"However I'm starting to wake up to the more subtle ways in which I have been victimized too."
It is similar to the statement about how so long as gay people are discriminated against, no straight person is free - because the possibility always exists the straight person will be perceived to be gay, and they don't want to be treated badly, so they must avoid all behaviors seen as "gay" in order to avoid discrimination. You may have been middle class your entire life, but somewhere in your mind, you notice the increasing numbers of homeless on the street. You read about things done to the poor. You try to consciously build up myths about them - "Oh, they are poor just because they are lazy/mentally ill - I am mentally strong and hard working, so that will never happen to me." If you convince yourself poor people are different from you somehow, that they must be complicit in their poverty, it is less frightening. But there is still a subtle, unspoken fear of poverty built into many decisions. Why must one go to college, study hard, not take risks, not speak up when being maltreated at work, avoid decorating ones body in an alternatve fashion (no visible tattoos or piercings), not partake of any substances which the government has forbidden you? To get a high paying job, to keep a high paying job, SO YOU WON'T END UP BEING POOR. This is the unspoken end of many decisions people make. They strive to look "normal" and "presentable" and behave "appropriately" because to do otherwise is to be a dissident and to risk one's economic status, and everything that happens to the poor is an object lesson to you about what can happen to you if you do not toe that line.
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It is similar to the statement about how so long as gay people are discriminated against, no straight person is free - because the possibility always exists the straight person will be perceived to be gay, and they don't want to be treated badly, so they must avoid all behaviors seen as "gay" in order to avoid discrimination.
You may have been middle class your entire life, but somewhere in your mind, you notice the increasing numbers of homeless on the street. You read about things done to the poor. You try to consciously build up myths about them - "Oh, they are poor just because they are lazy/mentally ill - I am mentally strong and hard working, so that will never happen to me." If you convince yourself poor people are different from you somehow, that they must be complicit in their poverty, it is less frightening. But there is still a subtle, unspoken fear of poverty built into many decisions. Why must one go to college, study hard, not take risks, not speak up when being maltreated at work, avoid decorating ones body in an alternatve fashion (no visible tattoos or piercings), not partake of any substances which the government has forbidden you? To get a high paying job, to keep a high paying job, SO YOU WON'T END UP BEING POOR. This is the unspoken end of many decisions people make. They strive to look "normal" and "presentable" and behave "appropriately" because to do otherwise is to be a dissident and to risk one's economic status, and everything that happens to the poor is an object lesson to you about what can happen to you if you do not toe that line.