Opus 2020-268: Whither Privilege?, part 2 of 6

I have not lived a privileged life.  I don’t know how you define privilege but in my book it has a financial peg.  You are not considered privileged in any meaningful way if you are not wealthy.  I remember vividly the Christmas my brother and I got one toy to share between us.  You would also need to be related to people of influence.  Having an aunt that died an alcoholic does not count.  It might mean being tall, good looking and athletic.  While I am often accused of being tall I keep asking people, “What about good looking?”  They just smile and look away.  In sports I was always the last one to get picked.  

I have, however, lived a blessed life.  As a child we never had health insurance.  On the occasions that we had issues that could not be dealt with by sleep and aspirin we ended up on the county.  I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back that is what I see.  We were privileged to live in a country that had a very real safety net and medical professionals who gave of themselves.  We never had much money but we had library cards.  Of course that only worked because we had been blessed with parents that taught us we had to return the books on time.  We always had plenty to eat even if it meant bread and gravy as a second course.  I loved bread and gravy.  I would stack it up, bread, gravy, bread, gravy, bread....  You get the idea.  I didn’t know it was unprivileged food.

In spite of that I have been blessed.  It wasn’t because I was white.  

To be continued...

homo unius libri