the cedar ledge

Advantage to Disadvantage - Working Thoughts

Date: October 9 2021

Summary: An overview on my current thinking about equity and those who

Keywords: #advantage #disadvantage #equity ##thought #race #class #archive

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Table of Contents

    1. Thoughts on the Emerging Disadvantaged Trends in US Caucasian Populations
    2. The Intersections of Advantaged and Disadvantaged
    3. An Emerging Tension
  1. How To Cite
  2. References:
  3. Discussion:

This concerns my evolving thoughts concerning those who move from a state of historical advantage to one of disadvantage. The language of advantage to disadvantage comes from a Dr. Sylvie [XXX] who described this notion first at the [2021 NAHDO Conference]. <!–Find Dr. Sylvie's last name–>

Of particular note, there has been the emergence of a sub-class of persons in the United States amongst the low-income communities. Unlike historically marginalized people groups, such as African Americans, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, or Latin Americans, this particular sub-class exists at the intersection of traditional disadvantage and historical advantage: Caucasian. How can a class of such long-standing advantage find itself disadvantaged is the very question I have been thinking about.

The Intersections of Advantaged and Disadvantaged

I recall from a talk from the MIT Health Equity Conference that a Dr. [XXX] said the phrase, "Race is not monolithic." <!–Find reference to MIT talk and Dr's name–> That statement I think could also be extended to class structure as the aphorism, "Class is not monolithic." In popular discussion, the conversation about disadvantaged populations generally have focused particularly at the intersection of disadvantage-disadvantage with respect to race and class. Yet, the intersection of advantage-disadvantage produces an uncomfortable problem: how should we handle these populations?

This intersectional breakdown could be summarized loosely as follows:

TypeRaceClassExamples
Historically advantagedAdvantagedAdvantagedVictorian aristocracy, robber barons
Emerging advantagedDisadvantagedAdvantagedTextile traders, public servants
Transitional disadvantagedAdvantagedDisadvantagedCoal miners, share croppers
Apparent disadvantagedDisadvantagedDisadvantagedSlaves, serfs

An Emerging Tension

How To Cite

Zelko, Jacob. Advantage to Disadvantage - Working Thoughts. https://jacobzelko.com/10092021131742-advantaged-to-disadvantaged. October 9 2021.

References:

Discussion:

CC BY-SA 4.0 Jacob Zelko. Last modified: November 24, 2023. Website built with Franklin.jl and the Julia programming language.