I have perhaps bitten off slightly more than I can chew this semester. Even just the combination of grad school homework and impending (and potentially complicated) birth of the third kid seems like a little too much. Add the self-imposed blogging requirement? I don't know, man. It's like, look, I know what happens to my mind when I don't force myself to write for pleasure, but at the same time, there's the fear that writing for fun is going to start to take precedence over writing for school, which cannot happen, especially if both have to occasionally be dropped for an impromptu hospital trip. Even right this second, it's like 24 hours under the deadline for my first school assignment, plus there's like two others I should've already started, and I'm wasting my time writing the introduction to a fucking blog post? Are you serious, Joe?!
But bare with me! This is serving a purpose! The only way I can imagine that this is going to work for the next three months is if I occasionally make concessions, and combine the homework and the blog work. (I should also try to get other people to write throughout the week, but it's hard enough to get people to write on Fridays, so I'm not going to push my luck.)
Take today, for example. I have my first project to be presented about five hours after this post is published (I am writing these words on Tuesday morning, during the four hours I have allotted myself to start and finish the prep work). I am supposed to explore myself, and present on what it is about me that would affect how I act as a social worker and what about me would affect any research that I do. My plan for the project is to write as much as I can, and then turn what I write into the notes for a presentation. Writing on Blogspot comes more naturally to me than writing in Word, so why not just do that? I'll do the first part here, the writing as much as I can about myself in this context, and then I'll turn this blog post into my presentation? That way, I can kill two birds with one stone (homework, today's blog post).
Is that okay? Or is that cheating? I mean, I ask, but I'm making the rules here, and as rule maker, I declare that it is okay. So buckle up. Let's see if I can complete any of my homework today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good morning. My name is Joe K***. My pronouns are he/him/his. I am a straight white cisgender male. College educated, from a upper-middle class family. Every opportunity afforded to me.
I felt pretty uncomfortable trying to come up with a presentation about myself for today. It's not that I am uncomfortable talking about myself or being open and honest. It's more about my discomfort about the perception that I lack humility. Some of the things I tell you today are, to me at least, going to come off like bragging. But I need to talk about my privilege. I grew up with privilege, and it's still here with me. I'm still not really adept at talking about my privilege in a social work setting, so please forgive if it seems like I'm standing up here trying to work it out in real time.
My other big concern is that if I go to big in talking about my privilege, and am too hard on myself, that it will come off as white guilt, and I don't want that either. Guilt over privilege is not productive, it's just whining. What I'd like to do—and I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it over the next nine minutes or so—is get to a point that I'll be able to name that guilt and shame, acknowledge it, and then harness the power of privilege to elevate those who were not born with the same privilege that I was. Hopefully social work can provide an outlet for that. I guess that remains to be seen. Let's circle back to this.
I felt pretty uncomfortable trying to come up with a presentation about myself for today. It's not that I am uncomfortable talking about myself or being open and honest. It's more about my discomfort about the perception that I lack humility. Some of the things I tell you today are, to me at least, going to come off like bragging. But I need to talk about my privilege. I grew up with privilege, and it's still here with me. I'm still not really adept at talking about my privilege in a social work setting, so please forgive if it seems like I'm standing up here trying to work it out in real time.
My other big concern is that if I go to big in talking about my privilege, and am too hard on myself, that it will come off as white guilt, and I don't want that either. Guilt over privilege is not productive, it's just whining. What I'd like to do—and I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it over the next nine minutes or so—is get to a point that I'll be able to name that guilt and shame, acknowledge it, and then harness the power of privilege to elevate those who were not born with the same privilege that I was. Hopefully social work can provide an outlet for that. I guess that remains to be seen. Let's circle back to this.
Backing up, I was born in Northeast Philadelphia, and was raised in a normal upper-middle-class family. I have a mom, a dad, and two younger sisters. I have very few qualms about my upbringing. Both parents were loving and caring and did everything they could to make our lives comfortable. I was born into a system that is designed to guarantee my safety and success.
After I graduated elementary school, my family moved about fifteen minutes up the road, but which, crucially, meant that we had moved to the suburbs, in a small township called Rockledge, Pennsylvania. I wasn't really aware of the term at the time, but my parents were participating in white flight. I remember my dad saying something about the block "changing," an either implicitly or explicitly pointing out the fact that at least two families of color had moved into houses on the block recently. I was taught growing up that you should love your neighbor, but I learned later that that love was conditional, that you should love your neighbor as long as your neighbor looked like you.
