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Top-level
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. 4 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. |
Gregory's Server
Another thing is that seems surreal is, given how I see privilege call-outs used IRL in the progressive spaces I'm in (Recurse Center, companies, etc.), privilege call-outs are generally punching down (https://twitter.com/altluu/status/1480701266695102465), often comically so, e.g., I've repeatedly seen people from the U.S. call out immigrants who grew up on < $1k/yr annual household income, but I've yet to see the opposite.
And that doesn't even get into the difficult of learning English as a second language, etc.
Another thing is that seems surreal is, given how I see privilege call-outs used IRL in the progressive spaces I'm in (Recurse Center, companies, etc.), privilege call-outs are generally punching down (https://twitter.com/altluu/status/1480701266695102465), often comically so, e.g., I've repeatedly seen people from the U.S. call out immigrants who grew up on < $1k/yr annual household income, but I've yet to see the opposite.