i wanted to write a sort of hidden element of academia, but really any professional class of people, this thread was inspired by a convo with one of my profs, and a line i read in a @jmrphy article about him not "being the type of person to make it" in Academia, and let me say...
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academics mostly still come from the high middle to upper middle classes and above, regardless of race, gender, etc. Geography also plays a huge role in any of the bugman cathedral networks, I.E. the networks of influence around coastal megalopolis cities.
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these people were mostly born and bred into a certain personality, temperament, and worldview. the bug-functionaries all have the same attitudes and opinions because they share roughly the same upbringing, their parents and relatives are media people, academics or "creatives" etc
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so it is quite easy to have "access" to top schools and slack off because so and so your daddy or mommy knows is a media person or joe-nobody that lectured in this and this "studies" department or worked in one of the government complacency offices, you get the picture.
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then when they grow up, their friends are all profs, media people, and "creatives too", walking inside uni departments, and all i hear is "well so and so i know is doing this research project/lecture series/conference". why is this bad besides the obvious reality of bias?
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thing is, if you are from a small town and especially from a working class background (as i am), they tend to look at your differently, and sometimes straight up question why you even wish to "be in grad school", its true, they don't even realize it half the time, but its there..
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one of my good friends from my phil program comes out of a working class polish immigrant family from Hamilton, he's gonna be a lawyer, a real crazy but brilliant and interesting dude. i heard from someone that a few profs in our department made comments that "he's rough
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around the edges" which is code speak for "he seems like a dumb hick townie" because of the way he speaks and appears. classism is real in academia, and the ones who escape this are peeps who have a high spot on the prog stack. i hate to be this blunt but thats the way it is.
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i find this appalling because for people educated in marx, Foucault, Butler, etc. they sure can be blind to the very real class stereotypes and discrimination they perpetuate. not all, or even most do this, but it is a real thing in the university that is problematic.
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if you are a person in a small town who loves reading and writing, and want to be in the place that (somewhat) pays you to do that, if you have the gift of gab, then you will face hurdles or fight to be respected in that setting.
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you also simply don't have the same access to networks of influence, so you have to earn people's trust and respect as a total outsider, you also have a different personality and temperament then the average hipster MFA grad, and its little things you are not even aware of.
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