Shiny Things and Social Justice: Unpacking Privilege
Growing up with reliance on the social safety net, witnessing the erosion of small businesses, and the quest for a more just world after a week in D.C.
What a whirlwind of a week. I spent all last week in D.C. with people from my organization discussing governing power. As I write this, I am sitting at DCA. The sun beats through the windows. So many people surround me. This is the Southwest wing. But, whatever airline you fly, and wherever you are at DCA, the diversity of D.C. is immense compared to Portland, where I sit in a sea of 93% white people.
Since I was little, I understood the world wasn’t living up to its potential. Growing up poor with a single mother, relying on the social safety net is a core piece of my identity. Clawing our way out of having to use the social safety net was only lifted because my mother remarried. They were further relieved when all us kids left home. But, my mother and step-father don’t live high on the hog, even still. They live a less economically prosperous life than my grandfather did.
My grandfather co-owned a small business with his brother, which they inherited from their father. It was integral to the community until the 80s and 90s when Big Box stores started their slow and awful descent into communities, pushing out small businesses and driving down wages. We straddled this line of being community members with some influence and equally relying on the social safety net to get by. We had mediocre health insurance, so when I needed prescriptions, my doctor would give my mother samples because we couldn’t afford the medicine from the pharmacy. My grandfather and grandmother had a lovely ranch house outside of town with an unground pool and would travel to Florida every winter. We rented with a kind landlord who kept the rent at the same rate for over 10 years—cramming seven people (every other weekend) into this three-bedroom, one-bath house, just about 1,500 square feet.
My grandparents could afford to travel to Florida and buy shiny things. We had one vacation per year where we went back to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, my birthright. We lived on the lower-middle-class end of the spectrum. My grandparents lived in the upper-middle-class end of the spectrum—one generation difference. Generational wealth, which is often passed down, was erased.
Watching the wealth around me, wondering why we couldn’t have the shiny things, was absolutely one step towards my politicization of how to create a more equitable world. And here I sit at DCA after finishing an entire week surrounded by grassroots groups from around the nation trying to answer that same question. How do we make the world more just and equitable for all people, no matter what they look like or where they come from?
Our challenges in our world extend inside and outside our borders. I focus on issues close to home because my closest sphere of influence is here. Talking to people like you about what matters to us so that we can build the world we want together.