Go to jt's class homepage
* Being privileged is never sweating the insurance co-pay.
* Being privileged is running the air conditioner while you're out so your place is cool when you come home.
* Being privileged is worrying about the time it will take rather than the money it will cost to fix your broken refrigerator.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Tribune published "Being poor," a keenly observed list of some of the mundane characteristics of poverty, composed by author and blogger John Scalzi of Bradford, Ohio. They included, "Being poor is off-brand toys. ... Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash. ... Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime."
Scalzi, 36, grew up without much money and, he wrote later, generated the list in anger after "watching the people who stayed behind in New Orleans struggle and die, and listening to people wonder--some genuinely, some derisively--why they just didn't get out when they were ordered to get out. There were enough people going `You idiots, they couldn't leave, they're poor,' including me, but if you don't have experience being poor, ultimately that's not helpful. I wanted to provide some context for what it's like to be poor."
The list, which other papers also printed, was the story e-mailed most often last week on chicagotribune.com and among the most widely read stories of the month.
It resonated so strongly, I suspect, because it invited readers to think of poverty not as small numbers on paychecks or in bank accounts, but as a series of indignities and frustrations that most of us don't stop to consider but that put the grind into the expression "grinding poverty."
Indirectly, Scalzi's list reminded better-off readers of what it means not to be poor: Not being poor is buying name-brand toys and new lamps; it's knowing that if you come up a dime short at the register you can just charge the purchase and so on.
The opposite of poverty in this context isn't wealth, but privilege--the comfort, security and perks that come with having at least a small financial cushion.
* Being privileged is having health insurance in the first place.
* Being privileged is not carrying a balance on your Visa.
* Being privileged is drinking gourmet coffee, bottled water and imported beer.
"Being poor" inspired me to start a complementary list of the attributes of privilege, which are not simply the inverse of his attributes of poverty.
It's a list that, like Scalzi's, draws a subjective and, in some instances, debatable line between necessities and luxuries.
* Being privileged is owning a washing machine and a dryer.
* Being privileged is a $30 haircut.
* Being privileged is having memberships, subscriptions, season tickets and parking spots.
Not only do most of us not know what it's like to be poor, we don't appreciate the many ways in which we're not. Privilege--some we earn, some we're born with--lubricates our lives.
* Being privileged is not knowing whether payday is this Friday or next.
* Being privileged is having a college savings account.
The wind and water tore the cover off poverty in the United States and forced us to confront, if only briefly, how the so-called other half lives. Part of that experience, though, is confronting the contrast to how we live.
* Being privileged is cashing in your frequent flyer miles.
* Being privileged is hiring someone to clean your toilets.
* Being privileged is not waiting for the paperback edition to come out.
Does going to Starbucks or buying the occasional hardback mean you're well-to-do? Of course not. Do poor folks ever get nice haircuts or save for college? Sure. The list is impressionistic and personal.
I'd like your help adding to it.
* Being privileged is having three or more phone numbers to your name.
* Being privileged is not playing the lottery in part because you know that in many ways you've already won it.
* Being privileged is having Internet access at home so you can participate easily in online discussions about what it means to be privileged.
Go to jt's class homepage
Any questions, drop me a note. Jim Thomas - jthomas@sun.soci.niu.edu