Posts reading questions for week 4

During the exercise, the privileges and disadvantages that stood out to me where when you said if our parents ever told us we are beautiful, smart, and are able to chase our dreams, family having or owning 50 books, using a public restroom without having any thoughts of fear in them, walking alone at night, and having to skip meals because your family could not afford it. All of those I found to be pretty interesting because it lead and showed me the advantages and disadvantages that I had and didn’t have it. It also lead me to believe that there are certain advantages that I take for granted because I have those privileges while others do not. Although I did find the family owning 50 books and family having to skip meals because they not afford it to be troublesome because they applied to me. Back then, my family, especially from my dad’s side, could not afford to buy books for themselves let alone sometimes buy lunch at school and I know some relatives before who had a hard time feeding their family because they just could not afford it. I think the idea of structural privilege challenges the notion of meritocracy because meritocracy is a group of people or individuals who work hard and are rewarded by it rather than by their status in society or by power and if someone let’s say gets a better promotion at work then you because of their wealth or by their gender, then not only is it unfair, but it puts those who work really hard on the bottom of the food chain and those who didn’t on the top. Like I don’t really know how to describe it but I think the idea of structural idea makes people work harder. Like you said about the analogy of the video game, those who have the most materials or weapons start off easy compared to those who don’t have anything and have to work hard to get them. I think Jon Scalzi’s posts about “Straight White Male” and the analogy he uses helps understand structural privilege because in his blog, he explains how in the video game or in real life, straight white men have a better chance of gaining access to parts of the map as suppose to those who aren’t straight or who aren’t men. For example, he says “if you choose a to be a player who is a gay minority female, then that’s hardcore” because you get less privileges then the men and have to work a little bit harder than them. I think this is similar to the McIntosh piece because in some ways, both the reading and the blog talk about the advantages of what it’s like to be white.

 

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