One of the ways that my privilege shows is that my parents paid for my college education. They also were able to fill in the financial gaps when I started working as a puppeteer so that I didn’t have to get a day job. While I tried not to lean on them, there were months that I wouldn’t have been able to keep going if not for them. I mean, even with them, there were the days of the discount Jiffy and day-old bread.
(Ask me why I won’t eat creamy peanut butter.)
The thing is that when I was breaking in, a lot of the reason that I was broke was that I had to take gigs that were paying “in-kind” or with “publicity.” You want to build a resume, right? So you take what you can get. But those don’t pay the rent.
(Ask me why I buy new writers meals at cons)
But if my parents hadn’t been there as a backup, I wouldn’t have been able to work for free. I had the privilege of not getting paid. As gross as that is to say, it’s true. Being able to work for free is a demonstration of privilege.
(Ask me why I never request the “friend rate.”)
Many people in marginalized communities are dealing with lower wages and, hence, have a more fragile support network. They often don’t have the privilege of working for free. Which means that they can’t take unpaid internships, or in-kind payment, or publicity, because they have to pay the rent. So it becomes even harder to break in, which means the pool of voices gets narrower.
(Ask me about living with a broken tooth.)
I think it’s always important to pay artists. If you have any interest in supporting marginalized voices, then understand that many don’t have the privilege of working for free.
I did. It still sucked. But it was a choice that I had the privilege to make.
Pay. The. Artists.
It sometimes feels counter-intuitive, when you have that privilege to not exercise it. Demanding pay when you could afford to work without it feels arrogant. It’s only after reading a lot that you and others have said about this issue that I’ve made a principled choice against work for exposure as I try to break in as a writer.
There are times and places to work for free. I’ve donated my fee back to an organization because I believed in what they were doing, but it was a choice.
That’s the important thing — making it a choice.
I lived with a broken tooth 2-3 months this year. Sure, it hurt a lot, but I’d just slap OTC things on it. It finally got to where I had to go to the dentist. The hygienist took one look and said “Your tooth’s cracked all the way through and infected, you need a root canal.” I had to put it on the credit card, but the dentist at least divided it into 4 equal payments spread over about 6 weeks, and 20% off for no insurance. At least I can barely, barely afford that; if it happens again I’ll have to have the next one pulled.
But I still eat creamy peanut butter.
I can’t believe I read what you all just wrote. Have I gone to another Planet and slipped into another dimension of reality?
Poverty is when you cramp from the hunger pain and eat the thing at the side of the road not knowing what it is but knowing it is edible and will stop the pain.
Poverty is not having a toothache for 3 months and only eating creamy peanut butter.
Ignoring someone’s comments on a social media platform is not a feat to be honored. I know you are laughing for the humor but it do not flow that way through the others. You should find shame in your acts. Wouldn’t you be better off to find a chink in the armor that separates and shine a light over that poor soul who is so obviously struggling? Instead, you glory in your own insults of depravity. Yes, depravity. You had the privilege to learn and now you squander your gifts.
In polite society, one does not brag about gifts made in charity. True charity needs no light shined on it. Shame again. Put your bragging in the dark.
Your parents paid for your college education and yet you can withhold completely from the child running from bullets. You put this together like the weaving of a rope but I have no tools to take this rope apart. I just know when something speaks strongly to me from the depths of the soul. I sincerely thank you for listening and hope my offence will be washed away by the morning dew. However, there is a slim chance that some good may come from all this. I have no idea.
I’m sorry. I don’t understand a couple of things in here. I was with you until “Ignoring someone’s comments on a social media platform is not a feat to be honored.” I don’t know what that’s in reference to.
“Poverty is not having a toothache for 3 months and only eating creamy peanut butter.”
No, I’m pretty sure that counts too. Being poor is not a binary, on/off. There is not an absolute threshold. There’s poor, and there’s poorer, like there’s rich and there’s richer and everything in between.
Not being able to fix your health issues because you can’t pay for a doctor is being poor. Not being able to eat healthy or outside the discount aisle is being poor. Living in a 30mq house with cockroaches is being poor. Having to buy the cheapest shoes because you can’t afford the only slightly more expensive ones that would last you a lot longer is being poor.
Saying “well but you can still eat, and have shoes, and have a house while others can’t so you’re not really poor” is extremely harmful, because it tells people that they don’t have right to be paid a proper living wage for their work and they have to learn to be happy in semi-misery because “it could be worse”. It pits poor against poor while giving a pass to those who created a system where money only flows upward.
And it’s exactly the kind of broken mentality used by those who fly in private jets but tell artists they should work for exposure.
Re: what “counts” as poor: I’m just gonna leave John Scalzi’s “Being Poor” right here. And also Point of Privilege, his essay on how poverty doesn’t always look like what you think it should look like.
And, point of interest: people have died from having cracked teeth they couldn’t afford to fix. Here. In America. A child died in my state of a cracked tooth while his mother was busting her butt to get some help out of the torn and flaming rag it amuses us to call a safety net.
If you’re moving the goalposts for poverty past “lack of funds putting people in mortal peril,” I’m not sure how the word could continue to have any meaning.
(Ask me why I never request the “friend rate.”)
I’ve always felt that “the friend rate” meant that the friend offered to do for less because you were a friend, and you offered to pay more because your were a friend. As a compromise I’d pay the normal rate.
I’ll offer the “friend rate,” which is below my going rate, but I never request it and only accept when I’m strapped or can do a fair trade.