[100 Challenge] Roberta Gattel_56

"Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?", Beverly Daniel Tatum, 1997

A few years ago, I was on holiday in Italy, in the Prosecco Valleys, with two friends, Chip and Dale, who I will call Chip and Dale here. One evening, we were sipping wine, watching the dusk of the valley from the restaurant terrace, and complaining about our respective jobs. Chip was in charge of cultural planning at the University, Dale was employed in an office, and I was an assistant chef for a tourist restaurant (actually,I was a chef, but in my contract, I was listed as an assistant chef, to be paid less). The tones were playful and light, as always when complaining between friends. Still, suddenly, the conversation took a different direction: “They should raise the salaries of those who carry out cultural activities,” said Chip. “In Italy,teachers are paid the same as workers.” A dialogue ensued between Chip and Dale about how low-skilled labor was unfairly overpaid. I remained paralyzed: I came from a family of workers, and my friends knew it well just as I knew well that they, on the other hand, were the daughters of doctors and dentists. What did they know about a worker's salary? Or about what should it be?

So I pointed out some Marxist sayings, such as alienation and physical wear, about the worker's salary, hoping to make them remember that my parents struggled to make ends meet despite ruining their health while at it. The innuendo was not understood; Chip and Dale talked about themselves and their interests as low-paid graduates. They forgot that, besides coming from a working-class background, I worked in a kitchen with a ridiculous contract, even though I had a degree. It seemed that my situation, unlike theirs, was acceptable as it was.

The crux of their argument was that study, being unpaid work, should be rewarded at the end of the university career with a job that provides adequate pay. “If workers want to get more money... they shouldn't have been workers,” Chip told me with Dale's agreement. In a few minutes, I remained frozen for the second time: "What are you saying?" I asked her, unable to say anything else: a pang of sorrow had taken my breath away.

Their second argument concerned merit and was linked to their personal experience. Their parents, yes, were doctors and dentists, but their grandparents were not. Their grandparents were "poor" (I use quotation marks because I am reporting their words, and I don't know what their idea of poverty is nor what their families' actual occupation was). The story they presented to me was this: unlike the rest of their family, their grandparents had chosen to study and had succeeded. Their brothers, who had not wanted to do the same, had remained poor and, according to them, envious of their grandparents' careers.

The moral of the story? Poverty is a choice and, therefore, a fault.

“Look, my grandfather's brothers could have studied too if they had wanted,” Chip assured me after my objections, “but they didn't want to, so they remained poor. And also their children, who are my uncles." “You can't deny the merit,” chorused Dale. “Also, in my family's case, it's the same.”

I won't report the rest of the conversation because it remains a painful memory for me and a ridiculous one for the reader. Also, their arguments supporting the "merit” had already ended here. My counter-arguments, however, had only just begun that evening.

In the chapter “Defining racism” of “Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?”, Tatum writes about how difficult it is to talk about racism as a system of privileges and how strong the emotional impact of the word itself is on people. She explains: “For many Whites, this new awareness of the benefits of a racist system elicits considerable pain, often accompanied by feelings of anger and guilt. These uncomfortable emotions can hinder further discussion that we deserve the good things we have received and that others, too, get what they deserve. Social psychologists call this tendency a 'belief in a just world.'Racism directly contradicts such notions of justice on race as antithetical to traditional notions of an American meritocracy. This definition generates considerable discomfort for those who have internalized this myth”.

Tatum applies the exact definition of sexism, reading it in terms of a system of privilege based on sex. According to this module, a man may not be sexist, but by the fact of being a man, he still lives in a system that benefits him because it is created based on his sex.

If the exact definition is applied to classism, it is interesting to see how it relates to the meritocratic system. This system is built on the conviction that if people commit themselves, make sacrifices, and don't give up on their dreams, somehow, sooner or later, they are rewarded. It follows that if my parents remained working class, they didn't commit to growing professionally. If I had a dishwasher's salary, despite having a degree, it is because I hadn't worked enough to continue my studies. Or because I wasn't talented enough to do something better.

Thinking that classism exists and that it is a system of benefits based on class questions the concept of merit that we have absorbed from this tradition. It also questions people who justify their achievements on this basis. Those from a wealthy class may not be classists but still benefit from their condition, sometimes without wanting or knowing it.

Thinking, "I am not a privileged person because my well-being is the legacy of my grandfather's just merit," lacks intellectual honesty.

Many talented young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds fail to achieve the social mobility they dream of, even if they work hard. Even if they win a scholarship and support themselves by waiting at night and studying during the day, they often don't get what they deserve. Working hard is sometimes not enough, and no talent scouts who are ready to help you are hiding around the corner, except in American films.

That evening, in the Prosecco Valleys, I was trying to contest not the individual work of anyone, the effort and willpower needed to achieve specific goals, but the denial of the existence of a gradation of privilege that facilitates this path. I wanted to dismantle not the joy and satisfaction of having a beautiful career but the tendency to blame those who stop early in this "climb to the summit" or those who don't even try because they can't. Back then, I wanted and failed to say that meritocracy is just a myth.