@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k I wish your thread were actually threaded. It was a pain to track it down and scroll backward, but I blame Twitter, not you…
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k I’ll add my own story to that though, which I suppose you probably know, but we’re not talking in private, are we? And I don’t know how much @LeanderAlphabet knows.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k I went to public schools all the way up through high school. It’s only in my adulthood that I even heard that other options might have briefly been on the table.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k It was a good public high school, in a more-wealthy-than-not part of town, so a good tax base, involved parents. Still, far more diverse than it could have been, both ethnically and economically.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k My parents always assumed that I would do well and go to college (dad’s a lawyer, mom got her PhD while I was still in school). They fought for me, too. I recently found a piece of paper that I believe documents my mom’s successful attempt to get me into honors math.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k But I was completely oblivious to real privilege, even when my parents would take us to open houses in Highland Park in Dallas on weekends. It was just boring. BORING. Our reward as kids was Burger King for lunch, followed by Steve’s ice cream.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k Then I went to @penn which I knew was *a* privilege, but again, through my obliviousness, I didn’t realize would expose me to *that* kind of privilege.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k @Penn And the weird thing? Somehow, it kind of didn’t. Even though I was one class ahead of DJT, Jr., that always felt like an anomaly to me. My freshman roommate was a public school kid, totally down to earth.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k @Penn Almost all of my friends were, too. Only slowly did I begin to see that there were Kavanaughs all around me. Passing that lacrosse frat, hearing people talk about their interviews with Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. So foreign to me.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k @Penn By senior year I saw it, and found myself in the group that was trying to puncture that other group a little bit. But sure, I was in a senior society. It didn’t feel like privilege, and I don’t think it really was.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k @Penn I’m not sure where I’m taking this, exactly, except that I think there is a lot of value in meeting people who aren’t like you, and trying to get to know them. Which is to say, I think I know some Brett Kavanaughs.
@LeanderAlphabet @michael_k @Penn And I certainly knew some people for whom @Penn was just a continuation of the experiences they had in high school.
