

At $1200/month in my area you'd be eligible for food assistance and housing assistance. According to this 'game' you won't get either.

 

If you missed one electric bill your electricity was cut off. It takes more than that. In every area I've ever lived there are programs to help people who can't pay their utilities, and in extreme weather areas there are laws that prevent them from shutting you off during hot or cold seasons.

 

In the course of the 3 weeks I played I needed a root canal, my kid joined the track team, my dog got terribly ill and my grandpa died. I know this is possible, but come on.

 

I get that it's trying to help people understand what it's like, but I've lived well below the poverty line and when I took advantage of the help that was available we did okay. I'm not saying there aren't situations like the one in the game, I'm saying they're not the norm.

Having been homeless as a child and having worked for different organizations serving the homeless population, the scenarios I am familiar with IRL are more dire, more constant and more soul crushing than most people can imagine.

 

I live in a nation where a man can work his whole life and end up homeless and found dead in his truck at 58 after being bounced from the hospital too soon. How do I know this? These are not abstracts to me and I knew a man, who I considered a friend, who died in exactly that situation. Many families are one broken transmission away from the edge of the economic cliff.

 

Also in some states that didn't expand Medicaid, a family of 2 needs to make well less than $1000 a month to qualify. Missouri comes to mind.

[Free]

Recently I read this brilliant piece: The Science of Scarcity in the Harvard Magazine.

 

Some excerpts:

 

"But what’s most striking—and in some circles, controversial—about their work is not what they reveal about the effects of scarcity. It’s their assertion that scarcity affects anyone in its grip. Their argument: qualities often considered part of someone’s basic character—impulsive behavior, poor performance in school, poor financial decisions—may in fact be the products of a pervasive feeling of scarcity. And when that feeling is constant, as it is for people mired in poverty, it captures and compromises the mind.

 

This is one of scarcity’s most insidious effects, they argue: creating mindsets that rarely consider long-term best interests. “To put it bluntly,†says Mullainathan, “if I made you poor tomorrow, you’d probably start behaving in many of the same ways we associate with poor people.†And just like many poor people, he adds, you’d likely get stuck in the scarcity trap."

 

And:

"Typically, he explains, when the poor remain stuck in the grip of poverty, policymakers tend to ask what’s wrong with them, pointing to a lack of personal motivation or ability. Rarely, he continues, do we as policymakers ask, “What is it about this situation that is enabling this failure?â€

 

This is the question we should be asking, says Mullainathan—a point he and Shafir make quite memorably in their book by telling a story about a spate of plane crashes that occurred during World War II. During that era, the authors recount, the United States military experienced an inordinate number of “wheels-up†crashes; after planes had landed, pilots would inexplicably retract the wheels instead of the wing flaps, sending the planes crashing to the runways on their bellies. At first, the blame fell squarely on the pilots, the authors explain: why were they so careless? Were they fatigued? But when the military began to look more closely, they realized the problem was limited to two particular plane models: B-17s and B-25s. Instead of looking inside the heads of the pilots, Mullainathan and Shafir write, the military looked inside the cockpits of those specific planes; there investigators discovered that the wheel controls and flap controls were placed right next to each other and looked nearly identical—a design specific only to the crashing planes. After identifying the problem and implementing a minor change in design (a small rubber wheel was placed on the end of the landing-gear lever), the number of wheels-up crashes declined.

 

“Error is inevitable, but accidents are not,†Mullainathan and Shafir explain. It’s not that pilots don’t bear responsibility for their training and alertness, but “a good cockpit design should not facilitate mistakes.â€"

 

Overall a very worthwhile read.

[MistyMountain]

I am on a local pay it forward group where people cannot ask for money. So many people cannot pay bills and call all the numbers available locally for help but nothing is available. There are people who have no rides to the food banks or cannot get there on the limited hours. Your income has to be really low to get full food stamp benefits and if it is that low there is now way to afford housing. The housing programs all have huge lists and the rents are lower but still quite a bit if you are really poor.

[Elfknitter.#]

Granted, I live in a metro area. However:

 

"The wait list for Section 8 housing is so long the housing authority stopped accepting new applications in 2010 - and doesn't expect to open it up again for another two years*, according to it's director, Sean Rogan. There are 43,000 applications on the list already. There is no notice of when it will reopen."

 

(*Open in another two years, as in 2017. This is quoted from http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/04/07/50842/la-supervisors-lighten-criminal-background-checks/which is dated 2015.)

 

The county isn't much better.

 

So even if these... Resources?... Options? Are available, how does this help?

 

When I had to go to DPSS to verify in person the need for SNAP benefits, I was waiting for 2.5 hours. That was with an appointment. Another woman with her newborn needing more assistance was there all day.

[Murphy101]

Granted, I live in a metro area. However:

 

"The wait list for Section 8 housing is so long the housing authority stopped accepting new applications in 2010 - and doesn't expect to open it up again for another two years*, according to it's director, Sean Rogan. There are 43,000 applications on the list already. There is no notice of when it will reopen."

 

(*Open in another two years, as in 2017. This is quoted from http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/04/07/50842/la-supervisors-lighten-criminal-background-checks/which is dated 2015.)

 

The county isn't much better.

 

So even if these... Resources?... Options? Are available, how does this help?

 

When I had to go to DPSS to verify in person the need for SNAP benefits, I was waiting for 2.5 hours. That was with an appointment. Another woman with her newborn needing more assistance was there all day.

This is extremely common. And if that person has a job? Low paying jobs are notorious for having no employee flexibility. You leave your shift for that long and you have no job to go back to. If you sit there long enough, you'll see people get up and leave. They just can't stay any longer. When my dh worked as a lead trainer, he often got frustrated bc of how often he had to explain to a person the company policy and see them cry or get angry or frustrated bc they had to choose. Get written up or get foodstamps/daycare assistance/medical assistance. At that employer and many others employees get ZERO PTO until they have been there one full year and even then, all PTO has to be approved and it often is not. And it sucks to go to your boss hat in hand and say, "Please sir, can I have time off to get food stamps. I have no idea how long it will take, but I promise to be quick as possible sir, please can I have the time off." It's humiliating and my dh is just about the nicest most compassionate guy on earth, so there was no judgement from him. Imagine having to do that on a regular basis for just about everything. Is it any wonder they have no esteem or confidence. I totally believe in the scarcity effect.

[Murphy101]

I am on a local pay it forward group where people cannot ask for money. So many people cannot pay bills and call all the numbers available locally for help but nothing is available. There are people who have no rides to the food banks or cannot get there on the limited hours. Your income has to be really low to get full food stamp benefits and if it is that low there is now way to afford housing. The housing programs all have huge lists and the rents are lower but still quite a bit if you are really poor.

And to add to that, most places will only assist a person once in a certain time frame. So they will pay a water bill once for a person in 6 months. But these people's problems are on going. This month they couldn't pay bc they bought medications. Next month they can't pay bc they had to put a battery in their car. They have NO financial maneuverability. ANYTHING beyond the very basics is something they can't afford. And there is always something. This is why these people often "make the circuit" so to speak. It's very time consuming. They have to go to this place for water assistance, this place for insulin rx refill, this place for rent assistance, this place for a couple bags of food...

 

It's not like how we pay our bills. We can just pay online and sure it takes some time to set up and log in, or mail it, but really no big deal. Maybe an hour or 2 our of the month tops? These people are often spending 40 hours or more every month just trying to keep roof and lights and beans.

 

One thing I do like about catholic charities is they can sometimes be a one stop. They do take in interviews of the most pressing needs and try to meet as many as possible so the person doesn't have to do that, but there's only so many we can help at once. And there's a steady tide needing help.