Privilege

http://www.buzzfeed.com/nathanwpyle/this-teacher-taught-his-class-a-powerful-lesson-about-privil

a great lesson about Privilege at source

“Your job — as students who are receiving an education — is to be aware of your privilege. And use this particular privilege called “education” to do your best to achieve great things, all the while advocating for those in the rows behind you.”

Do you think you might get Republicans and Tories to realize this one, simple truth?

No.  Their theory will likely be, give the people in the front row tax breaks and the whole classroom will be better off.

“Your job — as students who are receiving an education — is to be aware of your privilege. And use this particular privilege called “education” to do your best to achieve great things, all the while advocating for those in the rows behind you.”

And I think everyone's job is to try to have a clear understanding of who really has privilege and who does not -- particularly in the U.S., where we're so afraid of talking about class that we use race as a stand-in.

There are many more white Americans, numerically, born into poverty, than any other ethnic group. If we're too cowardly to talk directly about issues of class, we can easily find ourselves talking about whiteness as though it's some sort of guaranteed privilege. While in ways it is, I think that has a very bad effect on lower-class whites who might find themselves on one side of an argument about the privilege class brings, while on the other hand completely alienated by an argument that conflates race with class.

EVERYTHING is "largely relative" in this context, as well...

Drop the Aussie population onto various overseas markets, and ~

* in Africa or central America, probably 99% of our Aussies would be considered to be "privileged";
* in Europe, it would probably drop to around 80%;
* in the US or Canada, maybe 60-70% would be considered as comparatively "privileged" ?

AT LEAST until the Abbott-Hockey spending cuts start really biting in the next coupe of years..