What Privilege Do You Have? Part II

After my 'Privilege' blog post, dozens of you posted your own results of the 'step forward' activity either on your blog, my comments, or over on Liz's site. A few Friends saw fit to 'defend' their steps, and one Friend called the exercise an "'I'm more priveleged and thus more guilty than you are' game."

It wasn't intended as a guilt-game, but I can see how it might have been interpreted that way. And as I've read each response (which is one reason it's taken me so long to post Part II), I have seen such deep compassion and caring that I can't see it as a competition. Like the story of parents who scrimped and saved so that they could own a small home. And the parents who insisted their children be well-read and speak proper English because they had been immigrants. Or the families who wanted more for their children than they had, so took the kids to museums on a regular basis. Or the family who had original art from their grandmother. As I've read each post, people have become their stories, and not their 'score.' I hope you've had a chance to read all the responses. If you haven't, it might be a good daily practice to read one response.

And a good first step to a more open and accepting Religious Society of Friends.

I recently had a phone conversation with Robin M. over at What Canst Thou Say? and she shared some wisdom with me that I will share with you here because I found it true for myself.

She said when she has more than two steps to get something done, it often goes undone for longer than it needs to. I think 'refunds' offered by corporations when you buy expensive electronics play to this very human tendency. I recently bought MS Word for my new computer and Microsoft is offering free software updates in 2008. All I have to do is copy my receipt, cut out the bar code, address and stamp an envelope, and put it in the mail. You can guess whether I've done that yet or not.

Robin also pointed out that dealing with class within the RSoF is similar because it's going to take more than two steps to become more diverse. There isn't one thing (or even two) that we can do to be more open to working class and poor people. It's going to take many steps.

And hearing each other's class story and history is one (which is one step beyond telling our own story, isn't it).

Now that some of us have taken this one step, I have a question for us as a Religious Society.

We can, through the work of the Spirit, live out God’s reign on earth. All Friends seek to live out of the love expressed in the Sermon on the Mount… When understood as wholeness, spiritual maturity, soundness, completion, or even obedience, perfection starts to become more accessible to me. Other Friends who find the terms perfection and holiness difficult are more apt to speak of discipleship, obedience, baptism with the Holy Spirit, or the ‘Lordship of Jesus Christ’. For a few, spiritual formation or inner healing are the most expressive terms for perfection. ‘Teleos’, the Biblical word for perfection, means ‘end goal’ and suggests an orientation more than a fixed state of being.

From A Certain Kind of Perfection, an anthology organized by Margery Post Abbott

I think it's fair to say that all Friends seek to live out the kind of love Jesus spoke about. And it's also fair to say that we're all in process, we're all heading toward that love. And that few, if any, of us have arrived.

I haven't.

So then certainly our understanding of social class is a similar process. But to where are we oriented? A belief in the equality of all human beings? A form of Jesus's love? A political belief in socialism? A belief in an all-inclusive Faith?

And if you did the privilege exercise (on your blog, in my comments, in your own mind), where were you oriented? Where do you want to be oriented? Where *should* we, as a Religious Society, be oriented?

Class and Race in the RSOF

I promise I will still get back to Part II of "What Privilege Do You Have," but I read this New York Times article about race and class and had to share it with you.

Of late I've been wondering about the connection between class and race in the Religious Society of Friends, but since I'm white, I don't feel like I have any authority on the matter.

After reading this New York Times article though, I realized that I have a question to put forth.

If you are black, do you need to also be middle class to be accepted at all in the Religious Society of Friends?

In my storytelling class, a woman told a story about her life in the inner city. She called herself a 'ghetto girl.' She wore big hoop earrings, a tight belly shirt, short skirt, and stilettos. She had an urban accent.

I couldn't help but wonder what Friends would think if she walked into Meeting. How would she feel among Friends? And what would Jesus think about how we treated her and how she felt around us?

(And I posted this before I read Martin's blog here, but if you've read this far, you'll be interested in reading what he has to say about it all).

What Privilege Do You Have?

I saw a blog game on a couple of Quaker blogs (this one and this one), so I thought I'd offer a similar game with a spin on class based. It's based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Indiana State University that I found on this Yahoo group around class on college campuses. The exercise developers hold the copyright but have given me permission to post it here and ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

If you post this in your blog, please leave a comment on this post.

Father went to college (for a year until he enlisted in the Army Air Corps for WW II)
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them (a 1976 pea-green Plymouth Valiant they bought at a state auction for $500 in 1985)
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 (for one year when I had a paper route and could pay the bill)
You and your family lived in a single family house (after I turned 6)
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home (see above)
You had your own room as a child (only after my parents converted an unheated porch into a bedroom for my brother when we became too old to share a room, and not during the year my grandmother lived with us)
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

*These two are edited because Christine pointed out that the previous wording didn't clearly delineate between people who had their tuition paid for them and people who worked for their college expenses.

In the group exercise which was originally designed for college students, staff and faculty, everyone stands in a line and steps forward if any of these things are true for them.

