#privilage

Satu hal yang gw lihat dari omongan kayak gini adalah orang yang ngomong ini udah teh dia syirik, gak mau usaha lagi alias cuma bisa ngeluh.

Karena kalau gw, "terus kenapa emangnya kalau dia kaya".

Banyak gw lihat orang-orang disekitar gw: - Orang tuanya kaya tapi ya anaknya gak punya jiwa juang. Jadi yaah pas dewasa anaknya masih bergantung sama orang tuanya. - Orang tuanya petani di desa, tapi anaknya bisa sekolah di kampus bagus di Indonesia via beasiswa dari zakat dan setelah lulus kerja di perusahaan bonafit. - Orang tuanya biasa aja, tapi anaknya bisa mandiri jadi pas dewasa gak menggantungkan diri ke orang tua, malah bisa ngasih.

Kalau sukses cuma diukur dari kamu asalnya dari ekonomi keluarga lo, kayaknya itu cuma ada dipikiran orang-orang yang mageran deh. Yang pasrah sama keadaan dirinya. "Da aku mah apa atuh" kata mereka.

Kalau emang punya daya juang yang tinggi dan atau tahu sukses versi yang memang mau diraih, harusnya mereka gak perduli sama privilege orang lain. Soalnya fokus mereka udah tertumpu sama tujuan hidup mereka sendiri.

Alias orang yang cuma bisa ngeluh aja, biasanya orang yang gak punya kerjaan dan gak punya tujuan hidup, Jadi punya waktu buat overthinking dan ngejulidin orang lain.

Wes gitu ae...

חזרנו כל המשפחה מאילת, עייפים ורצוצים. שבוע שלם ששעות השינה של הקטנים השתבשו לגמרי – הלכו לישון מאד מאוחר, שעת השינה שלהם בצהריים הפכה לשעת שינה אחר הצהריים והלילה הצעיר נכנס לשעותיו הקטנות – עד שהם נרדמו – שניהם באותה מיטה (ספה נפתחת – סמנטיקה). ההגעה למלון התחילה בנימה עוקצנית, כאשר ביקשו מאיתנו עוד 5,000 ש”ח תשלום עבור שקד ונדב (שני מבוגרים), אבל אנחנו שילמנו כבר 3,000 ש”ח לחברת הנסיעות… אז…

Early this week, we received a thick, high-quality paper envelope in the mail.  It was addressed to “The Parents of Xavier Husmann.”  Inside was a very fancy, glossy brochure and a personalized letter explaining that Xavier had been nominated by his third-grade teacher, Mrs. RXXXX, to attend an exclusive, by invitation only, “STEM Preparation” week-long summer camp, offered through a well-known state university.  The package included things like a very thick, frameable, certificate of STEM Preparation Program acceptance (with Xavier’s name in fancy letters at the top) and a form to send to the local paper for a press release.

Now, I’d already signed Xavier up for another summer camp I found via a flyer at his school.  It’s a standard Meatballs summer camp with bad food, lots of shenanigans, and hopefully, a place where Xavier will create life-long memories.  That camp was a whopping $680… a good chunk of change from our family budget.  But it seemed to be about the going rate for a week of getting the kid out of the house and giving him the chance to get sunburn and poison ivy while having a week of total independence from mom and dad.  

Before I showed this fancy “STEM Preparation” camp invitation to my very gullible nine-year old son, I continued to read the fine print in the brochure.  My initial inclination was ‘sure, why not, Xavier will have fun at this camp.’  It was only a week, it had a number of dates available that worked with our schedule, and it seemed like a fun summer camp for my kid.  Maybe I could get a refund from the first camp I’d signed Xavier up for. Or maybe, if the price was right, he could go to two camps this summer.  And then I got to the tuition part of the package.  For a week at this exclusive, by invitation only, STEM Preparation summer camp, the tuition was just over $2,700.  That’s right.  Nearly three-grand.  

I continued to scan the brochure.  Nothing about tuition assistance or scholarship availability.  Just payment plan options and an additional $149 camp insurance in case you need to cancel for any reason.  

I showed the package to my husband, explaining the tuition cost.  

“What a scam,” he laughed.

We agreed that this camp was clearly targeting parents with an expendable income.  Parents who thought their kids were special and deserved to attend an exclusive, by invitation only, get your name in the local paper, summer camp.  Probably the same sorts of parents who send their kids to private schools and have a personal tennis-coach at the country club.  

And then the paranoid part of me wonders, ‘Does Xavier’s teacher think we are THAT sort of parents?’ Yikes!  Is it because we’re white?  Because we fit the privilege demographic of two college-educated parents?  Or did she genuinely think Xavier was a smart cookie and would have fun at this camp, and not consider that three-grand in tuition might be cost-prohibitive to whoever is nominated, or just flat out more money than parents are willing to pay?

We fall into the second category.  If I had to cough up three-grand for something, we could easily do so.  But we are fairly thrifty with our money and don’t throw it around on items that buy prestige.  Items like designer handbags, expensive watches, new top-end cars, or invitation only exclusive STEM Preparation summer camps.  

“Contemporary America runs on dirty work. Some of the people who do this work are our agents by virtue of the fact that they perform public functions, such as running the world’s largest penal system. Others qualify as such by catering to our consumption habits — the food we eat, the fossil fuels we burn, which are drilled and fracked by dirty workers in places like the Gulf of Mexico. The high-tech gadgets in our pockets rely on yet another form of dirty work — the mining of cobalt — that has been outsourced to workers in Africa and to foreign subcontractors that often brutally exploit them.