Is Resentment of Privilege Inevitable?

Where the Rubber
Hits the Road

Now that our society seems to have fully incorporated the one percent/ninety-nine percent concept into our socioeconomic discourse, right-wing conservatives are busy impugning that all this negative attention the one percent are receiving is simply the jealousy and resentment of the "deservedly" unsuccessful, or less successful, underclass.

With all their money behind them, they are getting some traction with this approach. As for myself, in my sixth decade, I am trying to make peace with my life decisions, opportunities and lack thereof. Lately I've been thinking a lot about whether or not my political positions are motivated by these types of unsavory and destructive emotions.

Just this past Friday, my partner and I went to see a couple of films at the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival that were on the subject of specific lesbians of our generation who achieved recognition in progressive politics. One film was about Charlotte Bunch who started out in the seventies as a lesbian feminist activist and wound up a career academic (without advanced degrees) who worked with international organizations advancing women's rights in mostly third world settings.

The second film was about Ellen Ratner, someone whose work I was not familiar with. She is a liberal radio broadcaster (she claims the only one) for the rabidly conservative Fox network. Ratner is my age and actually attended the same junior high and high school that I did although I never spoke with her. She inhabited a wealthy world that did not intersect with mine in any way (neighborhood, friendship circles, activities, interests).

This documentary, "Ellen Ratner: "A Force of Nature," was produced by Barbara Kopple filmmaker of "Harlan County, USA," the award-winning chronicle of a coal miners' strike in a rural Appalachian town. Clearly, this film was a challenge for Koppel. Unlike the Kentucky coal miners, Ratner is an heiress from a real estate dynasty. (this information is from other research, it is not in the film). I understand that in these times particularly, depicting an eccentric, essentially kind-hearted, but massively privileged, liberal who made good is not easy. None of her homes or living arrangements were shown. The segment of Ratner, a boss in her workplace, trying to get a black woman underling to say she liked Ellen as a person, made me cringe. But more safely, Koppel filmed Ratner almost exclusively on a philanthropic mission in Africa. The only outright allusion to the wealth of her family was the fact that she bought her wife, a former Air Force pilot, her own airplane as a gift. It was a sweet gesture but certainly not one that many other folks could duplicate.

So am I resentful of people, even those who are speaking up for lesbian rights, who have benefitted from so much more opportunity and privilege? And, if I am, is that wrong? I am aware that when I am feeling good about myself and my life, my negative feelings toward others disappear. As a nominal Buddhist, I know not only that those feelings are counterproductive, but also that having access to money and things doesn't necessarily make a person happy. On the other hand,  not having any access, i.e.: living on the street and starving, can truly make a person miserable. To some degree, I also believe, even though this sounds really corny, that experiencing struggle tends to build character and resourcefulness.

I do often wonder who I would have been and what I could have done if I'd come from a background where financial stress did not play such a starring role. But truly, that's as hard to imagine as who I'd be if I'd been born African-American, straight or even gentile. I'm not sure of what that person would have been like, only that she (or he) would have been someone else.

So, do I covet Ellen Ratner's cushy life and experience? Absolutely not! Do I resent people who have had access to more power, privilege and opportunity? Well, not in theory, but my honest final answer would have to be that it depends on which moment you ask me.

Friend Selection: Do I Know Too Many Jews?

Birds of a Feather?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the process of selecting friends. I don't know if I'm good at it, I think for the large part, I let them select me. Still, when I view them as a group there are some common themes. Yes, I do know a lot of Jews, tons of childless people, a good number of queers and an overwhelming amount of civil-service workers. Throw in a handful of starving artists as well. Almost all of my friends seem to be from lower middle class or working class families, who have backgrounds somewhat similar to mine.

Obviously, I never set out with a set of guidelines for friends, the results just evolved. It all seems random like it just happened. Friendship, like lovership is surrounded by an aura, a mystique. But clearly, the people we gather around us are folks we are drawn to for a myriad of reasons.

The Jewish dynamic can be a bit unsettling. I grew up in a neighborhood near Cleveland that was about 85% Jewish. This did not evolve through cliquishness, but was a natural consequence of "gentleman's agreements" that limited the places Jews were permitted to live. I despised the insular nature of this singular, ethnic community and couldn't wait for the time when I would try my luck in the, reputedly quite Anti-Semitic world. So why, in adulthood, do I return to my roots so often in the friendship realm?

