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I came to much the same conclusions a long time ago when I noticed that wealth, connections, and even geographical proximity to seats of power were never actually a part of any meaningful conversation on privilege. Which ultimately is nonsense — not because there’s no such things as racism and sexism, but that the oppression created by those things pales in comparison to wealth. And I think it can be pointed out quite simply by pointing to the minority or female children of rich adults. I think it’s actually easier to find success as the son of a black rich and famous person than it would be to find success as a working class white guy from Georgia.
And it really shows up in all sorts of ways. The “right” schools on your resume. The “right” sorts of clubs and experiences and volunteer opportunities. The right sorts of unpaid internships. And access to those things are almost always behind steep paywalls. Volunteering especially the kind that high end colleges seem to like (starting a charity yourself or going abroad) tend to be both time and money intensive. If you have to work as a teen for any reason, your application is not the right kind for elite schools. Likewise sports. The number of children in the pay for play college scandal who were given scholarships for obscure sports that really only the rich actually play was ridiculous. The median student has never been on a rowing team. Even after getting into school, having a good resume means study abroad programs and unpaid internships. Except those can be hard for students who cannot afford to not work while at school. So it’s like the joke about underpasses — yes it’s equally illegal for Elon Musk and a homeless guy to sleep under a bridge. But Elon musk doesn’t sleep under bridges. It’s equally important for both of us to getting into high paying jobs that we spend our time building a resume and reputation and network, but I need to work my way through school and you don’t. Well, who’s going to have an easier time making it?
Everything in America from health, to opportunities, to education and a million other things are dependent on having money. And it’s the one privilege that’s carefully rendered invisible under a deluge of talk about race, gender, and sexuality.
Don't they? I feel like they talk about it a lot. A lot of the people talking about privilege are also ardent socialists. At least in the sense of being a Limousine liberal, so maybe they don't do anything about it, but they certainly talk about the power of money.
Certainly people talk about "Billionaires" all the time. But below that? Not so much. And yeah, sometimes you'll see it targeted specifically at certain (usually outgroup) people...but generally this isn't something that's challenged, outside of an extreme minority of targets. I don't think this has always been the case, or is always the case, but I think there's a lack of awareness that the socialism different people envision might not be the same thing. Some people might truly envision a prioritizing of the working class, while others see shifting power and control to the managerial/professional classes.
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