It's the (Class and sort-of Race) Privilege Meme!

[omorka]

Interesting, although it fails to address gender privilege or orientation privilege at all. It's pretty much all class privilege, with a few nods to race privilege where it and class privilege intersect.

As well as responding here, please post links or acknowledgments to http://quakerclass.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-privilege-do-you-have.html

The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

If you post this in your blog, please leave a comment on this post. To participate in this blog game, copy and paste the above list into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your responses in the comments.


Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor (of my six immediate ancestors, four have/had doctorates of one sort or another, five have bachelors' degrees, and all six attended college for at least a little while)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home (Way, way more than that)
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 (Ballet, three years; western horseback riding, two summers)
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (Varies wildly; also conflicts with thin privilege, here)
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs. (I paid for most of my freshman year through merit scholarships. My parents paid for everything after that.)
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp (Two summers)
Had a private tutor before you turned 18. (Never needed one, and parents probably could have tutored me adequately even if I had, so not sure this one should count)
Family vacations involved staying at hotels (Gods, I wish.)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (Ditto previous comment.)
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child (Does Mom's own stained-glass stuff count?)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 (At MSMS)
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (Never needed one)
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College (Burned it for my teacher's certification courses)
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (No, but they did take us to national parks and monuments, and very occasionally to science museums)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family (Huh? Even the rich people I knew were shown their family's electrical bills. Maybe this is a generational thing?)

Comments

[brezhnev.livejournal.com]

Re the last point, money (including household finances) used to be something of a taboo, and probably still is to some extent. I guess the implication is that if the kids heard discussions of household finances, it was more of a grave concern.

Anyway, my folks were highly literate but starving students, and could barely rub two nickels together for the first half of my youth, and weren't exactly loaded the other half. Still I'm scoring fairly high here. My dad did linoleum engraving -- that's original art! And we went to San Antonio once and stayed in the Burkhart Motel -- the place was such a fleabag that I grin thinking about it, but it counts, right? My mom read to me -- where's that silver spoon, dang it?

Anyway, if I have the good fortune to have kids some day, I'm NOT getting them a car before they graduate high school, and then they'd better be happy with a hand-me-down! I wonder if we'll have those hovercars by then though... And live in underwater cities... And be on the metric system...

[omorka.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is that you had class but no money. This is actually more common than the people who lump it all together as "socioeconomic status" would like to admit. Back in the more primitive parts of the South, people were more than happy to identify who had Old Blood and Old Money, Old Blood and New Money, Old Blood and No Money, or New Blood and New Money. (New Blood and Old Money did occur but was rare.)

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. My family had multiple degrees, but no money. Then again: I have money far beyond what my folks had when I was a child.