I've been told I have an expressive face- I can't really hide my emotions because I'm a very honest person. I wonder how many people read my emotions in class this week. Some of the issues discussed in class came across as somewhat problematic and even patronizing. One thing I chose not to bring up was the idea that our conversation was essentially pointless. Most, if not all, of us come from the middle or upper class. How could we possibly have a productive conversation about a right to wealth or what it means to be poor without actually including poor people in the conversation? It's like having a conversation about race with only white people in the room.
What bothers me the most is the fact that wealthy people often refuse to identify as wealthy. "I'm middle class." "I'm upper-middle class." "I'm comfortable." I feel that this completely denies the privilege that wealthy people have. It's like a white person saying "well actually I'm 1/16th [insert minority]" or a male saying "not all men." These phrases, while they may be true, ignore the privilege that we must recognize to actually make progress. Being wealthy doesn't mean you make the same amount of money as Bill Gates. It means you have security.
I cried about money twice this week. We'll start with the sad one, which was on my Wednesday walk to my second job after working my first job. I was stressed about how much homework I had to do that night, and I was already exhausted from waking up at 7am. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pay tuition next year because I hadn't been getting enough hours at my second job. But it's not like I could pick up any more hours and expect my GPA to stay intact. The second time I cried was on Sunday when my FAFSA had been processed and I found out my EFC went down by almost $4000 (not that AU will actually give me more aid...). $4000 less in tuition is 200 fewer hours of work. That gives me a little bit of hope (even though the decrease in EFC is because of a decrease in income).
Now, I tend to look at poverty on a microlevel, but obviously, in IR, we need to understand the macrolevel. As CJ mentioned in class, countries are not people. Working hard will not suddenly and magically make former colonies as rich as the United States (which is also a former, but profited off of the backs of African slaves, but we don't have time to unpack all that). We tended to take a liberal approach in class of promoting cooperation and helping out developing nations. I wonder, however, how a constructivist approach would play out. If, perhaps, we let developing nations and poor nations have greater power at negotiating tables and projected their voices instead of muffling them with the "authority" of wealthy and developed nations. I'm interested in how this discussion will develop, especially in terms of IR. In the meantime, let the sky lounge debates ensue.
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