Tuesday, March 3, 2009

When Privilege Smacks You in the Face

Here I am, an immigrant who struggled to perfect my English so that I'd be accepted. I'm a woman who has trouble taking orders from anybody, but especially men. I have more debt than I feel comfortable admitting to. I did not grow up wealthy (AT ALL). I know what gunshots sound like in real life. The only thing I've ever (co)owned is the car my guy and I bought from his father for $1,000 that was just stolen.

And yet...

I order food at work a few times every month. And my delivery guy is always a Latino who doesn't really speak English. And I get annoyed when they're late or make me leave my desk to sign for the food. And I feel guilty because I don't have any cash and just realized that the tip I put on my card when I placed the order is not enough for a roundtrip MetroCard. And I feel disgusted until the next time I get hungry and inevitably do it all over again.

I really need to start bringing cash to work...

5 comments:

Mächtige Maus said...

I appreciate that perspective moment you just gave us. I have a massive amount of debt now caused by some poor decisions in the past several years and the credit card I used to get me through the day. Even so, I still have my entire head above water rather than only my nose or just bobbing.

Anonymous said...

How come you have a hard time with especially male authority?

sally said...

Bj0rnborg, the short answer is because growing up the men in my family were unfair and sometimes cruel in their attempts at keeping their own authority. I've got two sisters and a strong mother, and let's just say that hasn't always mixed with stubborn men and alcohol.

Anonymous said...

Im sorry you did not have good male rolemodels while growing up. Im glad that you despite this seems to have a sensible view on equality. Im guesseing you have met some good men since then.

regards

DJ Dual Core said...

None of us are just one thing and power (and privilege) takes a lot of different forms. If it were up to me I'd give you full marks for reading the situation with depth and extra credit for giving a shit. Personally, I think giving a shit is a big deal. --DJ Dual Core