Nothing bothers me more than when you’re involved in a heated debate (or any debate for that matter) and someone says something that they think trumps any logical argument that you may be putting together. For instance, let’s say you’re in a class and you’re talking about economic disparity in the inner cities and the outlier suburban areas. Then let’s say the conversation turns to how the folks in the inner cities can better equip themselves to advance in life, whether through involvement at the community level, political activism, attending school, or better use of tax credits, blah blah blah.

These types of debates and discussions tend to be broken into ideological lines (which is terrible, but true). Some socialist-minded people think that the government doesn’t do enough to help those in poor areas and some capitalist-minded people think that the government should be completely uninvolved. I don’t care which side you fall on because quite frankly, the only thing that’s ever going to work is a little bit of each, but what bothers me is when someone states something about themselves as a precursor to their argument.

Like…

“I’m a young latina woman who grew up in the inner city. [Insert completely illogical argument]”

You know what? You don’t have to wear your nationality and the place where you grew up on your sleeve! If the basis of your argument is “well, I’m one of those statistics in the reports, so I can tell you the truth,” then you’re argument is wrong. People are poor for a variety of reasons - from pure racism to classism (and the two aren’t related) to government-sponsored urban decay to negative historical trends. So don’t give me your bullshit about you’re a poor spanish girl from the inner city because that doesn’t make your argument right.

And besides, you never know when you’ll run into a third generation American who grew up poor in an inner city and whose family worked hard all of their lives to move OUT of that inner city and into a nice, suburban setting…and who disagrees with everything that you say.

Moral of the story - make your argument with facts, not where you grew up and what your particular view of the world is! That’s just stating your opinion, which is fine, but may not always be right.

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