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A White Guy on White Male Privilege
It is high time people throw off old preconceptions of Republicans as the mean descendants of cotton plantation owners, you know, the old diatribe about white male privilege. With Trump’s rising numbers among minorities, maybe we’re all finally seeing people as just people who are all just trying to persevere and build a better life for themselves and their families.
I look at my children. They are half Hungarian blood on my wife’s side; that side came to the US through Ellis Island in the early 20th century and somehow they all found each other. They were not privileged at all; they had nothing. They were the children of simple farmers whose land was confiscated by the communists. They did not come but were sent to America for a better future, which they found in the factories in and around Bridgeport, CT.
On my side, my children can count an Englishman lured here by his brother in the late 19th century. His brother had married well and joined the family business. My great grandfather first served in the Army during the Spanish American war, gained citizenship, and joined his brother. Two of my other great grandparents (Sullivan and Mahoney) fled Ireland during the potato famine. The rest were American mutts, descended from early Puritans, pilgrims, and other unknowns.
I can say this; my great grandparents were all proud, worked hard, and not one left a single trust fund dollar or any kind of inheritance. One of my great grandfathers owned a general store. Another was a doctor. Yet another was a businessman and it is said, profited during prohibition, a scandal. The last worked for his brother in a lumber and quarry business in upstate New Hampshire.
They all lived in rural New England, owned homes, and lived full lives. As for privilege or inheritance, nothing survived to be passed down. My mother was orphaned at 13 when her father died of leukemia and her mother was declared incompetent and relegated to the state mental hospital. The family farm was auctioned to pay the medical bills. In the early ’50s, my father’s father contracted polio. He partially recovered and then lost everything when disease ravaged the local chicken farms leaving his inherited general store with nothing having advanced a season of feed to all the local growers.
My parents married at 18, produced two children (I was #2) before they were 20 and moved to the city to work. We lived in the projects then later moved into a three-decker walk-up. It was a cold flat, which meant there was no central heat, just an oil heater installed in an ancient fireplace in the front room. When I was about five, we moved to Portland, ME, to our own home, a rented bungalow. My dad got a job with the phone company, which was a great thing. He was transferred to the Boston area and there he bought his first house, a small Cape Cod on a ragged, unpaved street, the last in the city, three lots from the commuter train tracks. When the heavy freight trains rode by, the house would convulse with a continued, soft, low-frequency rumble.
My point is, I don’t think any of my progenitors owned a cotton plantation. And though I may be of fair complexion (and that is not necessarily such a good thing, as my dermatologist can tell you) I’ve never felt the least bit privileged. The neighborhood I grew up in was filled with first-generation Irish, Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, and French Canadians. I felt like Schlitz and Wonder Bread in a world of basement Fortissimo and crusty rolls and exotic baguettes. When I had to continually fight my way through the neighborhood pecking order, I never once felt privilege, not once. I felt a few punches to the face, but not privilege.
Even now, with my degrees piled up, my wife the urban choir teacher, my suburban house, my educated daughters, my savings account, my cars, my stuff, I still don’t feel privileged. I may leave some stuff to my kids, but it won’t be enough to do much for the following generation.
My mother’s family was brought up to be staunch Democrats. My father’s dad was a prominent Republican. The only thing I inherited from my forebears besides my complexion was my intellect and my willingness to work and persevere. That’s not privilege. It’s just plain stubbornness. And it’s enough for me.
Published in General
It’s a new diatribe, not an old one.
The old diatribe is the factual historical observation that Democrats are the mean descendants of cotton plantation owners. And that they are today’s mean plantation owners.
What no silver spoon?
Racism against whites is OK to the left. Sexism against men is ok against men to the left.
If you google white privilege you end up with lists of what seem like mostly petty examples (what is “skin coloured” in pantyhose or bandages) mixed in with more meaty ones (call backs for job or apartment applications). It’s also never placed in the broader context as just one, location/country-specific example of majority privilege – rather than something specific to White People. Iow something all groups are (humanly) prone to, given the right situation.
The heart of majority privilege, imho, is that members of that majority perceive themselves and are perceived by others primarily as individuals. Because the majority is the norm. They are free to ignore whatever marks them as a majority. Members of minority groups are perceived in many situations first as part of that group and then as individuals. They don’t have the privilege (!!) of ignoring that marker about themselves.
The White Word seems to trigger people in the US a bit (I guess because of history and its ‘opposite’), but:
And that kind of advantage can be questioned, and measured and compared.
Yup, European extraction doesn’t mean born to the purple.