If we were all in a big room, I would have taken 5 steps forward. How about you? How many would you have taken? How many steps will your kids have taken by the time they're 18 (or how many did they take before they turned 18)?

Notice that each of these are things that were given to you or provided for you rather than things you necessarily earned yourself. The exercise instructions note that just because you've taken a lot of steps doesn't mean that you haven't worked hard to get where you are. But perhaps consider the things you've had handed to you that others didn't have.

For instance, if I'd not been given a car, I don't think I would have been able to go to college the first time around because there was no way I could afford to stay on campus (or near campus--I lived with my parents my first year).

To participate in this blog game, copy and paste the above list into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your responses in the comments. Once enough people participate in this little game, I'll do a Part II post about what all this has to do with Friends. (And you can, in your blog post, ponder what it means to Friends).

A God-Sized Wedge

I went to a F/friend's birthday party last weekend at the meeting house. The first person who talked to me was a young Friend (perhaps 15) and he said, "Where did you graduate from college?" This young person assumed that because I was an adult at a Quaker meeting, I have a college education. It colored my whole night. I withdrew. I was upset and crabby.

It makes me wonder what God is saying to me right now.

I am living my passion, and trying to live up to my Light. If I could do anything I wanted in the world, I would write. All the time. But my working class upbringing cuts against this effort. On a cellular level, I feel guilty just writing. Yet when I write, I blossom in ways I never thought I could. And people are moved by my writing.

Just not Quakers.

Before going back to school, I really thought I was a bad Quaker. I didn't say the right things in the right way. Being at school has taught me that I'm not a bad person or stupid. It's taught me that, in fact, I'm quite bright and what I have to say and do is valuable.

When Friends read my blog, they want to argue with me. They want me to hear how their experiences are exactly like mine when they're not (because they did not grow up working class). They want to use my experience to invalidate me. Supportive people email me privately but few post public comments.

In September, I blogged about Friends and education and where that fits in our testimonies. Someone at my school read my post (perhaps because I linked to my school's website) and it's spread through the campus like a virus. I've gotten a dozen emails from people about my blog. Several people I've never met want to meet and talk about class, including the president of the university. A sociology professor I've never had sent me an op-ed he wrote that affirms my experience of class.

And once again, school is providing affirmation and an outlet for my passion. Quakerism sure does look like it's providing a big fat wall. That or God's putting a wedge between me and Quakerism.

A God-sized wedge.

Class & Cool Whip Contempt

Tonight Liz and I went to see a presentation by Ahmad Hijazi from Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, a village in Israel working toward a vision of peace. At one point, he talked about changing the paradigm of oppressor/oppressed to oppressor/obeyer (as in, allowing that the oppressed has some agency) and it spoke to my condition.

During dinner before the presentation, we were talking about pumpkin pie, which I love, and I told Liz that I love pumpkin pie with real vanilla ice cream. Then I remembered enjoying the Cool Whip my mother put on on pumpkin pie. She kept hers in the freezer and I'd eat it right out of the ice box, frozen like ice cream made from marshmallows. So light and sweet.

But at some point in my adult life, I learned that there was something wrong with me if I liked Cool Whip. So I began to disdain it as inferior to things like whipped cream and 'real' ice cream.

My mother and society taught me to hold in high esteem middle class culture and to scorn working class culture. And I bought into the system heart, mind and soul.

Agent. Obeyer.

When I came to Friends, I was ready, willing, and able to learn so much more disdain than I'd ever learned.

Here's a sampling of what I specifically learned from Friends to hold in contempt:

Not having at least an undergraduate degree
Not trying to get at least an undergraduate degree
Shopping at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club
Eating non-organic foods
Drinking tap-water
Drinking alcohol
Buying or wearing clothes made in sweat-shops
Driving a car that guzzles gas and emits pollution
Bringing fried chicken to potluck
Watching television
Joining the military
Buying books from Amazon.com instead of a local bookstore
Dressing up for Quaker events
Wearing deodorant with aluminum
Being angry
Telling the truth to someone's face
Cursing
Speaking with 'broken' grammar
Writing with same

Now before you get all your undies in a bunch and think that I'm criticizing these beliefs, I'm not. I, in fact, drive a Prius and bike when I can. I wear natural deodorant. I'm getting a BA. I correct people when they say 'further' but they mean 'farther'.

Some might say a selection of the values above are specifically Quaker or come out of our testimonies. But I bet if you show this list to a Unitarian or any other lefty, they'd agree with it as a list of things to disdain; Unitarians and the left in general are also pretty middle- and owning-class homogeneous.

What exactly are we saying to a newcomer if we scowl at them when they ask if we watched the most recent Survivor episode? Or if we sneer when they invite us to a bar for a drink? Or if we tease someone who has dressed up for Meeting?

Perhaps it's our scorn for some of these things (and not the practice of simplifying our lives or making our lives match our values) that keeps our Meetings class-homogeneous.

