#105 Unpaid Internships
July 20, 2008 by clander
In most of the world when a person works long hours without pay, it is referred to as “slavery” or “forced labor.” For white people this process is referred to as an internship and is considered an essential stage in white development.
The concept of working for little or no money underneath a superior has been around for centuries in the form of apprenticeship programs. Young people eager to learn a trade would spend time working under a master craftsman to learn a skill that would eventually lead to an increase in material wealth.
Using this logic you would assume that the most sought after internships would be in areas that lead to the greatest financial reward. Young White people, however, prefer internships that put them on the path for careers that will generally result in a DECREASE of the material wealth accumulated by their parents.
For example, if you were to present a white 19 year old with the choice of spending the summer earning $15 an hour as a plumber’s apprentice or making $0 answering phones at Production Company, they will always choose the latter. In fact, the only way to get the white person to choose the plumbing option would be to convince them that it was leading towards an end-of-summer pipe art installation.
White people view the internship as their foot into the door to such high-profile low-paying career fields as journalism, film, politics, art, non-profits, and anything associated with a museum. Any white person who takes an internship outside of these industries is either the wrong type of white person or a law student. There are no exceptions.
If all goes according to plan, an internship will end with an offer of a job that pays $24,000 per year and will consist entirely of the same tasks they were recently doing for free. In fact, the transition to full time status results in the addition of only one new responsibility: feeling superior to the new interns.
When all is said and done, the internship process serves the white community in many ways. First, it helps to train the next generation of freelance writers, museum curators, and director’s assistants. But more importantly, internships teach white children how to complain about being poor.
So when a white person tells you about their unpaid internship at the New Yorker, it’s not a good idea to point out how the cost of rent and food will essentially mean that they are PAYING their employer for the right to make photocopies. Instead it’s best to say: “you earned it.” They will not get the joke.
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Only the artsy writery political non profit dogooders sign up for slavery… the corporateers sign up for prostitution– paid slavery!
…i’m fifteen.
i spend at least 2.5 hours a day after school at an unpaid internship at my local theatre company.
it used to be an apprenticeship until they figured out that that would mean that we would get paid.
this article expresses my life, somewhat….I GUESS I’M REALLY WHITE!
Psh, intern nothing. I got paid!
Me too. Otherwise I would have said hell no
Oh and let me add that I have a coworker who is currently obtaining her masters in child psychology. She goes to school at night, interns from 8-3 Monday-Friday and works the weekends. Thankfully she lives with family so she doesn’t need to pay rent, but what happens to people (like me) who still have to pay their rent, work and go to school? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
What happens is you don’t get what the children of the wealthy do. You’re left out. Places like NY, LA, and DC are packed with unpaid interns, whose parents bankroll them. Stinks, huh?
I dread having to do internship. Even though it’s a choice, it is kind of a necessity to get your foot in the door. I am studying speech/language pathology and my internship will probably be within the school districts. With that being said, I am more than likely guaranteed a job within that school district after finishing the internship. Then the school district pays for a certain amount of credits towards any higher degree I would be earning. And for salary, with a masters I would be earning 60-80 grand a year…with a doctorates it’d be more like 80-100 grand.
And I am not your typical white girl, either! I made my fair share of education related mistakes and barely passed high school. I bounced back and forth from living places and ended up with a 0.09 GPA because I was not educated on the difference between “withdraw” and “fail”. I worked my butt off and now I live with my boyfriend and currently stand w/ a 2.0 GPA. So the generalization is pretty accurate, but there’s always deviations from the norm in any case.
Someone with a 2.0 gpa shouldnt even be allowed to work in their chosen field, let alone to obtain a doctorate. “Experts” are supposed to have actually learned something during their education.
Most PhD. programs will not let you drop below a B, so if she can pull it off, more power to her.
omg.. lol thats what i’m doing right now for college credit. I work 4 hours 5 days a week..and im very enthusastic about it. one thing though… i’m black.. lol
I was just thinking about this one. It’s true that usually when people work for no money it’s called “slavery”, so why are these unpaid internships still legal? I don’t really care if a bunch of people are stupid enough to take a job for no pay, but what about all the people who might actually want to do it, but can’t afford to spend a summer making no money? Also, it’s not like our minimum wage is very high, and we all learned in civics class (or our first jobs) that it’s ILLEGAL to pay workers less than that. So why are there still all these people working for free? Thoughts?
(I guess I’m not the type of white person you’re talking about.)
There, from what I understand, is a provision in the Labour Law which allows for this because the job only last for a certain time period. I found this out the hard way when I spent a summer working at Ceder Point, and could not make over time, which was required. I contacted my Uncle about a law suit, and he explained this to me. So as usual Corp America will always find a way to screw you over. But I learned from this, and when I applied for my first job, it was bare knuckle negotiations. The fact I was ballsy enough to negotiate is what got me the job, and I got to spend the next 10yrs abusing interns.
The difference between unpaid internships and slavery is that the unpaid intern CHOSE the internship, and thinks that he/she is getting something out of it in the long run. Slavery was not a choice and slaves did not benefit from their hard labor.
This is part of the irony or guilt of privilege that white people have.
While taking an unpaid internship may be unwise, it certainly doesn’t qualify as slavery. Slavery is the confiscation one’s labor by force. An unpaid internship is chosen.
Her point is that it’s undercutting people who would want to take the position but can’t afford to work for free. It’s the same thing people complain about illegal immigrants doing, only in the case of internships, it’s jobs that people actually WANT to do, not jobs that most Americans feel are beneath them
This was actually sort of entertaining. It could have been funnier if it was more consistent with the artistic thing and didn’t unconsciously raise up the issue of future career opportunities or respectability of work.
On another note, this WEBSITE would be less offensive AND funnier if it wasn’t RACIST. Don’t write me off as an offended white person either. I’m Chinese. This type of website is satire, so I’ll recommend the people reading this response to not one but TWO better websites.
http://www.heelpress.com/
This one is more varied and in addition to writings includes photographs and artistic pieces. The writings are also much more funny and intelligent without being offensive, besides the self deprecating sort.
http://www.everything2.com
This one is my personal favorite. It features creative articles of almost any variety; satire, fictional, poetic, experimental.
Checked out the site. Definately something white people would like. Unfortunately, I am not near a starbucks as that would be the only enviroment fitting for such an artsy-crap website..
This internship thing – it’s like an American middle-class white thing, right? Thank God! I was getting kind of worried there. As a ‘whiter shade of pale’ working class Brit I guess I’m exempt from that. In fact, I’m officially as nutty as a fruitcake so I don’t work at all. Raises glass of diet coke to the British welfare state!
It’s somewhat related, but I think a post should be done for freelance photography.
Leave us starving, not all, freelancers out of this. You get to travel the World on someone else dime, and some pay to boot.
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