Interview Transcript

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MP: On a scale of 1 to 5, how moving or powerful do you think this post it to you, personally?

LL: 1

 

MP: Interesting. How so? 

LL: “Despite being Black, she is still in a position of relative privilege. I'm a little skeptical about the impact of this post, at least how much it has affected me. I just don’t think her confession has the alleged subversive power that many people think it does. There's an overwhelming number of comments praising her courage and strength everything, but given her relative position of privilege, like good education and good family background and socio-economic standing, is her experience of racism really that subversive? I mean I’m not saying that her feelings are not justified. I just feel like, you know, sometimes people in a position of privilege could gain power through the display of vulnerability. I guess I was just thinking about black people who were not born into a good family like she was or didn’t have the opportunities that she had. I just feel like their stories might have a more powerful impact on me. Again, (I’m) not saying her feelings were less valuable or something…”

 

MP: Do you think there is any particular reason why you think this way?

LL: Maybe. I feel like, growing up, because of my family background, I always had to work a lot harder than others for things that are just given to some people. I have to fight for what some people were born with. It doesn’t really bother me whether that’s fair or unfair because it is what it is you know. But because I know how hard it is for people with little privilege to make it in the world, I just tend to emphasize with them more. 

 

MP: What I’m gathering is that you value achieved status more than ascribed status. Is that accurate?

LL: Yeah, sort of, but I do think they can inform each other too. 

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Interpretations of LL's Response

I interpreted LL’s response as indicative of his emphasis on achieved status as opposed to achieved status, largely driven by his own experience of “making his way in the world with little privilege”.

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How LL tends to value achieved status more is interesting because it reveals how someone's ascribed status can affect their achieved status, and vice versa. To LL, a rags-to-rich story is more powerful because it could represent hope, inspiration, and empowerment that resonate with his own past and desired future, whereas a silver spoon story could elicit cynicism and actually reduce the perceived impact of their success. To LL, his own position of little privilege possibly shaped his view that how someone arrives at their achieved status from his or her ascribed status is what matters. The greater the gap between the two, the more powerful, impactful, and provocative their stories seem to be.

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Reflections on My Interpretations

My interpretation of LL's response reveals my tendency to construe social relations and identities in the light of power relations and privilege, which is particularly palpable in the framing of my question"what I’m gathering is that you value achieved status more than ascribed status. Is that accurate?". My inclination to ground discussions in power dynamics most likely stems from my previous liberal arts and sociological experience in discussing gender, race, belonging, and ideology from the perspective of identity politics and power dynamics. For example, I wrote on how power dynamics shape the moralization and habituation of pornography for my Philosophy of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality class; I wrote on how alienation comes from imbalanced power relations for my Cultural Studies class; I spent a semester exploring how the relationship of dominance and compromise shaped the history and contemporary experience of democracy in the United States. The more I dived into different disciplines the more phenomena of power dynamics I perceive. My sense-making process is deeply entangled with my preconception of power as a fundamental construct of human experience, which once again shaped the framing and interpretation of my interview with LL.

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