i 'gakked' this from Seperis...
(i believe that's the term used here.) The 'College-Entry, Make-'em-think, Privilege Meme'. To read more on the context of this thing, please go to the original blog that had it:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/549293.html?format=light&style=mine
and to Seperis' blog for ensuing debate.
http://seperis.livejournal.com/549744.html?style=mine#cutid1
the counter-meme (which points out that pretty much everyone in the west is privileged on some level, whether you got a Lexus from your parents before you graduated HS or not), is here:
http://pjammer.livejournal.com/187289.html
***
To borrow the more important contextual bits from the original post, with credit to Siderea: "The meme in question was based on a game for college students, in particular frosh, to broaden their awareness and get them to drop some of their assumptions that everyone in the classroom had the same perspective and background.
Privilege is a big topic, and there are many, many kinds of privilege. This particular exercise is focusing only on that which might directly pertain to the topic of "what privileges might have effected what it took for you to get to be here in this classroom right now".
As such, in the original exercise (but missing from the blog game at the above link), the condition is explicitly included that all the terms are to be evaluated at the time you went to college. That is, had your father finished college when you started college."
***
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.
To participate, copy and paste the list (below) into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you. (comments added in italics)
Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
(both tried to stay in, paying their own way, but couldn't make rent and had to drop out. i was the first in our nuclear family to go and graduate--only, actually, at least thus far, though via the Navy, the bro has gone to tech school of a sort.)
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
(i have an aunt who's an RN, and my paternal grandfather was an engineer. paternal grandmother was a court reporter and maternal grandmother was an architect. maternal grandfather was a cop, though, after he left the Navy. not sure how my parents ended up as house-cleaner and construction worker, LOL. life's funny sometimes.)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
(yes, and they were all mine, LOL)
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
(probably for a while, but I was pretty much reading for myself by around three, so... *shrug*. I made sure to read to my li'l brother, though)
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
(if this pertains to music, i did the accordian thing briefly. Mom's idea, and yup, Weird Al is my hero! and thanks, Mom!)
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
(not private lessons. had those only one year. did learn bass clarinet in band class, though. Such as it was. There were, like, ten of us, and we never played in public except i think at one pep rally a year.
What i wish is that we had had drama class and AP classes and actual MUSIC classes available there.)
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
(I really don't pay attention. unless you mean war-protesters, LOL, in which case...it depends on the mood of the county/state/nation)
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
(the federal government pretended to pay for some of my college costs, and i worked my ass off for the rest; still do for that matter. *eyes the prospect of further debt in exchange for grad school with some uncertainty*)
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
(i didn't know people DID this till i went to college. we couldn't go anywhere. we had livestock to take care of! them horsies and piggies don't feed themselves!)
Your clothing was bought new before you turned 18.
(well...it was new to me. i still love shopping thrift. you find the damnest stuff in there!)
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
(uh...mine...)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
(Not sure if this is asking about just a phone, or your own phone LINE. so i'll say: yes; had a phone in there, but i never used it for my own reasons. i had it because it was a Garfield phone and i loved how his eyes opened when i answered...and i had to listen for it for Mom while she was gone so she didn't miss house-cleaning jobs. we had only one phone line for the house, though)
You and your family lived in a single family house
(or trailer, LOL)
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
(we built our own home. It started out as a cabin, but Dad kept adding lumber whenever we had spare money. Therefore it has no internal logic--much less a blueprint--and now they can't seem to sell the damn thing, LOL. but when i went to college, it only looked finished on the outside. inside it had non-working toilets and missing walls. *shakes head* Classic case of incorrectly apportioned focus, that.)
You had your own room as a child
(after we moved out of the trailer and started building the cabin, anyway. there wasn't a physical wall in between my room and my brother's for most of that time...but the theory still stands.)
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
(dude, they didn't even have AP courses at my HS)
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
(at damn near thirty, i still don't know what those are)
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
(gramma occasionally paid for us to come down and visit)
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and/or art galleries as you grew up
(did a few field trips in school... we lived too far from Town to go in for things like that. LOL, my Dad hated going in to Boise. we were lucky if we got to go anywhere but the usual round of 'grocery store, propane store, gas station, home'.)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.
(we had woodstoves. i knew how much it cost to supply the fuel and hydraulic fluid each year for the wood-splitter my dad concocted, though)
and you are right, Seperis. i don't doubt that this sort of thing is a higher priority than museum trips! we didn't have computers/the internet in our house either, and i grew up happier for it, methinks.
funny how it now rules my life, LOL
This was often a very equivocal exercise. i find myself ambivalent as to its value. it left me feeling a bit soiled, actually.
