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BTW, I consider myself extremely lucky to have grown up in the U.S., but poor enough that I have crooked teeth, lightheaded from hunger often enough that I had standard strategies for dealing with it, malnourished enough that I once broke my collarbone from from gently rolling off the couch onto the floor, in an abusive home where I was regularly beaten, etc. I definitely had better opportunities than the p99 person in Vietnam and likely even p99.9. 6 comments | Expand all CWs
@danluu I mean, having the time to call out people is a privilege within itself. I'd guess immigrants growing up on a low household income don't have the time to punch up. There's been a lot of times in Canada my parents have been wronged, but they're too busy trying to survive to shift some of their focus on "punching up" and getting justice (whatever it may be). (child of Egyptian immigrants, we all became naturalized Canadian citizens) @danluu I do wonder where you get your data for that statement. A rich Vietnamese has something like 10 years higher life expectancy than a poor American. What you describe may have been true when your family migrated and you grew up, but by now things are both better in Vietnam and worse in the USA. Also, what exactly is you family/migration story? You have hinted at it a few times, but I'm left filling in guesses. Having spent some time in Afghanistan definitely recalibrated my very American understanding of poverty and difficulty.  @danluu the compounding effects from wealth just seem insane. You go to the right school and have time and resources to study the right thing, which gets you into the next right school, which lets you make friends with the right person, who happens to know someone with an opportunity and so on and so forth |
Gregory's Server
One thing that feels surreal is that someone who's p99.9 privilege in Vietnam is really at the bottom of the barrel in terms of privilege for someone who grew up in the U.S.
It boggles my mind how much of a leg up the median successful American got.
Sure, it would've been nice to have an easier childhood but, by comparison to almost anywhere in the world, my life has been on extreme easy mode despite being considered highly disadvantaged by U.S. standards.