This isn’t about me. As I get older I experience less and less discrimination. But every day I read on the internet someone or other saying that _______ is the last acceptable form of prejudice. “It’s ok to hate fat people.” “It’s ok to discriminate against the mentally ill.” “THE LAST FORM OF TOLERATED BIGOTRY IS AGAINST TRANS* PEOPLE!!!”

Err. The fact that I have read three posts like that in the last hour means there probably isn’t “one remaining form of prejudice.”

The older I get the more privilege I have. I don’t think it works this way for everyone but it does for me.

When I read about how every year a person should expect to not have more money than last year because of the terrible financial position the country is in I think… but my finances have steadily improved every year since I was eighteen. Not always because of my own hard work–let’s be clear.

I no longer think of myself as a boot strapper in the slightest. I’m not and for me to claim such status is disrespectful.

I had a settlement. That provided all of my early financial security (my income went up every year after eighteen because I did part-time work in college and then went into teaching which was much more money than my mother had ever made–I felt filthy rich). Now I have Noah. His ability to earn money blows my mind. He’s just doing it.

I’m trying to figure out how to write to twelve year olds about the fact that every twelve year old has it shitty without sounding like I am propping up the system. Some twelve year olds have it worse than others but almost no twelve year old is capable of understanding that or evaluating what it means or how it works.

All discrimination sucks. There is not “one last” form of discrimination. There are as many kinds of discrimination as there are people with a stick up their ass. You couldn’t possibly list all of the things people are discriminated over.

But I feel kind of cranky about fat white women being very sure that they have it worse than anyone because prejudice against fat is the LAST REMAINING THING IT IS OK TO PICK ON PEOPLE FOR.

Err, haven’t you noticed that there are more black men in prison now than were ever slaves in this country? Maybe you aren’t at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to discrimination. Maybe.

I get that it sucks to be picked on. I really do. I don’t understand why people need to justify that their experience is shitty by saying that it is the shittiest thing ever.

I don’t think my life was the shittiest thing ever. I really don’t. I meet people all the time who are much worse off after their respective lives. I had a lot of bad things happen to me. I also had a lot of good.

I have a lot of privilege. I always have. The older I get, the more cemented it gets the more I can see the tendrils of it stretching back into the beginnings of my life.

I was *always* tolerated for interrupting class when I was a child. I was massively disruptive in almost every single one of the twenty-five schools I went to. It was tolerated. I wasn’t sent to special ed for bad kids the way the black or hispanic boys were. They were *not* more disruptive than me. The biggest difference between me and a lot of the boys I knew over time was that I knew the right answer in class.

I’m brilliant. Now that I’m an adult and I’m not worried about people beating me up if I say it out loud I can accept it. I’m brilliant. I just understand things faster and more easily than other people. It’s a gift. I’m not a better person, but school was a fuck-ton easier for me than it is for people who need slow and careful explanations. I got punished less because I was smart.

I don’t believe there is any “one last” discrimination left. As long as there are billions of people alive there will be way more things to discriminate about than that.

I feel really sad when I see people who are like me (I have been a fat white woman for most of my adult life–I’m not fat at this point but I expect I will eventually be so again) thinking that they have it the worst of the worst. First that makes me sad because the individual person feels that bad about themselves and their life. Second it makes me sad because that person has such a limited view of the world.

Have you read anything about children in Afghanistan lately? No one in America gets to talk about the “last acceptable discrimination”. We just don’t. We can talk about being unhappy about how we are treated–totally reasonable.  That’s ALWAYS OK.

But the hyperbole bothers me. It erases so many people.

The older I get, the longer I stay alive the more I recognize how very lucky and blessed I am. Sure, I’ve had bad things happen to me but most people do. Life is just like that. Bad things happen. It isn’t about deserving. It just happens.

But every morning I wake up in a house that is warm or cool as I see fit to make it. I have a husband who wakes up and makes me breakfast just because he loves me. I have little girls who wake up and the first thing out of their mouth is, “I’m so glad to see you again!” because that is the first thing they have heard every day of their lives (Godmama weekends excepted).

I am lucky. I am safe. I was reading about food insecurity yesterday. I really need to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. I’m bothered by how many people in my neighborhood are statistically hungry right this minute. I think ignoring those problems is not ok. It makes me feel bad about myself as a person.

I know what it means to not have food. I know what severe malnutrition feels like. I live with a lot of the long term effects and they suck. But I have medical insurance so I can go to the doctor when I have problems now because of what happened to me a long time ago.

I am so very lucky.

(I don’t leave comments on other peoples blogs because they don’t need to know that I am irritated with them. My sandbox, my rules.)