waaah wrote:
Did you live in a neighborhood that was unsafe and had lots of violence? Did you ever go hungry? Did you wear hand-me-down clothes that were aged and/or tattered to school? Did you have to live in government housing and get free lunches at school?
Your parents may not have been much vested in you but you probably had it a heckuva lot easier than other kids that didn't have 2 parents with PhDs.
Society CAN fix a lot of the issues that come from growing up poor. Why shouldn't we try to make life fair as possible?
This is all obviously true, but using the word "privilege" to describe these differences is a bit of semantic sleight of hand. No question that not having enough to eat, being evicted on a semi-regular basis, being surrounded by kids who don't study and are into bad stuff, etc., are all disadvantages. I don't think most people consider the lack of those things to be a "privilege."
When people on the left talk about privilege, there are a lot of things getting tossed in there that should probably be treated distinctly. For instance, I don't think the following things are all identical in their moral implications: Straight up bribes, legacy admissions, test prep, private school, good public schools, good charter schools, tutors, parents who have intellectually substantive conversations with their kids, summer camp, the confidence from being around successful and articulate people on a regular basis, the assumption of competence people give you because of the color of your skin and your attire (the latter, of course, can be exacerbated by the extreme effect of affirmative action).