The “Aggrieved Kids Write” Genre | Clarissa's Blog
If you inherit two generations of fairly extreme war trauma, unmitigated by any social security system or other social niceties, are you "privileged"? Situationally, I'm sure I was privileged, there probably isn't any doubt about it. But psychologically, I was never in anything but an extremely dire state, especially after about the age of 12, when our historical circumstances took a turn for the worse. So I had to bring MYSELF up, effectively, whilst defending against a raging parent and a world raging against the perceived or actual excesses of my former nation. And on top of all of this, people kept saying it was a gender thing, that all these hidden circumstances were related to my condition of being female, which they hinted was a relatively deficient state.
But outwardly, I am the QUINTESSENTIALLY privileged person, because I seem to have been born in circumstances that most people would not have been able to have experienced.
I find the whole talk and assumption-making about what is or isn't privileged to be entirely deficient on the basis of my experiences. Of course, if one's calculations are based on something more solid that a few, scant facts, one might get closer to a very, very, schematic picture of broad-based privilege -- who has it and who doesn't.
But failing the ability to generate such a wonderful way of reading and understanding everyone in the word effortlessly, one may have to actually talk to people.
If you inherit two generations of fairly extreme war trauma, unmitigated by any social security system or other social niceties, are you "privileged"? Situationally, I'm sure I was privileged, there probably isn't any doubt about it. But psychologically, I was never in anything but an extremely dire state, especially after about the age of 12, when our historical circumstances took a turn for the worse. So I had to bring MYSELF up, effectively, whilst defending against a raging parent and a world raging against the perceived or actual excesses of my former nation. And on top of all of this, people kept saying it was a gender thing, that all these hidden circumstances were related to my condition of being female, which they hinted was a relatively deficient state.
But outwardly, I am the QUINTESSENTIALLY privileged person, because I seem to have been born in circumstances that most people would not have been able to have experienced.
I find the whole talk and assumption-making about what is or isn't privileged to be entirely deficient on the basis of my experiences. Of course, if one's calculations are based on something more solid that a few, scant facts, one might get closer to a very, very, schematic picture of broad-based privilege -- who has it and who doesn't.
But failing the ability to generate such a wonderful way of reading and understanding everyone in the word effortlessly, one may have to actually talk to people.
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