#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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I like this author. He criticizes white people for trying to get high paying jobs, he criticizes them for trying to get low paying jobs and also criticizes them for being hypocritical. Man, it seems like he has an awesome chip on his shoulder or something.
The best part is that for many non-profit or social service type jobs it is practically required that you intern/volunteer for the organization you want to work for. I think this is hilarious because most poor people (including myself) are spending so much time working to get by they can’t just go volunteer somewhere since their parents won’t/can’t pay there rent. This means that all those organizations that are out there to help poor people have measures in place that make it so poor people can’t get jobs with them in order to help themselves or their communities. This creates a culture of assimilation because the middle upper class white people are still sitting in their throne rooms telling all the rest of us how to live our lives and how they are going to help us live our lives better instead of giving us the resources to do it ourselves.
but why do you complain – the more white people work on unpaid works – the more paid works are left for those who need to earn money
Yes, this issue is by far something I have been talking about and pondering over for a good amount of time. My friend introduced me to this blog just yesterday, and I have to say that your views on current day society are definitely not far fetched or obscure. In all, what was up with those TEAL guys? What a bunch of Jerks, some people have too much time on their hands.
As a current (unpaid) intern in Washington, DC, I had to laugh at this. Because it’s so true.
However, I wouldn’t give up the good times, the learning experiences, and the pee-on status for anything.
I’m black, but I also had an unpaid internship in DC and I completely agree. the work is the same whether ur being paid or not.
Dear White guy
This post cemented your status as master blogger in my mind.
So funny and yet so true!
Makes me really look forward to my intership this summer..!
This totally made me laugh. And made the internship search process a little more amusing….:)
poop
…and flush. The local parks-and-recreation district pays over $15 a hour to clean city parks, except more and more of the employees are fast-becoming non-union, non-white and non-citizen. That’s 90% of their work force now, and 10% are from a disabled adult employment developer I’m in as well. I don’t work out scooping poop in a park for strictly minimum wage in the early mornings or mid afternoons (in the desert heat), and the developer can relief their jobs in an instant. American workers are becoming unpaid interns, low-paid third world workers and soon to be “union-free”. +
I assume you read this but…
You’d be surprised at how much fun you could have in DC on $600 p/month before rent in 1996 if you’re creative with great other poor intern friends.
Where does the UN fall into this? They have plenty of internships, and not all of them go to white people. How could they, it is the UN afterall. Of course none of them are paid, but some do offer “stipends”, which for me seems a little too close to the word stupid.
It’s not just white “Americans” that are into the internship, but a lot of European countries are down with the practice. Many university degrees require some practical work, though I’m sure they get paid for it. I saidly however don’t.
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