Another thing about unspoken assumptions

[jhetley]

That list sets the "privilege" bar in some funny places.  For one thing, it assumes you have a home.  I can guarantee you that is not a given, even in the USA, and represents a major form of privilege in itself.

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

What list?

*is under-caffeinated and easily confused*

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Oh, a list of "privilege" signs that is going around LJ, with questions like whether your parents attended college and graduated. To me, it reads as if a '60s campus radical had cooked it up to embarrass a particular audience, not asking if you had access to medical care, for example, but whether you are related to a doctor.

An example would be http://prophet-marcus.livejournal.com/103816.html

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Ah. I see.

[wolfette]

Unless you're "homeless", having a "home" is more common than not. Even if it's rented, or a mobile trailer, it's a "home".

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

A fair percentage of my architectural work involves "affordable" housing -- the local homeless shelter, transitional housing, subsidized apartments, group homes. I think that meme sets a peculiar base level for their measure of "privilege." They assume shelter, heat, safe drinking water, reliable food, access to medical care. Based on what I've seen, those reflect privilege. A lot of people in Maine lack one or more. Worldwide, that baseline is much rarer.

[ailbhe]

The list was originally used *in a university classroom*. In that context, the questions make a lot more sense.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The problem is, even in that context, it works parents reading to their kids on the same level as parents giving new cars to their kids...

Deeper problem -- "privilege" is a loaded term in this usage. We sneer at "privileged" people. That's Bush Junior.