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Oct. 20th, 2010 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spryngI've not been one for deep thoughts as of late. At least, not on the LJ end of things. Truth is, I leave those deep thoughts for others who can often much better articulate things than I can.
Case in point; John Scalzi made an excellent post a day or so ago about the things he doesn't have to think about on a daily basis as a relatively well-off, straight, able white male. As with the 150 monkeys rule1, I think it's very, very important to take a step away from the intricacies and dramas of your own life to recognize that, while we are all often much more similar to one another than one might expect, the way each person experiences life can be very different. And oftentimes, this is a by-product of society's expectation that you are a well-off, straight, able white male. So if you are one of those in that relatively small percentage of the population, congratulations, you're privileged in that you don't even notice your privileged.
So yeah, I may have to worry and stumble over describing my home life to any new friends or potential friends - or even strangers, like when explaining why I moved from WA to AZ to the insurance company of all people -, or carefully avoid conversations about religion with people I don't know well, or give a quick glance around to make sure the area is clear before giving Lady a peck on the cheek, or even have to decide whether or not I really want to deal with the ridicule that comes with outing myself as a vegetarian (of all things, people!), there are so many, many privileges that just come with being able-bodied, visibly white and visibly well-off that I can't even possibly know them all.
And Scalzi does a pretty good job at at least scraping that surface.
There are all these many, many things that shape the lives and experiences of the people around you, daily. Little things. Innocuous things. But they're there, none the less, and they build up. So maybe you don't have to think about some of them, maybe you're privileged like me.
I certainly don't have to think daily about the looks I might get boarding a bus late at night, about how people will scoff at how I say I can't do something because my disease is invisible but debilitating, about hearing - yet again - the assumptions made by politicians between my ethnicity and my immigration status, about being told that by practicing my religion I'm in fact a terrorist, and on and on and on.
I don't, but - taking a page out of Scalzi's blog post - I'm going to.
1 - 150 monkey rule is technically Dunbar's Number, wherein it has been theorized that humans can only maintain a social network of <150 people at a time. This helps to explain why at times we are incapable of remembering that that person ahead of us in the check-out line is, in fact, another human being with just as many complexities and personal problems and relations as we have. Instead, we just get ridiculously furious with them for taking too long to count change. Nevermind the cashier themselves, who will soon bear the brunt of your pent up anger.
Case in point; John Scalzi made an excellent post a day or so ago about the things he doesn't have to think about on a daily basis as a relatively well-off, straight, able white male. As with the 150 monkeys rule1, I think it's very, very important to take a step away from the intricacies and dramas of your own life to recognize that, while we are all often much more similar to one another than one might expect, the way each person experiences life can be very different. And oftentimes, this is a by-product of society's expectation that you are a well-off, straight, able white male. So if you are one of those in that relatively small percentage of the population, congratulations, you're privileged in that you don't even notice your privileged.
So yeah, I may have to worry and stumble over describing my home life to any new friends or potential friends - or even strangers, like when explaining why I moved from WA to AZ to the insurance company of all people -, or carefully avoid conversations about religion with people I don't know well, or give a quick glance around to make sure the area is clear before giving Lady a peck on the cheek, or even have to decide whether or not I really want to deal with the ridicule that comes with outing myself as a vegetarian (of all things, people!), there are so many, many privileges that just come with being able-bodied, visibly white and visibly well-off that I can't even possibly know them all.
And Scalzi does a pretty good job at at least scraping that surface.
There are all these many, many things that shape the lives and experiences of the people around you, daily. Little things. Innocuous things. But they're there, none the less, and they build up. So maybe you don't have to think about some of them, maybe you're privileged like me.
I certainly don't have to think daily about the looks I might get boarding a bus late at night, about how people will scoff at how I say I can't do something because my disease is invisible but debilitating, about hearing - yet again - the assumptions made by politicians between my ethnicity and my immigration status, about being told that by practicing my religion I'm in fact a terrorist, and on and on and on.
I don't, but - taking a page out of Scalzi's blog post - I'm going to.
1 - 150 monkey rule is technically Dunbar's Number, wherein it has been theorized that humans can only maintain a social network of <150 people at a time. This helps to explain why at times we are incapable of remembering that that person ahead of us in the check-out line is, in fact, another human being with just as many complexities and personal problems and relations as we have. Instead, we just get ridiculously furious with them for taking too long to count change. Nevermind the cashier themselves, who will soon bear the brunt of your pent up anger.
