LogFAQs > #909049759

I mean it's not something I'm always thinking about. But I grew up in a upper-class house hold, in a affluent suburb in the only part of Kansas with good public schools. My dad was a CEO before he retired and made more than enough money to make sure our family of six was well-supported to so my mom could stop working and raise my three brothers and I. My parents paid for my college on the condition that I worked the entire time and maintained a 3.5 GPA so I was able to graduate without any college debt.

That essentially set up the rest of my life. That isn't to say I didn't work hard to get what I have. That isn't to say I don't deserve what I have or that I feel bad for what I have, but I do acknowledge that I had a lot of things help me get there, things that I didn't earn but was born into. And thus my journey to this point of my life is very different than my black room mate who never knew his dad or my coworker who grew up in a poor farming household and had her parent go through a very toxic divorce.

And it's not just white privilege. Economic privilege is just as prominent. But those two are rather intrinsically linked. For instance, my dad also grew up upper class as my grandfather was a successful banker. But my grandpa himself grew up poor, very poor. He lacked any real economic privilege. But he served in the Korean war and the went to Washington University in St Louis, a fairly esteemed private university, on the GI Bill. That same university finally desegregated the year before the Korean War ended. He very likely would not have gone to the same university if he wasn't white and his college education essentially set up his career and life and by extension my dad's life. Again that isn't to say my grandpa didn't work hard. He did he worked full time throughout college to support his wife and kids while going to college, but him being white offered him an opportunity he wouldn't have otherwise had and the generational impacts are still being felt today.

Privilege isn't about being sorry for being white, financially well-off, attractive, able-bodied, or whatever. Just recognizing that there are aspects of your life that do to nothing you could control, gave you an advantage here and there.
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S*** I have to stop doing that," Gheb said, as he lay back down and died again. - Forgotten Love
Chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl