Sometimes the privileged aren’t all they’re made out to be.
My name is Daniel and I am young, straight, white, and male. My teeth are nearly Hollywood perfect and my hair has gentle highlights. People ordinarily mistake my faint accent for Canadian and assume my free use of vocabulary is something I picked up in college. At just over 6 feet, my muscled frame can be imposing, but my smile often sets people at ease. I make plenty of money in my business and live fully in California’s Bay Area. In short, I am the very face of the majority, the oppressive class.
I suppose I can understand why people are surprised to hear about my history. That I didn’t have braces is a common shock. My teeth grew that way. I got lucky. Most of my appearance it luck, too: height from my father, strong features from my mother, even the highlights in my hair are a product of generations of mixed ethnicities. White ethnicities.
Being successful was no accident, though. Another shock: I grew up poor. Not destitute, but I got for Christmas whatever my parents’ friends gave them after their own kids didn’t want them. I remember getting my first video game console in 1996, an NES with a few cartridges. My father worked full-time as a janitor and I entered school around the same time my mother got bumped from part time to full at the middle school where she taught, rendering me a latchkey kid for the length of my scholastic history. My house was four miles out of town in the woods, where land was cheap. My parents got a very good deal on it because of the location and the fact that the roof had relocated itself to the living room floor. My father spent most of their savings repairing it by himself. He was handy, and he taught me a lot.
I failed my way through high school and took the GED when I was 19. I had been working manual labor jobs for a few years and after I had my GED, I saved up money by processing salmon in Alaska, the lowest-class job in existence. I started really getting into politics and it led me to serve two years in AmeriCorps to keep myself out of the draft. This was just after the new millennium and the war made it seem inevitable. I started hearing about social justice and other radical concepts and by my early twenties, I found myself volunteering at a social justice-centered bike shop. I stayed in shape by riding everywhere since I was still too poor to afford a car. Working there, I became conscious of who I appeared to be and felt myself growing more passionate about social justice. I spent a year in Vancouver BC and six months on the Big Island of Hawaii, both areas where whites were not a majority group, experiences which only solidified my growing feelings.
I went to a trade school. I still wonder if I bumped someone out of place, or if they even bothered to look at my high school records. I tend to think they didn’t bother. After my certification, I traveled and found myself in the Bay area. I don’t pay nearly what I should in rent: I just got lucky. Or maybe, this time, some applications were left on a desk when a young white professional shook the hand of the property owner. I’ll never know. Likewise, my employer offered my a very generous position over candidates notably more qualified. Maybe someday I’ll sit my employer down over drinks and ask him if the fact that the other applicants were women skewed his decision. But, once again, I’ll probably never know.
So I find myself in a unique position. I am the very face of privilege, the poster boy for the Rich White Army in the War Against the Poor. I represent an education I don’t have, a childhood I never experienced, and an oblivion I transcend. Every day I am mistaken for the man I seek, in my own time, to tear down.
Read more stories of Assumed Identity on The Good Life.
Image credit: Eric Rhoads/Flickr
1. I type this in an office in the Financial District–shout out to my fellow Bay Area brother. 2. This article treads on terribly dangerous waters, in my opinion. You start off basically listing all of the qualities (sans wealth) that exemplify hegemonic Masculinity (big “M”)–which is great. But you fail to ponder who any of these qualities–youth, body, nice smile, heterosexuality, whiteness–played a factor into any of the things you attribute to luck: the rent connection, the ability to have gotten a job over certain, more qualified (whose race, age, body/smile type, sexuality remains unknown to contrast yours), etc.… Read more »
Kaleb, I just don’t understand the purpose of the kind of inquiry you’re asking for here. The basic idea is that some amount of privilege which the author held makes his life easier. This may or may not be true (there’s literally no way to know for certain), but let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that it’s totally true. We still don’t know how much easier his life was actually made. It is entirely possible that, with the amount of hard work he put in, he would have succeeded regardless of his race, appearance, sexual orientation, etc. The opposite… Read more »
Mike L, Thank you for your feedback. What you’re getting at here is the actual questioning of “privilege.” From what I take from your response, there is no empirical data to prove the affect of one’s privilege (or lack there of) in a situation like this. If you want to question the realities of privilige and how they play a part in one’s success that’s fine–there is a whole canon of literature out there for your disposal. What I’m saying is this: sure, you may only “look” like The Man but that in and of itself is privilege (male privilege,… Read more »
That’s not oppression, that’s life.
There will always be people who climb the ranks faster due to their appearance, social standing, wealth.
Just because someone has it easier doesn’t mean their life didn’t come with setbacks and hardship.
Well first and foremost, I never said anything that suggested those who have it easier don’t have set backs. In fact, I actually made it clear that I had respect for this person for attaining upward mobility. Yes, people do climb ranks faster due to their appearance: some people are set back because of appearance factors such as race, perceived sexuality, and gender. That’s privilege and oppression. Again, all I’m saying is this: people are privileged because of traits that they were born with, others have it harder–at the end of the day it’s all about agency and handwork, but… Read more »
@ Kaleb Blake
That’s not oppression, that life and how it’s always been.
They’ll never come a time where one person can have the same life as another, there are too many factors that go into it that are out of people’s control.
Getting a better education, having a job, advancing a career, living in a great neighborhood etc. If race, gender & looks played a part in these things, i and members of my family wouldn’t be where we are today.
Just because someome may have it better doesn’t mean that their life is perfect and people don’t have the right to tell them how they should feel about it.
Life isn’t fair and instead of complaining people need to start taking action.
@William I don’t get a sense that either of the other two comments are trying to tell Daniel how he should feel about their lives. They’re simply saying, an anyone can correct me if I’m wrong: You’re saying you embody privilege but it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, then you continue to provide examples of how privileged you actually are without even touching on how these privileges have shaped your current situation. Yes, life isn’t fair. Funny because I was just having a conversation with others about this. Oppression sucks, it’s reak, and it hurts. But, and… Read more »
Dennis: I’m not boohooing my privilege in any way. I just recognize that people often assume I am someone rather different than myself. I’m not upset about it (assumptions are a part of life), i just think it’s interesting. taxpat: I’ll admit to a little conjecture, but i inadvertently met several candidates who were female. in my area, it is also very uncommon both for a man to be in my profession as well as to apply for the job I no have, though I know many people believe a man is better suited to the specific position. I work… Read more »
What I would like to know is this- how do you know whose applications we’re left on the table and what their qualifications were? I have NEVER heard of people allowing a new hire to review the qualifications of other applicants.
Also, as an owner of rental property- I can assure you that any land lord that doesnt charge market rate for a property due to race (aka a melanin discount) is either an idiot or as imaginary as a unicorn/big foot.
I’m extremely skeptical of these details.
Oh for god’s sake man stop with the boohoo it ain’t easy being white and not rich crap! You live in a free country. You’re not poor. You have a business. You’re tall and good looking with good teeth. Your dad had a good job. What’s wrong with trade school? Nothing. You got a decent education. Your folks were homeowners. My childhood and that of the vast majority of the world wasn’t nearly as good as that and I think mine was AWESOME! How the hell do you get the idea that you’re not privileged Daniel? Get off the cross… Read more »