Celebrating Survival

[ladyjanelly]

Anti-Privilege meme.

Yeah, I'm a little bitter.  Doing that meme made me realize how much it takes some people to feel they're in the privileged category.  

The meme is yes, a measure of privilege.

So here's the other side of the coin.  

I only had myself to base this thing on, and the few things I've heard from other people that I can think of at the moment.

Feel free to steal it and add to it.  Celebrate the strength it takes to survive.

(Bold if it's true)

 

 

I knew nobody but me would pay for my college

I’ve known the joy of a welfare Christmas

Someone besides my parents were the main providers of most non-necessary items

I thought Santa Claus hated me (or I was real bad), based on the gifts you got

I didn’t have the normal climate control for where I lived (A/C in the south, Heat in the north)

I didn’t have cable TV

I saw at least one of my parents use drugs

I saw at least one of my parents buy or sell drugs

My parents used food stamps to put food on the table

I remember living for more than a week without a necessary utility (gas, water, power)

My family was evicted or foreclosed on

My home suffered from a vermin infestation

I ate Lunch at school because it was free

I ate breakfast in the school lunch room, because it was free

 I was the oldest, and all my clothing was kept for younger siblings
I was not the oldest, and all my clothing was used

 

EDIT:

I knew nobody but me COULD pay for my college
I'm the first woman in 3 generations to not be pregnant by age 18.

Comments

[elmathelas.livejournal.com]

I didn't do the privledge meme, because in part it was never meant to be a meme on livejournal, it was meant to show college freshmen that most of them, despite what they've told themselves, have not been hard done by.

And I also didn't do it because imho it's meant to be humbling for the majority of people who take it, not to be like awww, yeah, look what I lived without.

It's also irritating, because no one who feels like they worked for what they have wants to have it thrown in their face that they've had their very foundations handed to them, even if in my case I did have my foundations laid for me by my parents. I'll admit that I'm only human and I like being petted on the head and told I've done good and worked hard in my life, something I hear most often from the parents who paved my road for me. But-- if my parents had done the privlidge meme, not one single thing would be bolded on either of theirs. Then again, very little from your version of the meme would be bolded either.

I'm enormously privlidged-- and to say that a lot of people would think that I grew up wealthy as wealthy is defined by television. To me wealth was defined by always having enough food, even if it wasn't the food we might have liked to have had at that moment (and not having what we wanted was rare-- I remember during one lean-ish time my mom asking my sister and I if we'd mind having something else for dinner other than chicken, so that the chicken we had left could be saved for my dad, and she looked so ashamed to have to ask. We were jazzed about getting to have toast and peanut butter for dinner because mmmm, toast, but I know I'm privlidged because it was odd enough that I do remember it happening and I remember the other times when my mom would have "already eaten" when serving dinner-- the fact that I remember means it was odd.) And always a place to live, a new jacket ever winter, boots that fit, heat that was on one way or another and knowing that if something horrible happened to my parents and they weren't there to take care of us there were always aunts and uncles and friends.

And, as with anything, even your meme is imprecise, even if it does, imho, hit the nail on the head a lot better. I saw my dad do drugs (pot, when he was practicing with his band) and all my clothes were saved for my sister, and we didn't have cable (there was no cable where we lived) but that was more to do with my parents being reformed hippies than any kind of hardship. And I surely have lived without power and running water for a week or three at a time, but when you chose to live in the woods you chose to be the last one on the power company's list for getting stuff turned back on after a blizzard or hurricaine. Woodstoves for the win.

Still, if I filled it out without commentary, the snapshot from that would be a far cry from the life I know I've lived. I don't like the privlidge meme on livejournal, because I think it's strayed from it's original intent, and what are people trying to prove by posting it?

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the privilege meme was really either a "You didn't work for what you are now" list or a "Look what you missed out on" list. Neither one feels good at all. Does a few things my grandparents paid for make up for the crap I lived with on a daily basis until I moved out of my house and in with the grandparents?

The funny thing is, I remember little lack of food in my childhood. Foodstamps go far when you're buying raw ingredients, no convenience food at all, and growing a huge garden all the time. It used to piss me off that whoever mom was married to or dating at the time got the lion's share of the best parts, but we always got some meat or whatever (when she wasn't with a vegetarian).

Heh. I didn't even think of power or water being off for utility-company reasons. I was thinking lack-of-payment reasons.

I posted the priviledge meme too, but it felt funny to do, and yeah, I have no idea what I was trying to prove. My commentary mostly points out that that thing isn't very accurate.

[hrh-anm.livejournal.com]

I think both memes are ok Janell...I think they are meant to get the reader thinking about themselves and their own situation. Though I was reading someone else's answers (yours), it really made me think about my own life as compared to yours. I like the memes and I think in most social settings it could/will stimulate interesting conversation.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

I think they work as food for thought, but the answers are so subjective. Like dreadful_birds says, what does all that privilege mean if your parents don't care if you live or die? What does any level of deprivation mean if you're really loved and cared for?

[elmathelas.livejournal.com]

The worst kind of poverty that I have to deal with as a nurse is people who can't get food stamps because they make too much money but don't have enough money to keep the heat on and buy food too.

I knew what the intent was on your meme-- which is a good one, by the way-- but the thing is that people can manipulate the answers without technically lying, if they've got a mind to.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, memes are supposed to be innocent fun, for the most part, and the privlidge meme leaving the classroom and heading for the internets didn't seem like such a hot idea.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

We never had to make that choice, partly because my mom planted a 50'X100' garden 3 times a year, and because we were in florida, and a year's worth of gas was like $150. We never had A/C at home until right before I moved out at 16.

The pot farm hidden in a secret room in the chicken coop helped ends meet a lot too. I remember when I was about 11. My real dad came to the house and bought drugs from my step-dad and barely nodded to me.

Memes are supposed to be innocent fun, and I think I didn't realize this one wasn't for me until I was already riled up.