I attended Catholic elementary school, where I excelled. I hesitate to use the word "smart" because I learned growing up that that's a dangerous word that's going to earn the ridicule of the popular kids. So let's say that school came easy to me. I never really had to try in school. This means two things. One, I got good grades, which, alongside my privilege, meant that I was able to attend a fancy private high school—partial scholarship plus my parents being able to afford the rest. Good grades in high school, plus a lot of SAT classes on Saturdays, translated to a full ride to college, where I got good enough grades to graduate with honors.
After I graduated elementary school, my family moved about fifteen minutes up the road, but which, crucially, meant that we had moved to the suburbs, in a small township called Rockledge, Pennsylvania. I wasn't really aware of the term at the time, but my parents were participating in white flight. I remember my dad saying something about the block "changing," an either implicitly or explicitly pointing out the fact that at least two families of color had moved into houses on the block recently. I was taught growing up that you should love your neighbor, but I learned later that that love was conditional, that you should love your neighbor as long as your neighbor looked like you.
I attended Catholic elementary school, where I excelled. I hesitate to use the word "smart" because I learned growing up that that's a dangerous word that's going to earn the ridicule of the popular kids. So let's say that school came easy to me. I never really had to try in school. This means two things. One, I got good grades, which, alongside my privilege, meant that I was able to attend a fancy private high school—partial scholarship plus my parents being able to afford the rest. Good grades in high school, plus a lot of SAT classes on Saturdays, translated to a full ride to college, where I got good enough grades to graduate with honors.
But this also means that I learned that I can get by in life without really trying. This translated to terrible lifelong habits. I'm lazy. I procrastinate. I never do my best because I've never had to do my best. I don't like being challenged now because my childhood had no challenges. Every achievement in my life comes attached to a strong sense of imposter's syndrome. If I get a good grade on this Positionality Presentation, then my takeaway won't be that I worked hard and earned that good grade, it will be that I woke up Wednesday morning and wrote a little bit and did the minimum and somehow slipped by, yet again, without having to really do anything besides stand in front of a class and whine about myself. And the fact that I am able to do this, to publicly lampshade the fact that I'm just doing the bare minimum up here just to get a good enough grade to get a piece of paper that says I'm a "master" in something, on another full scholarship mind you, just goes to show the insane privilege that I've lived with my entire life. And now imagine my client being advised on how to handle a certain difficult situation by a man who has probably never faced a difficult situation in his life.
So one side of the coin is that privilege has afforded my certain things in life. The other side of that coin is that privilege has allowed me to escape pretty much all lasting consequences for any bad decisions I've made for my entire life. As I've said, this system I was born into is designed to benefit someone like me, and that includes living a consequence-free existence. To illustrate this point, I'm going to go on a small tangent. I'm going to talk about my experiences as a drinker / alcohol abuser, but more specifically as a former underage drinker.
So one side of the coin is that privilege has afforded my certain things in life. The other side of that coin is that privilege has allowed me to escape pretty much all lasting consequences for any bad decisions I've made for my entire life. As I've said, this system I was born into is designed to benefit someone like me, and that includes living a consequence-free existence. To illustrate this point, I'm going to go on a small tangent. I'm going to talk about my experiences as a drinker / alcohol abuser, but more specifically as a former underage drinker.
I've both enjoyed and struggled with alcohol since I was sixteen years old. I think there's a lot that I could say about my propensity to get drunk on weekends, maybe how that tendency has ebbed and flowed over the years, how it accelerated in college and beyond, how becoming a parent put my alcohol abuse in perspective, how alcohol is something I still love and also fear, and so on. But for the purposes of this presentation, I want to talk about drinking while under the age of 21, because it really does illustrate my privilege vis-à-vis lack of consequences for my actions.
I was "arrested" for underage drinking a total of three times. The first time, I was drinking in Burholme Park with some friends, and was rounded up by a couple of Abington cops. One of my acquaintances who I was caught with had a parent who was also a police officer, which meant that the only consequence was that I had to do "twenty hours community service," after which case the arrest would be stricken from the record. The second time, Rockledge police busted up a party I was having at my house while my parents were out. It's a small town, and my mom was on the city council or something, so the cops knew my family, and went easy on me, I assume. I was only given a ticket for disorderly conduct for about $300. Funny sidenote, to pay the ticket, I just had another kegger the following weekend, and charged everyone double for their red solo cup. Talk about privilege. The third time, I was caught at another keg party at a different house in Rockledge, but when I ended up in court, because of the circumstances of the previous two incidents, as far as any law officials knew, this was my first time being arrested for underage drinking. So I did the classes, and then that got dropped to another disorderly conduct ticket, which I paid off.
