On Privilege, or Not
Rebecca Solnit shared this on her social media with the commentary that while it overlooks immigration and language status, it is "more complex" than many other such break-downs; the original poster, Tanya Taylor Rubinstein, noted it was "humbling" to read.
I did this mentally and came out 2 "ahead" because of the race-based questions. (Hey-o, white privilege.) What struck me thinking about it was how low that is for someone of my current socioeconomic station--I'm a tenured prof at a major university. I beat the system as it were.
And yet. It also kind of underscores how alone I have often felt and do feel on both sides of the equation: the family members that will both congratulate and knock me down for my phd, for instance; the people I have talked to who assume because of my status I don't what "the real world" is like (and I have gotten that from both other academics and other working-class folks, because how could *I* possibly know except for that's my background); the people I know from grad school who literally stopped talking to me and/or dropped me from their social media because me getting a job "better" than theirs was a symbol of how I really wasn't a member of the working class, etc. etc. And that doesn't touch on the professional-based stuff where a lot of people assume because I'm a librarian and in a woman-dominated profession I have it "easier" when I'm in the rare books field which is filled with old dudes and all the ick that entails (except for the current job where, on the contrary, our unit is heavily women AND we have 2 BIPOC AND we're mostly young-ish). And then the flip-side when I've hung out with other people at even higher institutions who may as well live on different planets, with the expectation/lived reality that is research trips in Italy for months at a time and such like, and WHAT EVEN IS THAT.
TL:DR I guess this is what middle-class life is like and sometimes it's unexpectedly exhausting?
Like, habits I have yet to break:
Rationalizing to myself when I want to buy something I want, can afford, I still categorize as "luxury": books, music, food take-out, etc.
The constant feeling of "faking it" when interacting with people.
The impostor syndrome inherent to being in academia period.
The guilt of being a millennial who actually managed to do some upwards mobility.
The guilt-trips/shame my family is really good at bringing out period.
Anyhow I feel like I belong nowhere and am uncomfortable anywhere, and also race and sex and class are all bullshit and we should just Star Trek already, please.
I did this mentally and came out 2 "ahead" because of the race-based questions. (Hey-o, white privilege.) What struck me thinking about it was how low that is for someone of my current socioeconomic station--I'm a tenured prof at a major university. I beat the system as it were.
And yet. It also kind of underscores how alone I have often felt and do feel on both sides of the equation: the family members that will both congratulate and knock me down for my phd, for instance; the people I have talked to who assume because of my status I don't what "the real world" is like (and I have gotten that from both other academics and other working-class folks, because how could *I* possibly know except for that's my background); the people I know from grad school who literally stopped talking to me and/or dropped me from their social media because me getting a job "better" than theirs was a symbol of how I really wasn't a member of the working class, etc. etc. And that doesn't touch on the professional-based stuff where a lot of people assume because I'm a librarian and in a woman-dominated profession I have it "easier" when I'm in the rare books field which is filled with old dudes and all the ick that entails (except for the current job where, on the contrary, our unit is heavily women AND we have 2 BIPOC AND we're mostly young-ish). And then the flip-side when I've hung out with other people at even higher institutions who may as well live on different planets, with the expectation/lived reality that is research trips in Italy for months at a time and such like, and WHAT EVEN IS THAT.
TL:DR I guess this is what middle-class life is like and sometimes it's unexpectedly exhausting?
Like, habits I have yet to break:
Rationalizing to myself when I want to buy something I want, can afford, I still categorize as "luxury": books, music, food take-out, etc.
The constant feeling of "faking it" when interacting with people.
The impostor syndrome inherent to being in academia period.
The guilt of being a millennial who actually managed to do some upwards mobility.
The guilt-trips/shame my family is really good at bringing out period.
Anyhow I feel like I belong nowhere and am uncomfortable anywhere, and also race and sex and class are all bullshit and we should just Star Trek already, please.