Owning it (meme from two different friends in different circles)

[greensinger]

First and foremost: There's a plan on the table right now to open up 2.5 million acres of preserved forest in western Oregon to logging, including some of the largest tracts of old growth left in the country. The public comment period for this Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR, or as we're calling it, whopper) is the 11th. Read more and COMMENT!

Comments

[kira_dancing]

This is a fun one for me (you know, in a sick kind of way) because my social class changed abruptly (downward) when I was nine or ten. However, the privilege I had early on had a HUGE impact on what was possible for me later. I didn't have college paid for, or SAT prep courses, or clothes that didn't come from the Salvation Army, but I did have educated parents who read to me and taught me and valued books. And from that base, I was able to do well enough academically to get a scholarship to a private high school, which gave me the opportunity to get scholarships to a private (prIVYate) university. So, the basic privilege I had in the beginning of my childhood (plus, being white forever) was enough to give me a ticket into the middle class.

And yeah, hard work, etc. Unlike many of my classmates I had to have jobs all through college, which theoretically gave them advantages over me, and I now have loans that no one's going to help me pay back, which limits my options right now, but as far as privilege goes, I call that quibbling. (Partly 'cause I like the word 'quibbling') On the other hand if I'd had cancer as a child without health insurance, I'd be dead now, which is pretty much a deprived state by definition.

Dear lord I got lots to say about privilege. But I should save it for my own journal and not overwhelm this one... Suffice it to say, I think I got a lot of it.