I was "arrested" for underage drinking a total of three times. The first time, I was drinking in Burholme Park with some friends, and was rounded up by a couple of Abington cops. One of my acquaintances who I was caught with had a parent who was also a police officer, which meant that the only consequence was that I had to do "twenty hours community service," after which case the arrest would be stricken from the record. The second time, Rockledge police busted up a party I was having at my house while my parents were out. It's a small town, and my mom was on the city council or something, so the cops knew my family, and went easy on me, I assume. I was only given a ticket for disorderly conduct for about $300. Funny sidenote, to pay the ticket, I just had another kegger the following weekend, and charged everyone double for their red solo cup. Talk about privilege. The third time, I was caught at another keg party at a different house in Rockledge, but when I ended up in court, because of the circumstances of the previous two incidents, as far as any law officials knew, this was my first time being arrested for underage drinking. So I did the classes, and then that got dropped to another disorderly conduct ticket, which I paid off.
The bottom line here is that I was committing crimes and getting caught and experiencing no consequences due to my privilege. It's very clear to me and to you at this point in American history that if I wasn't who I am and didn't look the way I look, then those incidents with the police would have ended much differently. I acknowledge the privilege. I even acknowledge the fact that I am up here talking about past crimes publicly and kind of laughing about it. That's privilege too.
I'm doing my best to illustrate the privilege that has been bestowed upon me for my entire life. I hope it doesn't seem too much like guilt or like egomania. I'm trying to strike a balance by presenting the facts here. The fact is that I am privileged. But it's actually a little interesting to explore that privilege in the context of my career in social work.
I'm doing my best to illustrate the privilege that has been bestowed upon me for my entire life. I hope it doesn't seem too much like guilt or like egomania. I'm trying to strike a balance by presenting the facts here. The fact is that I am privileged. But it's actually a little interesting to explore that privilege in the context of my career in social work.
Social work, both experiencing the work in [employment] and studying social work at [school], has given me the opportunity to acknowledge how privileged I've been. At times, it feels like I've been sheltered my entire life, and starting to do child abuse home visits in 2014 was this moment when the wool was pulled away from my eyes. And with that comes a power dynamic, right? Here's this white male walking down a side street in a predominantly black neighborhood holding a manila folder, walking into a stranger's home unannounced, after being told that this stranger may or may not have abused their child. That is a power that is given to me by the city of Philadelphia, yes, but it is also par for the course as far as historical scripts of privilege go. And everyone involved knows it. Of course people are going to uneasy around me in those situations. You can smell the privilege on me.
I try to be extremely sensitive about it, as evidenced by this project. I also try to use it to our mutual advantage. The whole point of social work is to empower your client and/or provide them with the necessary tools so that they become empowered. Yes, my privilege means that we begin with a power imbalance. But a good social should be able to transfer some of that power and try to balance the scales a little bit. That's at least how I try to think about it. It could read as an excuse for my privilege possibly. But if that's the case, then we're dealing with the guilt that doesn't do anyone any good. Instead, I look at it like an attempt to use the privilege I have to elevate others.
And I don't even know if I'm the best person for this, because, as we discussed, I've conditioned myself for my entire life to be lazy and procrastinate and avoid challenges. Like, I don't even know if I could tell you what any of this would look like in the context of performing research, because even in this MSW program I've continually taken the easy way out and avoided doing any significant research to begin with. I realize the irony of saying this for a research presentation. I hope this can be an opportunity for me.
I know this all seems pretty self-deprecating, but that's kind of the point. I have flaws. I am not the best person. I am privileged. But I am continuously attempting to keep all this in the forefront of my mind. I'm trying to name my flaws so that I have the capacity to address them in a healthy manner. If I can name my social locations, then I can understand how they might negatively affect my interactions with others, especially through social work. The goal is that, through this understanding, I can eventually use my privilege to work on dismantling the very system of privilege that I exist in.
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