AIBU to think that everybody should watch this? It opened my eyes

[almutasakieun]

As for where I'd be in the race, I'd probably have gotten a couple of headstarts, but by no means all.

I just thought it was interesting.

am I the only 1 that cried watching that

No victormeldrew, I teared up too

Also, I think, if you're poor, you're more likely to come from a single parent family. Richer people tend to stay together for longer for some reason. Haven't thought about it long enough to figure out why, but I guess, crime, addiction, mental health issues, violence etc. contributes to the Dads leaving the mothers.

Plenty of single DMs do a great job. I think a single DM in America could be much harder than one in the UK or Ireland.
That video may have been about black vs white, but here it boils down to money and ambition but mainly money. Money can provide an education and life skills and knowledge. Poverty is a circle of life for many, you can do almost anything if you can afford too.

Also the barriers were on top of all the other things I lacked that kept me back near the starting line

Yes, as I said, there are individuals who defy the odds.

What I was talking about is a culture of privilege and belief that anything is possible. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

How do you know they're not uncomfortable to have their noses rubbed in their disadvantages?
I don’t, no one does unless they know them.
I do know as one of only a handful of poor children with a single patient living on a council estate at grammar school that I was very aware of what I lacked as a child and how much easier it was for my peers.
I don’t expect it’s any real surprise to the disadvantaged kids that life is stacked against them.
My child has advantages I never had by virtue of coming from a stable home with parents who don’t have to worry about how to pay the bills.
That’s not to say I’m better than my mum I’m not she was an amazing mum but my DD will have advantages I didn’t.

I'd have only moved a few steps from the start. As a previous person said, there is more of a correlation between race and wealth in the USA than here. I'm not trying to deny that there's no correlation at all but privilege is so much more complex than this, especially now and I don't think the video showed that properly.

What's also shocking is that some of those kids have helped their parent(s) to pay the bills. What are they? 16/17?
So that's an F U to the poster who is spouting nonsense about them not getting a job and working hard.

Why do British people want to watch over-hyped American propaganda?
What is wrong with our own heritage or has everyone been totally brainwashed over the past 20 years?

I found it very upsetting, those poor young men whose father's didn't think that they were worth their time
strong healthy young men watching as all those other kids raced ahead because they could just take it for granted that their dad was in their corner fighting for them

I don’t think the video is perfect, it’s a blunt tool and a lot of factors are missing. It’s supposed to be a simplification though as a starting point for discussion not an in depth look at how socio-economic factors effect potential. It don’t think it’s meant to be taken as literally as PP are taking it.

Oh FFS, it's hardly propaganda.

It seems for some the idea that the poor don’t deserve to be poor is very controversional

It's a flawed, over simplistic, very obvious GCSE sociology lesson with a bit of racism and anti-female propaganda thrown in, all wrapped up in an emotional little video to "raise awareness".

You have to be completely blind to take anything from this that you didn't already know and to reach adulthood and not realising that some people get an easy ride in life and others don't.

I read an interview with a teacher from Eton who said the students there believe they’re capable of doing anything they put their mind to and that’s what sets them apart as they grow up

Yes, of course it is their attitude that means they will succeed and absolutely nothing to do with coming from a family that sent them to Eton. FFS, that is unconscious privilege for you, right there.

I'm kinda confused by posters that don't seem to think catchment school differences is a special UK thing that doesn't happen in the US. Hell, a lot of the private schools in the US are crappy fundamentalist schools with really poor academic achievements, but the dude only asked a handful of questions likely based on broad statistics on the disadvantage certain things have. He could have asked more like having a family member in prison or dealt with immigration, but he seems to be playing to those kids.

Personally, I would have been humiliated if this had been done to me at the ages those kids are now and find it very awkward to publically use kids like that to make a point. Also, no idea how to answer some of those at that age (parents legally married but had lived separately for years, lived in father's home but only saw him 2-3 times a month so not sure if that counts as having a father figure in the home, all 16-17 year old high school students could get free community college classes where I was which I did, but it sounds like he means after high school graduation, I'd already caught a lot of shit and called a liar by classmates and teachers for trying to get help with lack of food access and issues with electric, and so on). Even just within those questions, it can be complicated.

As I said, it's simplified and he was trying to be brief & what he's trying to do is admirable, but I really don't like the popular idea of using kids with particular disadvantage to teach better off kids ~meaningful lessons~. That's not really those kids jobs and no reason to think that kind of lesson really sticks. It makes a nice video, but I don't think it does anything.

