Thought of a new shorthand to explain privilege

[gaudior]

Okay, you remember how life was hard before the pandemic? Like, maybe you had problems with relationships, or money, or health, or career, or raising kids? It wasn't easy. It might not even have been something you felt like you were able to cope with.

And then there was a pandemic. And on top of that, everything was suddenly much harder?

Being in an oppressed group is like being in a pandemic. Your experience depends a lot on other aspects of your life, and some people might have it much better or worse than others. Some people's lives in a pandemic are even comparatively easier than other people's lives not in a pandemic! But the pandemic is still something that overlies all sorts of areas of your life, and affects them, and makes them harder than they would be if there were no pandemic.

Having privilege doesn't mean your life is easy, or that everyone who has it is better off than everyone who doesn't. It just means... you're not in a pandemic. You don't have this other huge thing to deal with on top of the things you're already dealing with.

--R

Comments

[lilysea]

The way I think of it is, my life is very hard from being
a woman
chronically ill
a wheelchair user
fat

and it would be easier if I was
a man
able bodied
thin

but it would be EVEN HARDER THAN IT IS NOW if
I was a Black woman who was also
chronically ill
a wheelchair user
fat

[rachelmanija]

Yes, I also think of it this way. I think of how horribly treated I am by doctors, and then imagine if I was also Black! That one doctor who literally screamed at me and said "You're a liar and I want nothing to do with you" would probably be ALL the doctors.

[lilysea]

Yes, I also think of it this way. I think of how horribly treated I am by doctors, and then imagine if I was also Black! That one doctor who literally screamed at me and said "You're a liar and I want nothing to do with you" would probably be ALL the doctors.

I've been actively told by so, so many Drs "you just need to exercise and lose weight" "it's not like you're REALLY Disabled, like an amputee" when I was suffering from exhaustion so bad I struggled to walk to the toilet without faceplanting on the carpet; or in such physical pain that I was sobbing myself to sleep.

but there have been [multiple] media stories here of Aboriginal women who were sent home from hospital with paracetamol/acetaminophen when they were dying from eg a massive bacterial infection and needed intravenous antibiotics - stories that hit the media when there was an inquest into their deaths and the hospital officially denied to the inquest, yet again, that their treatment decisions were motivated by racial bias.

So, it's sort of like - if you're a fat white woman who is a wheelchair user, 95% of doctors will brush you off and ignore your pain and fatigue, no matter how profoundly disabling your pain and fatigue are.

But if you're an Aboriginal woman, hospital emergency departments will actually send you home to die with a completely treatable medical emergency.

Being a white woman = Drs thinking your profound Disability can be ignored/dismissed.

Being an Aboriginal woman = Drs thinking a genuine risk of you DYING can be ignored/dismissed.

[cynthia1960]

+1000

[kore]

I've had agoraphobia and been disabled for a veeeery long time, and it's....often discomfiting to hear people talk about how UNBEARABLE their current lives are now (can't go out shopping! can't see friends! can't go to movies! &c &c &c) when that's....been my reality for a long long time. And yeah, I get the feeling that a LOT of people who are not used to thinking of their lives as limited (because if they're white, permanently employed, fairly well-off, &c &c, why should they) are running up against it hard, and maybe it'll be a Teachable Moment. But my fear is that a slim minority of people will be able to go back to life pretty much as they enjoyed it before, and the rest of us will be left reeling. I dunno. Some of the stats already coming out about possible long-term damage by the plague from inflammation, cognitive and physical, look really daunting. There may be a lot more disabled and unprivileged people in the US in the future.

I guess the mask wars shouldn't have surprised me because I've seen rancid arguments over wearing seatbelts and curb cuts in my time, and those also benefit everybody, but that wasn't with the force of a PANDEMIC behind the argument (and not only that, a pandemic that the government seems not only to be ignoring but in some cases hastening along....?). But it's like, no really! If we take care of each other to some extent, everyone benefits! Dog-eat-dog does not work as a social guide!

[kore]

Also, that brings to mind how hard certain populations are getting smashed by this pandemic -- Blacks, Hispanic, the poor, people who are poor and Black &c &c -- and how completely that maps onto both privilege and discrimination in a lot of ways. Like how everyone was panicking in Manhattan, and fleeing, but the Bronx was the area that got hurt the worst.

[cynthia1960]

The highest incidences of COVID in Santa Clara County are in the ZIP codes that have the highest Hispanic populations, funny that huh?