Thread by @akbarjenkins

There are really not that many people in academia who come from poor or working class backgrounds for a million reasons. It really strikes me in a way that’s hard to explain that my peers really don’t know what it is to be poor. How it shapes how you think. They really don’t know

I don’t like that this has to turn into a social media posturing thing. I’m really just talking about something real. If you really don’t have any real idea of what it means to be homeless and/or not able to eat, you will see things differently

To me having a job is a desperate victory... just having any job that gives you money that lets you survive. This is not something good for the politics of the system in general, but if you’ve ever really been poor you might understand how much clinging to having a job means

I don't know how to get this across without seeming like posturing. It's just that to not work was never an idea. Of course you always worked and getting a job was a big thing. A job was a precious thing because it kept you alive and made you not in the control of someone else

I am really not into making big blanket statements about someone's class or race or gender identity, which the Left seems to be into unfortunately, but I do seriously mean that someone who floats into the PMC world from a poorer background has a really distinct perspective

As in... I don't mean to be "weaponizing" my identity but I want people to know that in some ways if you don't come from a certain economically disadvantaged situation then you might not fully understand how other people look at these social and political issues. That's all

It’s truly mind boggling to me that until very recently people in academia thought it was normal to force a job candidate to spend $2000 on an outfit, plane ticket, hotel and conference registration just to have a first round interview for a job @chronicle

I took it for granted at the time... in retrospect I have no idea how I afforded to fly literally across the entire country to interview at the AHA when I was a grad student barely making any money