My father’s story would be about working a second growth hardwood forest (the white pine all having been logged off in the previous generation) into fields of a dairy farm while raising eight children, etc. One of his brothers, escaping the logging camps due to bad health, started a hardware store. He was a lifelong Democrat, keeping a Carter/Mondale poster in the window of the store all through the ’80s. Later in life, relating how well his seven children were doing, he said to me, “…And Dick! Dick’s doing so well he votes Republican!”
One of my great grandfathers fought in that one. He jumped ship in New York Harbor and managed to enlist in the Navy before the cops could catch him. He became a citizen after the war.
The Swiss-Germans and the British were here from very early on. During the Revolution, the Germans mostly shot at the British, and the Brits mostly shot at German mercenaries, so it all evened out in the end.
None of them had any money when they got here, and none of them owned any slaves. I’d love to go back in a time machine and hear some snowflake berate Grandpap about his white privilege.
Affirmative Action has been around since the 70s and I am waiting for my first Action.
Interesting article from Jezebel: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Catchphrase: “Free, white, and 21”
Did you know that that British quit India because Gandhi and Nehru kept having movements?
Every successful country is a mix of people who have lived there for a while with those who have just arrived from other countries. In the United States, white men do not have an advantage over other people. Not in today’s world. It’s absurd to suggest it. We’re just like every other country. We’re always looking for competence and excellence, and we don’t care where we find it.
I’ve personally benefited from generational wealth. Not enough to buy a big house and snort cocaine all day but enough to help for a down payment on house. I doubt I would have benefited from the hard work of my grandparents who came from pretty humble origins if they had to deal with Jim Crow laws or housing and banking discrimination. I don’t live my life hanging my head in shame drenched in white guilt but I’d be pretty obtuse if I didn’t acknowledge the advantages I was born with.
The real privilege in this modern era is is to be born and raised in an intact family. Government will never be able to overcome that head start. Both of my parents had problems with alcohol and neither graduated from high school. They didn’t even know what grade I was in, let alone review my report cards or help with my homework, yet life was relatively stable and I got very lucky with a couple of public school teachers who took it upon themselves to mentor me and show me possibilities and point me in the right direction. Stable family privilege!
Here in California, Gov. Dreamboat recently signed into law a bill making Uber drivers, freelance journalists and independent truckers employees. The truckers protested in Oakland. Some were carrying signs saying “Immigrant” and “Minority”. This is smart. They know this status gives them sympathy and privilege in this dispute. No truckers were carrying signs reading “5th Generation Native Californian and American” (my status) because that offers no privilege or sympathy. It would indicate lower status in this dispute.
White males may bring more social capital to a situation, but it is not because they are white. White males will have to work twice as hard to overcome legal discrimination against them to achieve parity with males of a legally favored race.
Sure being white is still something of an advantage in the US in some situations, and fifty or seventy years ago that was more true. (It’s also true now that there are a few situations where being black is an advantage.)
Being male is still something of an advantage in some situations, and fifty or seventy years ago that was more true. (It’s always also been true that there are situations where being female is an advantage.)
Being smarter or stronger or better looking or having rich parents or being born into a reasonably safe and well governed country or being healthy or having strong family ties or a cohesive, prosperous community are all advantages, along with thousands of other variables which can be summarized as luck.
The government shouldn’t be in the business of arbitrarily disadvantaging people because of their immutable characteristics, but they can’t be in the business of creating perfect equality or even a perfectly level playing field. It’s not humanly possible and it quickly becomes nothing but an ugly and destructive power game.
Doesn’t matter. Being white, they could have owned a plantation. And it doesn’t matter how you feel, it’s about what you are – white, and therefore privileged . . .
Have a look at this: https://www.apple.com/leadership/adrian-perica/
Adrian Perica is the younger brother of a fellow I work with. He oversaw that Beats acquisition at Apple, and currently is in charge of all mergers, acquisitions, and investment activity at Apple. He finished 4th in his class of 150 cadets at West Point. And he is the son of Croatian immigrants.
Yesterday my co-worker told me the story of Adrian’s graduation from West Point, and how proud his dad was. These guys came from very little and in a generation are wildly successful. And not because they’ve been handed anything, but because every day they get up and go to work whether they want to or not.
White privilege, my ***.
I think we are somewhat brainwashed by the Progressivists about the economic opportunities of blacks during this period. In spite of the prejudice and Jim Crow laws, black family incomes and social class were rising rapidly until the Progressivist-created disasters of the 60s. Even in segregated working and middle-class neighborhoods, the public schools were good and beginning to turn out increasing numbers of successful black professionals. The leftists today are blaming liberalism for the harm that they themselves caused, by re-writing history.
