It was a recurring topic on this season’s RHONY with Jessel having a hard time understanding or even acknowledging her own privilege.
Most people mistake privilege to mean they came from wealth, but that’s not what it means. It means having certain unearned advantages over others and there are many different types of privilege such as class, gender, race, and wealth.
In Jessel’s case, her parents paid for her university tuition and she was able to stay at a relative’s home in New York rent-free affording her the opportunity to take an unpaid internship which then gave her a foot in the door for her career in fashion.
Those are privileges that many people don’t have because maybe they don’t have a relative they can stay with for free or maybe they have to find paid work right away, closing the door on certain career opportunities.
This doesn’t negate Jessel’s hard work or even the hard work of her parents. But denying the advantages you receive does diminish the disadvantages of others.
That’s why we need to keep talking about privilege, otherwise how on Earth are we going to make any progress in making things more equitable in the future?
Thoughts???
—
#rhony #privilege #jesseltaank #letstalkprivilege #equitableeducation #personalfinance #financialliteracy
