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336 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 2024
A student from Greenwich, Connecticut, who had attended Phillips Exeter Academy (an expensive private boarding school), explained that I was too privileged to understand the harm these professors had caused. At first I was stunned. But later, I came to understand the intellectual acrobatics necessary to say something like this. The student who called me “privileged” likely meant that due to my background as a biracial Asian Latino heterosexual cisgender (that is, I “present” as the sex I was “assigned” at birth) male, this means that I have led a privileged life
However, I also learned that many inhabitants of elite universities assign a great deal of importance to “lived experience.” This means that your unique personal hardships serve as important credentials to expound on social ills and suggest remedies.
These two ideas appeared to be contradictory. Which is more relevant to identity, one’s discernible characteristics (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on) or what they actually went through in their lives? I asked two students this question. One replied that this question was dangerous to ask. The other said that one’s discernible characteristics determine what experiences they have in their lives. This means that if you belong to a “privileged” group, then you must have had a privileged life.
There was a striking absence of obesity among the [Yale] students—many of them seemed to be preoccupied with their weight and image. I learned a term I’d never heard before: fat shaming. It was remarkable that students who seldom consumed sugary drinks and often closely adhered to nutrition and fitness regiments were also attempting to create a taboo around discussions of obesity. The unspoken oath seemed to be, “I will carefully monitor my health and fitness, but will not broadcast the importance of what I am doing, because that is fat shaming.
A former classmate at Yale told me “monogamy is kind of outdated” and not good for society. I asked her what her background is and if she planned to marry. She said she came from an affluent family, was raised by both of her parents, and that, yes, she personally intended to have a monogamous marriage—but quickly added that marriage shouldn’t have to be for everyone.
I watched students claim that investment banks were emblematic of capitalist oppression, and then discovered that they’d attended recruitment sessions for Goldman Sachs.
Gradually I came to believe that many of these students were broadcasting the belief that such firms were evil in order to undercut their rivals. If they managed to convince you that a certain occupation is corrupt and thus to be avoided, then that was one less competitor they had in their quest to be hired.
Broadcasting personal feelings of emotional precarity and supposed powerlessness was part of the campus culture [at Yale]. Conspicuously lamenting systemic disadvantage seemed to serve as both a signal and reinforcer of membership in this rarefied group of future elites. Many students would routinely claim that systemic forces were working against them, yet they seemed pleased to demonstrate how special they were for rising above those impediments. This spawned a potent blend of victimhood and superiority.
Your typical working-class American could not tell you what heteronormative or cisgender means. But if you visit an elite college, you’ll find plenty of affluent people who will eagerly explain them to you. When someone uses the phrase cultural appropriation, what they are really saying is, “I was educated at a top college.”