Well it has been shared worldwide, so somebody is learning something somewhere from it! As I said, it made me stop and think a bit. And I'm a white single Mum with a mixed race daughter and absent black father.

sailorcherries

But its not shoehorning to say
I'm white and wouldn't have taken a step
I'm white and would have taken 2
or I'm black and would have taken X many steps.

Yes its american, yes its different but its not generalisations are not good things.

Morgan Freeman has some very good things to say on this, but they are not mainstream views.

FFS, that is unconscious privilege for you, right there.

No, I think the teacher interviewed was saying that the students develop a belief that they can do anything, and that belief comes from a variety of sources, including being from a family that would send them to Eton, as well as the advantage of being educated at Eton and mixing with those sort of families. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, just an observation.

So probably no need for the ffs.

Interesting, but I don't like it. I don't think it's right to put across a point like that without acknowledging everything that can cause disadvantage in life. It makes the point, which could be valid, inaccurate.

I would have taken a few steps forward with those questions, but if they'd included just a couple more questions about very normal and common things like bereavement or disability, then the people who had been left on the starting line may well have been able to catch up, and therefore any perceived advantage I had in the race would be lost.

I'm happy to acknowledge the privilege I've had, privately to myself and as a tool to help my own level of happiness through being thankful, but I wouldn't appreciate being put in a position where I'm expected to feel 'luckier' than someone else just because their hardships and suffering in life are different to mine.

We will all face difficulties because that's part of the deal of being human.

NailsNeedDoing. But if you were a disabled kid, whose Mum had died, without any of those privileges in the video, would you be worse off than you?

It’s supposed to be a simplification though as a starting point for discussion not an in depth look at how socio-economic factors effect potential. It don’t think it’s meant to be taken as literally as PP are taking it

This. Somebody said "don't read the youtube comments" but this thread is almost as bad. OMG they didn't appreciate the full nuances of privilege and poverty... yeah, it's a simple exercise for teenagers to get them thinking a little. What do you expect??

It's like 'shall I draw a diagram for you', this is a moving diagram
It's a simplified representation

That's the point really, if you experience a combination of a few of the things that can affect a child, then you're really at a disadvantage.

Experiencing one or two of those perceived advantages may not really make any difference to privilege if youre going to discount other factors.

Boomfloom sorry but there is a distinct financial advantage that's proven in being part of a Lp family as opposed to a 2 parent family. And the financial disadvantage adds to the stress Lp face.

And I'm from exactly the type of 2 parent family you describe! - toxic with not much love going around! Should have divorced really. But I'd say in terms of this allegory:

those from a happy 2 parent family furthest ahead

Then those from an unhappy/toxic 2 parent family

Those from Lp families.

Lushlemming you've COMPLETELY missed the point. It's not about blaming problems on someone else, it's about acknowledging the part LUCK has played in the lives of those WITH advantages - which they rarely do

digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/

Redandyellow

A that's NOT what people are saying - that it's all clouds and unicorns for White People

BUT

B the FACT that GENERALLY non-White people are still HUGELY disadvantaged JUST by not being white predominantly white societies IS still true.

To say otherwise is disingenuous at best.

"In the UK, anyone from any background, can achieve the highest office and get what they want." In theory - just as in USA 'anybody' born in the USA can become president...meanwhile in the REAL world... Most us presidents have been wealthy, white, Protestant males. Ditto uk prime ministers, and the majority of pms were privately educated too.

Re Lp families - of which we are one. I also think there's a difference between a single parent family where the nrp (which is usually but not always the father) is still involved, engaged, pays a decent amount of maintenance and isn't a "Disney" parent, those where the nrp pisses about floating in and out of the child's life, paying maintenance erratically if at all and being a "Disney" parent, and those where the nrp has fucked off altogether! So yes the various factors are nuanced - what tends to be true of all 3 is that money is tighter than when there were 2 full incomes, the opportunities for the rp to work are restricted, there's extra stress on the rp due to financial worries and 'the Buck stops here' in terms of raising the child/ren with particular regard to behaviour and education - have you noticed the narrative around youth knife crime has weighed very heavily toward blaming the mothers with very little responsibility being apportioned to the fathers that have - at least emotionally/psychologically - abandoned these kids?! Cos God forbid men are ever to blame in a single parent scenario - unless they're occupying the spot normally filled by the woman of rp!

"It seems for some the idea that the poor don’t deserve to be poor is very controversional" not just "some" it's a prevailing attitude at the moment sadly. Just look at all the benefit bashing not only on tv or in mainstream press but here on mn and all over other sm too.