However the POV it highlights is quite educational.
http://siderea.livejournal.com/549293.html?format=light&style=mine
and to Seperis' blog for ensuing debate.
http://seperis.livejournal.com/549744.html?style=mine#cutid1
the counter-meme (which points out that pretty much everyone in the west is privileged on some level, whether you got a Lexus from your parents before you graduated HS or not), is here:
http://pjammer.livejournal.com/187289.html
***
To borrow the more important contextual bits from the original post, with credit to Siderea: "The meme in question was based on a game for college students, in particular frosh, to broaden their awareness and get them to drop some of their assumptions that everyone in the classroom had the same perspective and background.
Privilege is a big topic, and there are many, many kinds of privilege. This particular exercise is focusing only on that which might directly pertain to the topic of "what privileges might have effected what it took for you to get to be here in this classroom right now".
As such, in the original exercise (but missing from the blog game at the above link), the condition is explicitly included that all the terms are to be evaluated at the time you went to college. That is, had your father finished college when you started college."
***
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.
To participate, copy and paste the list (below) into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you. (comments added in italics)
Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
(both tried to stay in, paying their own way, but couldn't make rent and had to drop out. i was the first in our nuclear family to go and graduate--only, actually, at least thus far, though via the Navy, the bro has gone to tech school of a sort.)
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
(i have an aunt who's an RN, and my paternal grandfather was an engineer. paternal grandmother was a court reporter and maternal grandmother was an architect. maternal grandfather was a cop, though, after he left the Navy. not sure how my parents ended up as house-cleaner and construction worker, LOL. life's funny sometimes.)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
(yes, and they were all mine, LOL)
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
(probably for a while, but I was pretty much reading for myself by around three, so... *shrug*. I made sure to read to my li'l brother, though)
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
(if this pertains to music, i did the accordian thing briefly. Mom's idea, and yup, Weird Al is my hero! and thanks, Mom!)
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
(not private lessons. had those only one year. did learn bass clarinet in band class, though. Such as it was. There were, like, ten of us, and we never played in public except i think at one pep rally a year.
What i wish is that we had had drama class and AP classes and actual MUSIC classes available there.)
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
(I really don't pay attention. unless you mean war-protesters, LOL, in which case...it depends on the mood of the county/state/nation)
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
(the federal government pretended to pay for some of my college costs, and i worked my ass off for the rest; still do for that matter. *eyes the prospect of further debt in exchange for grad school with some uncertainty*)
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
(i didn't know people DID this till i went to college. we couldn't go anywhere. we had livestock to take care of! them horsies and piggies don't feed themselves!)
Your clothing was bought new before you turned 18.
(well...it was new to me. i still love shopping thrift. you find the damnest stuff in there!)
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
(uh...mine...)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
(Not sure if this is asking about just a phone, or your own phone LINE. so i'll say: yes; had a phone in there, but i never used it for my own reasons. i had it because it was a Garfield phone and i loved how his eyes opened when i answered...and i had to listen for it for Mom while she was gone so she didn't miss house-cleaning jobs. we had only one phone line for the house, though)
You and your family lived in a single family house
(or trailer, LOL)
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
(we built our own home. It started out as a cabin, but Dad kept adding lumber whenever we had spare money. Therefore it has no internal logic--much less a blueprint--and now they can't seem to sell the damn thing, LOL. but when i went to college, it only looked finished on the outside. inside it had non-working toilets and missing walls. *shakes head* Classic case of incorrectly apportioned focus, that.)
You had your own room as a child
(after we moved out of the trailer and started building the cabin, anyway. there wasn't a physical wall in between my room and my brother's for most of that time...but the theory still stands.)
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
(dude, they didn't even have AP courses at my HS)
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
(at damn near thirty, i still don't know what those are)
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
(gramma occasionally paid for us to come down and visit)
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and/or art galleries as you grew up
(did a few field trips in school... we lived too far from Town to go in for things like that. LOL, my Dad hated going in to Boise. we were lucky if we got to go anywhere but the usual round of 'grocery store, propane store, gas station, home'.)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.
(we had woodstoves. i knew how much it cost to supply the fuel and hydraulic fluid each year for the wood-splitter my dad concocted, though)
and you are right, Seperis. i don't doubt that this sort of thing is a higher priority than museum trips! we didn't have computers/the internet in our house either, and i grew up happier for it, methinks.
funny how it now rules my life, LOL
This was often a very equivocal exercise. i find myself ambivalent as to its value. it left me feeling a bit soiled, actually.
However the POV it highlights is quite educational.