Thread by @thrasherxy

I found this essay by @espiers to be quite interesting, for the multiple, contradictory matters it raised for me nytimes.com/2022/01/09/opi…

I don't see myself as having exactly the same issues as Spiers or Strong, but I have pulled myself (w the help of many) to a highly unusual place. As @AnwarUhuru I think put it, Black men of my age are more likely to be dead than to have a PhD. I've done it by "striving,"

a word I hear in my head a lot. And I've often wanted to read more about use strivers—those who, across lines of sexuality and race, have somehow managed to claw our way from one class up into another. I think many of us are confused & disoriented when we arrive

bc, as as @espiers puts it so well, "Class resentment is often discussed as if it’s a one-way phenomenon: The lower classes resent the upper classes. But it works in the other direction, too."

You claw up, you feel uncomfortable, and those around you resent you for being there.

One way I've been aware of striving conflict is having students call me professor or doctor. Like many Blackademics, I like to use the title I earned, and sometimes white academics who are the 5th generation of PhD in their family think this is uncouth

The part I found least interesting was that, overall, I've found the critique of Strong's profile largely unnecessary; he's a famous actor, there is no need to defend a mildly critical profile of him.

But I appreciated @espiers raising this class nugget & close reading it

Having worked at the Guardian, the profound (if passive aggressively expressed) class rage of the Brits towards us vulgar "striving" Americans was palpable.

Curiously, I don't think of "strivers" and "careerists" as the same thing. I could be kidding myself, but I do feel like

a striver but I don't feel like a careerist. I've strived to get where I am, but I haven't been very good at being a careerist. Writing abt racism, defending Palestine, fighting with liberals, critiquing media and academia—I could have had a more lucrative career.

But, like good writing can do so well, this essay by @espiers asked interesting questions—of herself, of the media framing of Strong, of class dynamics and of me the reader. I left it thinking abt striving v. career + lower class rage v upper class rage in new ways. Good stuff.

https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1480363955142938625?s=20

Oops, here I meant to highlight this quopte