![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
america's bubbles
I find this article about America's "elites" (or fancy people) living in bubbles without being aware of it really interesting, not particularly as insightful about how there are people who fundamentally don't understand each other in this country (which I already knew, and obviously empathy goes a long way but has limits), but because it made me think about all the different ways people can misunderstand each other. And all the different ways we end up having similar shared experiences (e.g., upper middle class educated bubbles) while coming from very different places.
The article lnks to this quiz which, as the article notes, is imperfect in capturing the whether you're truly out of touch, because a lot of the questions are arbitrary and we live in a world with a lot of shared information. But of course just knowing intellectually how mainstream or lower/middle class Americans live is very different from having lived that life.
But I also find it interesting from an immigrant standpoint, because my parents' lives and experiences growing up would be even harder to score on that quiz (oftentimes an even poorer and more rural experience), but because it was in China rather than the US, it becomes a different context. For instance, they have had the very poor economic lifestyle, but they don't watch any middle America TV or movies or really ever go out to eat, so they lose points on that middle America experience. Then, because they came to the US when I was so young, my brother and I essentially grew up in a very middle class/upper middle class environment. In that sense, I suppose my parents achieved the immigrants' American Dream: your kids will have a better life than you in terms of opportunities and experiences. (What we make of those opportunities is a different story...)
I got a 24, so yeah, pretty sheltered in my upper middle class bubble, "who has made a point of getting out a lot". But that will never change the childhood I had, which was sheltered in a lot of ways, deliberately so. And maybe that means I will never really understand what an ordinary working class life is like in America. And that's true coming back the other way: some of the working class have no idea what it's like to be a first-gen immigrant. And it's true along all axes, that a white working class evangelical doesn't know what it's like to be black, and upper middle class Asian immigrant doesn't know what it's like to be a first-gen Mexican immigrant.
Still, there is merit still to trying to learn and understand -- and, importantly to me, to make the voices of those who do know heard. If we don't know firsthand, then let's make sure those who do know can speak and be heard.
I still have a Jan-March 2016 books post coming...falling behind on things when I'm sick. D:
The article lnks to this quiz which, as the article notes, is imperfect in capturing the whether you're truly out of touch, because a lot of the questions are arbitrary and we live in a world with a lot of shared information. But of course just knowing intellectually how mainstream or lower/middle class Americans live is very different from having lived that life.
But I also find it interesting from an immigrant standpoint, because my parents' lives and experiences growing up would be even harder to score on that quiz (oftentimes an even poorer and more rural experience), but because it was in China rather than the US, it becomes a different context. For instance, they have had the very poor economic lifestyle, but they don't watch any middle America TV or movies or really ever go out to eat, so they lose points on that middle America experience. Then, because they came to the US when I was so young, my brother and I essentially grew up in a very middle class/upper middle class environment. In that sense, I suppose my parents achieved the immigrants' American Dream: your kids will have a better life than you in terms of opportunities and experiences. (What we make of those opportunities is a different story...)
I got a 24, so yeah, pretty sheltered in my upper middle class bubble, "who has made a point of getting out a lot". But that will never change the childhood I had, which was sheltered in a lot of ways, deliberately so. And maybe that means I will never really understand what an ordinary working class life is like in America. And that's true coming back the other way: some of the working class have no idea what it's like to be a first-gen immigrant. And it's true along all axes, that a white working class evangelical doesn't know what it's like to be black, and upper middle class Asian immigrant doesn't know what it's like to be a first-gen Mexican immigrant.
Still, there is merit still to trying to learn and understand -- and, importantly to me, to make the voices of those who do know heard. If we don't know firsthand, then let's make sure those who do know can speak and be heard.
I still have a Jan-March 2016 books post coming...falling behind on things when I'm sick. D:
no subject
no subject
no subject
And while racial and class privilege frequently intersect, it's interesting to note that while my white friend who grew up poorer than I did in rural upstate New York dodges a lot of racism and racial mico-aggression bullets, I saw a lot of sort of bougie socioeconomic/class advantages growing up that she didn't, necessarily? Iunno, I feel like these things are always more complicated than they appear on the surface. Mass media always seems to want to assume that white people are rich and PoC are poor, and the privilege lines always thus travel in the same directions, but like. Um. No?? Not that simple???
no subject