Privilege

Olde Town Augusta

 IGA Grocery on East Boundary

Little Package store on East Boundary

Laundry Mat on East Boundary 

Big Nice House on Greene Street

Small Nice House on Ellis Street

These are pictures of the IGA grocery store, package store and laundry mat on East Boundary in Olde Town Augusta. There are also two pictures of the two diverse neighborhoods that are side by side in Olde Town Augusta. There is a “nice part of town” and a “ghetto part of town.” These parts of town represent privilege in our society.

“Because privilege is conferred by social systems, people don’t have to feel privileged in order to be privileged,” (Johnson 91) such as some of the people that live on Broad Street in Olde Town. People with privilege or without privilege do not necessarily know about their privilege or lack of privilege. However, they most likely become aware as they grow older, especially those born into a lower class. Peggy McIntosh writes, “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege,” (McIntosh 1).

The people that live in the “ghetto part of town” have to resort to grocery shopping at IGA because perhaps they were born into a lower class and have a lack of privilege. Perhaps they have no job, no car, no money, etc., so they have to shop at the local cheap store. Perhaps they own no washer or dryer either, so they have to wash their clothes at the laundry mat on East Boundary. The people that live on Broad Street in the big nice houses probably do not have to shop at IGA or wash their clothes at the laundry mat because they have more privilege. The two houses I took pictures of are in the two different neighborhoods.  Can you tell which house is in which neighborhood? The neighborhoods are side by side yet with great differences in class and privilege. Does someone that is poor have to stay poor? Skip to “Refusing to Take the Path of Least Resistance.”