I'd like to unlearn my scorn and learn how to value the gifts and culture of my working class upbringing. Essentially, I'd like to stop obeying.

I just don't know if I'll try Cool Whip again.

Guest Post: Bill Samuel

Bill Samuel added this in comments to my last post on education and I felt it important and relevant enough to post on its own (after getting permission from him). In part, I wanted to highlight his post because my next posts will be about my experience of class and culture in Meeting.

You can read more about Bill here and here.

From Bill Samuel:

The class homogeneity seems most acute among liberal unprogrammed Friends. Other varieties of Friends seem more diverse.

I remember one year when I visited the yearly meeting sessions of Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region. The Friends Action Board (their social concerns group) reported on a new Federal program to allow churches more involvement in training for those on public assistance. The differences between my home yearly meeting and Eastern Region were very evident when they presented it as a way to help people within their churches. In my or other liberal YMs, it would have been presented as a way to help "them" not us.

I have a theory that the class homogeneity among liberal Friends is related to their lack of a clear spiritual center. It has been my experience among Christ-centered Friends and other Christ-centered churches that class is less of an issue, because the uniting factor is Jesus Christ. Without a clear, explicit uniting factor other than something like class, a group tends to gravitate towards becoming a club more united by socioeconomic and cultural factors.

And in fact many are seeking that their meetings be such a club. When I have engaged in conversations with liberal Friends about the issues of lacking racial, educational and economic diversity, most of the time eventually something along the lines of "if have many of them come into the meeting, it will change the character of the meeting" comes out with the clear assumption that such change would be bad.

I belonged to a meeting that was in an area which had undergone significant demographic change since it started, but the meeting had not. There was a newspaper article which highlighted the issue for me. It focused on a couple of other churches in the same area. They had seen the change, done work to understand the needs of the people coming in, and changed to be a welcoming and helpful place for the new population. Both the other churches and Friends recognized changing the demographics in the congregation would mean deeper changes. The other churches embraced change; Friends rejected it.

Education Continued

Wow, this seems to have struck a cord with folks. Some good questions are being brought up. And some not-so-good questions too.

I want to hold up something quakermom said in my comments because I want to make sure folks see that I'm not the only one seeing these issues.

I have been thinking a lot about class in my meeting. We're in a university town, and there are many professors in our meeting. In addition, people seem to very uncritically value academic achievement and to buy into standard views of academic standards. i remember when one of the kids in our meeting was accepted to Smith, her mother announced it during Joys and Sorrows, and there was an audible, "Oooh, Smith" through the room. Things like that make me very uncomfortable--do we value less the young man who hasn't gone to college but is apprenticing in carpentry instead? I don't think, if asked, anyone would say so--but we act like we do, and I wonder how that affects our kids.

We're also in the process of building our meetinghouse, and this has brought issues of money and affluence into view. The number of families who have been able to give $10,000 or more to the meeting for our building has staggered me.

Even though I am a good fit for the meeting in terms of my own class background, current family income, and academic history, I am becoming less and less comfortable in it, in large part because of the way these issues seem largely unacknowledged and unexamined. I've been brining some of them into the light as way opens; we'll see what happens.

She asks how valuing one kind of education over another affects kids in the Meeting. And that question makes sense. She's a parent and blogs about being a Quaker parent.

I wonder, though, how it affects the adults in our Meeting who haven't/can't/don't meet such a standard of 'excellence'. I wonder how it portrays our values in contrast with what we say our values are. I wonder what the working-class first, second or third-time attender thought when everyone went "oooh." Did they keep coming?

I can tell you how it affects me. I feel shame. Embarassment. I feel like I'm not good enough. I want to hide.

Hysterywitch said:

I am therefore uncomfortable with the notion that the choice to work in a creative or intellectual field is an indication of classism.

I'm not saying that working in a creative or intellectual field is classist. I'm in school to get my BA in creative writing and intend to work in a creative field. And I don't think that act is inherently classist. I am, however, able to use my current financial privilege to do so. I don't know if I'd be able to do it if I didn't have such privilege. All I'm doing is acknowledging this privilege.

In fact, that's all these posts are asking Friends to do. Look at our individual and collective privilege. Let's make it transparent so that we can be in congruence with what we say we believe, that everyone is equal.

Let's not ooh and ahh over one young Friend's acceptance into Smith without ooh-ing and ahh-ing over another Friend's choice to learn a trade or go to a less elite institution. Let's not assume that every Friend we come into contact with has a college education, or even wants one.

Last but not least, lets figure out how to dismantle this system that favors the financially privileged.

Finally, Thee Hannah wrote:

Which begs the question: If you feel isolated at meeting because of your working-class background, what are you doing to educate the rest of us?

Hmmmm. That sure sounds like you're expecting me to undo a system I didn't create and a system that oppresses me but not you.

I'm writing this blog which is being read by lots and lots of people. But I'm just one person and one person has never been able change an oppressive system without allies.

So what are you doing to educate other Quakers who have privilege? How are you going to be an ally?