The Jews who made up my world left deep marks on my psyche. Not just because of history and sad tales of persecution but due to cultural styles, modes of expression, ways of looking at life and both interpreting and expressing it to others. In later life, I was forced to come to the conclusion that, in spite of my best efforts, I am a terminal Jew. People of all ethnicities who appreciate my humor, my observations, my glass half-empty perspective gravitate towards me. Those who find it annoying, overly analytical or too negative head for the door.

Oppression has a language all its own. It's not a upbeat idiom but we learn it by heart when we are young.The more oppressed people are the thornier and more difficult they tend to be. Not because they are inherently inferior, but because they are more damaged. I don't think this is, in and of itself, a bad thing. Would you choose to eat bland food at every meal? Many Americans do.

The upside to a heritage of oppression is that we need each other more. This explanation applies to differences in gender orientation and socioeconomic class as well. The class thing is especially difficult to sort out. I tend to experience more working class people as more open, less what we used to call, snotty. When I worked at the San Francisco Water Department I would get into conversations about everything from laundry detergent to unrequited love.The topics were not necessarily deeply introspective but there was a free-flowing exchange of information that was not coated with suspicion and trepidation.

At the Main Library, people with master's degrees were circumspect. You were expected to keep your mouth shut and climb, baby, climb. In the striving class, to expose yourself is to give weapons to the potential enemy. The "appropriate" subjects of conversation are based upon work. Unless you found someone you could really trust you did not talk about real life experience. I found the walls that co-workers intentionally placed between one another jarring and upsetting. I was never acceptable in the upper middle-class world that I had worked so diligently to enter. My role was that of the square peg being relentlessly hammered into a round hole. Fortunately for me, those corners never got shaved off or worn down. I must be made of harder material than I'd previously imagined!

Writers and Access to Privilege

Jane Austen, Member
of the Landed Gentry

Due to the advent of Adrienne Rich's recent passing, I have been thinking quite a bit about how status, money and access to the political power that comes with it greases the wheels to public creative expression. Since Rich's death I have learned that her father was a physician, medical researcher and professor at John Hopkins University. Her mother was a concert pianist and composer. 

While engaged in processing gift books for the library, I came across Rita Mae Brown's biography, "Rita Will." I always thought Brown was a bit of a snob. One of the main things I remember about her opus, "Rubyfruit Jungle," was that there was only one Jewish family in her Southern town and they smelled bad. She also openly criticized lesbians who weren't "good-looking" enough, I assume, by her arbitrary white, gentile, southern standards. So admittedly, I never found the woman endearing to say the least. But after viewing the personal photographs of Rita herself in her riding gear and at fox hunts, I realize that she was not just upper-middle class, but part and parcel of the one percent. 

Even Jane Austen was a member of the landed gentry. I come across queer writers every day like William Burroughs, Christopher Isherwood, James Merrill and Edmund White, all from illustrious backgrounds. With lesbians it tends to be less apparent, but overall lesbians have enjoyed far less success in the literary world. Elizabeth Bishop hailed from a wealthy Massachusetts family, but Mary Oliver had a modest upbringing in Maple Heights, Ohio. And Dorothy Alison is a notable exception to this rule with her ground-breaking work, "Bastard Out of Carolina," but, I believe, she remains relatively unknown to the straight literary world.

Having access to status and power doesn't guarantee creative success but it provides the freedom and time to pursue passions that, in their early stages, will be less than profitable. The ambience of privilege also provides something intangible but critically important to creative ventures: role models of successful people pursuing their dreams and, in the vast majority of cases, the socially-sanctioned and nurtured self-esteem to do the same.

Socioeconomic Class and Identity

When I was about to head off to college at the largest university in my state, my mother gave me very specific advice regarding my new cronies. She said, "If anyone asks you what your class background is say upper-middle class."At that point in my life I didn't even realize that she was lying. After all, weren't there a lot of "rich kids" that I attended high school with?

At the university I followed her instructions to the letter. But the only thing I altered was the way I labeled my family. I didn't change my actual experiences which involved thrift-store shopping, having credit card confiscated by store workers, my parents perpetual arguments about money, or even the fact that, part of the reason I was in college at all had a bit to do with a more than gentle suggestion by a judge and a probation officer.

I was active in many aspects of political organizing but especially grateful for a women's consciousness raising group where I could analyze and debrief about every issue and incident. One day after a meeting, I was walking across the oval with my new friend Ronna. She said, " I know you describe yourself as upper-middle class but when you talk about your life, it doesn't sound that way. I think you might be interested in this book." And she handed me a very early draft of Lillian Rubin's "Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-Class Family." I opened it and read a few pages. Then came that click we used to talk about, the one that happens when everything finally falls into place. Needless to say, things have never been the same!