If we could learn the historical facts, my sense is that you would have received a goodly sum, but not quite as much because of the racial bias. I believe that in fact, hardworking black couples from humble origins especially if they migrated from the deep South, who lived frugally and saved wisely were able to build up a nest egg during the Jim Crow era.
Most likely they benefitted from SOME kind of “privilege”, if not “white privilege” maybe it was intact family privilege or ambitious culture privilege or really good teeth privilege. We almost all have some privilege. We should not get stupid with guilt about it and make things worse- like the fools who felt guilty about “heterosexual privilege” so they let marriage be erased.
Was it because they didn’t flush after their movements?
Ummmm…..have you been to India?
Maybe we need a definition of the word “privilege”? Here it is from Merriam-Webster:
And from Dictionary.com:
I’m sorry, but being taught to work hard, being taught right from wrong. Being taught that you are responsible for making your own way in the world, those are not rights or immunities enjoyed by a specific class or group. Back in the day, we figured everyone were taught those things. But maybe you are right, it does seem today that they are lost values. But just because someone didn’t get taught them doesn’t mean I am “privileged”.
My parents, though they taught me a great deal, never effectively taught me to manage money well. I’d be way better off today if they had. But you don’t hear me whinging about how people who manage their money well are “privileged.”
I ain’t buyin’ it.
The British wipe with their eatin’ hand!
So isn’t the push for racial identity “intersectionality” preventing any likelihood of solving that? In the USA we have quite a history of “other” “ethnic” groups over time intermarrying and producing offspring for which a prior generation’s categories become irrelevant. Whatever “privilege” the dominant white English Anglican had in the late 18th century over the Jews, Irish Catholics, Scots Presbyterians, Italian Catholics (complete with different skin and color), German Lutherans and German Catholics, etc. disappeared (or at least lessened).
By emphasizing and even defining everything in terms of race, the modern leftists highlight the group identity and prevent the transition to thinking of more people as individuals. If your thesis is correct, the people who claim to be most outraged about “white privilege” are making the circumstances of such “white privilege” worse.
Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away, unfortunately. That’s magical thinking.
Leftists didn’t create how this particular prejudice plays out in real life.
You can think of me as an individual as much as you like, but if I’m being red-lined (for eg) then clearly a critical mass of other people are not, and that’s having an impact on my life.
Talking about this might make some people who aren’t being red-lined uncomfortable, but it isn’t creating an issue where there wasn’t one before.
By those definitions no such thing as “white privilege” is even possible where white people are in the majority. So I don’t think those definitions are what is meant.
I was trying to make basically the same point you are making. Complaints about other people’s privilege are at best a distorted and counterproductive way of looking at things and at worst a cynical leveraging of guilt to gain power.
i am also not buying it.
There’s no fix for that. I’ve read about it and experienced it. Decades ago a black man wrote about his experiences at a mostly white college. He left of his own free will saying that he had experienced no hostility or discrimination. He just got tired of “being the fly in the buttermilk”. In my case, I was the only white – strawberry-blond hair, fair skin, blue eyes – guy there. It was a birthday party for a friend’s child and I was invited; I didn’t crash the party. Everyone was polite, but I got what were essentially questions about why I was there. It seemed everyone was wondering if I had married into the group and who my sponsor or escort was. It was funny, at first. Human nature, and no fix for it.
Right. I am privileged because I am the bad guy in every single possible way in 2019. When the world has set asides and carve outs for everyone but white men?
That is a boon for me somehow? When I apply for jobs and get to check no special boxes? When places like dental school are mandated to have 50% minority applicants?
Please. Being a white male means having no right to complain, no rights to identify with any “tribe” and no rights to even be innocent when accused. I am declared sexist and racist based on my sex and race.
Privilege?
https://www.ada.org/~/media/ADA/Science%20and%20Research/HPI/Files/HPIgraphic_1117_6.pdf?la=en
Stop expecting affirmation from society. Seriously, that’s what seems to be missing.
Your chart has no bearing on applications to dental school.
Discrimination based on race is always wrong.
Clearly, you think it is OK, as long as it is against whites.
I don’t want affirmation based on my race and sex. I don’t want to be discriminated against.
Are you for racism, Zafar?
Bryan, why do you think they are limiting applications the way they are?
As it happens I am not a fan of affirmative action (too late in the education process) but the current ethnic skew in practicing dentists is what they’re responding to.
Is that skew due to racism, to whiteness, to something else? All good questions to discuss, but it is what it is. Ignoring it won’t win the debate.