Hi friend,
I had an epiphany about my behavior over the last few years that’s sobering and a little depressing. Sometimes I pay people to treat me with respect because I don’t always get it in the real world. When I choose a more expensive hotel over a cheaper one, upgrade a flight, or go to a more expensive restaurant, yes, I’m paying for quality. But I also expect to be treated kindly. I’m paying a premium with the expectation that others will hide their classism, racism, homophobia, their allegiance to the patriarchy. I’m paying to be cared for in a world that has thrown people like me away.
A friend of mine wears Rolexes. He’s good with his money, wealthy and self-made; he clawed his way out of circumstances that many of us will never know. He’s confident in ways I can only dream to one day be. Yet he tells me that one reason he wears nice watches is that “people treat you differently when they realize you have money.” His skin is brown like mine, and his tattoos reveal a past life he doesn’t want to define his present. We’re both buying respect in a world that doesn’t automatically grant it to us. So we buy things to signal to the world that we are worthy of respect. Capitalism has its benefits but comes at the cost of countless indignities.
When I think about the money I’ve spent to be treated like I matter, it makes me wonder how much money I could have saved if I had always felt valuable in the world. In some ways, it might have been easier to never have known that a world exists where you can pay people to treat you like you matter. Because once I leave those parameters, as soon as I go outside the confines of purchased privilege, it’s jarring to return to an unjust world. In the real world, I’m constantly reminded of my otherness, my not-enoughness, my not-whiteness. God forbid, I ever forget.
After all these years and all of my work trying to heal, it’s crazy to still feel this way. Will there always be this residue from my trauma? Even so, I can find beauty in my struggle and poetry in the fight. Does anyone else feel this way? Don’t be shy; hit reply.
Your favorite finance friend,
