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Society says everyone has to juggle three red balls. That's just how it is, that's the rule.
When you're a straight white cis dude born to wealth you're born with three red balls in your hands and you get a juggling instructor.
When you're a straight white cis dude born to wealth you're born with three red balls in your hands and you get a juggling instructor.
When you're not, you're born with some number of white balls. You still have to juggle them, but nobody is going to teach you how. And those white balls are meaningless to society -- nobody ever talks about them.
So, to succeed in society you need to be able to publicly juggle three red balls. Nobody is going to give you a free red ball, so you have to learn how to find or make or buy them. Then you have to get used to them, because they feel different.
When you watch TV, every character is effortlessly juggling three red balls. Some of them have white balls, too, but nobody ever talks about those.
In movies, in books, in music, on the street, everywhere you look the successful people are juggling three red balls.
In movies, in books, in music, on the street, everywhere you look the successful people are juggling three red balls.
Of course, some people don't have enough red balls. We feel sorry for them, we see them trying and we hope they earn their red balls eventually. We ignore that they can barely keep the dozen white balls they do have in the air, because nobody talks about those.
Sometimes, someone stops juggling. "They seemed so happy," people will say, because they don't know how to talk about the dozen white balls the person was obviously struggling to keep in the air. Nobody talks about those.
Sometimes, a great opportunity presents itself and someone with 2 red balls is offered a third one. But it would be their 8th ball total, and they're just not up to the challenge of maintaining it.
Some people start avoiding opportunities, accepting a lesser social fate.
Some people start avoiding opportunities, accepting a lesser social fate.
Eventually, the narrative takes hold that anyone who really wants three red balls can get them. All of these people without enough red balls are just lazy, they're not even willing to take extra red balls if you give them to them. (Nobody talks about the white balls).
The thing is, you can't hold down a full-time job if you can't juggle three red balls. If you're managing two balls okay you can sometimes pull it off, but it's really hard and you're always worried you'll be found out. If you're down to one, pfft, good luck.
And like, I guess I think my politics are that we should just start counting all of the balls a person is juggling, not just the red ones, when we model what we expect that a person should be able to do.
*exit stage left, juggling*
*exit stage left, juggling*
