Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone

Monday, September 25, 2017

White Privilege

In case you don't know what it looks like.
Posted by on or about 13:32
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18 comments:

deadstick said...

Beautiful.

9/25/2017 3:40 PM
CenterPuke88 said...

Want an amazing read...and the comments are worth looking through too.

9/25/2017 4:18 PM
B said...

So....

# 1 must be racist because she thinks they were the only who ever had rocks tossed into their pool by young boys. Ever. Seems to me that the other mom who dealt with her young miscreant child treated her family just as she would have anyone else, which is what equality is.

# 4 might just be true. It happens. A lot. Reverse racism is just as bad. And (and sometimes it does happen, happened to me twice) if they lowered the standards for the "person of color" (and perhaps they didn't too, we don't know) then it causes anger. "Affirmative Action" Hires did no good for race relations when the person who was less qualified was black. It did happen, A lot. Dunno about today, but 20+ years ago it did. We don't know how long ago this is/was.

#5 Yeah, I can't think this is anything but someone looking to be offended.

#6. She's a racist. It wasn't one boy, but especially a "White" boy. Not "some jerk", not some asshole, not some idiot, but most assuredly a "White Boy". If he had been excused for his not being able to relate, then yes, it would have been racism. Was he? Or was it just a loudmouth kid?

#7. Yeah, here she is looking for racism where it (probably) didn't exist. She too was one of the "Best and Brightest" being served.

#8 Dude didn't like the impression she made. Did he say it was because race? Or was it because she come across as a conceited know it all? Seems once she proved herself, it was all good. Don't see where race mattered here. Unless there are details she didn't include.

I'm not making excuses for some peoples behavior towards people who look different from them. Racism exists. It also exists wherein I can't walk to University of Chicago Hospital Campus in Chicago because I am white and will be a target in the neighborhood surrounding the hospital. Can't take public transportation there, have to drive or take a cab. 'Cause I am white.

But if you have to stretch that far to find racism then it can't be that much privilege. Seems that she got to go to Harvard. I didn't, My parents and I couldn't afford it. Did she get special privileges? Or were her parents successful enough to send her without? I don't know and neither do you.

9/25/2017 5:32 PM
Gerald Parks said...

Awesome article! The response from "B" well. ...THAT is classic white willful ignorance, etc on display!

9/25/2017 5:49 PM
dinthebeast said...

I like the way she writes. I, as a white guy, might add another item sort of embedded in her story:
If you don't have to worry about the backlash to simple stories of how you have been treated in your life, you might have white privilege.
I would also add that white privilege is totally invisible to those who don't want to see it. A good way to gain the ability to see it is to live in a black household for a year or so as the only white person. A lot of things seem really trivial until they happen to you a lot.

-Doug in Oakland

9/25/2017 7:01 PM
CenterPuke88 said...

Oh B., we'll forward your response to her so she can add another example.

9/25/2017 7:08 PM
Comrade Misfit said...

White privilege is like air to my cat. He doesn't notice it's there. People don't, not unless they have to think about it.

Same goes for male privilege.

Writings on this subject go back a long ways. Black Like Me is an example of that.

On male privilege, you can find a fair amount, if you look. For there are quite a number of people who started out as one gender and became another; they've written about it.

But the funny thing is that the ones who deny the existence of privilege are almost uniformly the one who benefit from it.

Just like my cat, breathing.

9/25/2017 8:01 PM
Gerald Parks said...

Doug in Oakland you are spot on! And Oakland IS an interesting city to live in. Lots of things to do, people to see and fun to be had!

9/25/2017 9:26 PM
BadTux said...

Help, help, I’m being oppressed by the unfair burden of being a white male!

I mean, why can’t I have the benefits of being a woman, like being stalked by rapists in dark parking garages? Or the benefits of being a black man, like being shot dead by police on the street for the crime of reaching for my wallet? How unfair!

I mean, sure, my resume doesn't get thrown into the trash when people see my stereotypically white name. I don't get followed by store detectives who are suspicious of my white skin (because all white people are criminals, y'know). I don't get stopped by police for the crime of Driving While White, and people don't cross the street when they see my bad-ass white self walking towards them wearin' my hoodie and saggy jeans. I mean, I'm being deprived, deprived I say, of having all these experience that black men get!

No such thing as white privilege? Like hell there ain't. I’m still a beneficiary of three hundred years of deeply engrained racism, even if I never personally oppressed anybody myself. I still don't have to worry about my resume being thrown into the trash because of my stereotypically white name, or being shot dead in a Walmart for the crime of playing with a toy gun in the toy department, or being attacked with police dogs for the audacity of protesting the shooting of an unarmed teenage member of my community (for one thing, the cops don’t shoot unarmed teenage white people). Lack of oppression is privilege in and of itself -- there ain't a whole lotta populations in America that you can say that about.

-BT

9/26/2017 3:23 AM
JFM said...

I love articles and essays about privilege! It is so interesting what other people see or don't see. I grew up and live in a state that has wildly different demographics than the rest of the country. The food serving line the woman described came as a great shock to me when I first saw something like it-at age 25. Not that there isn't racism where I live, there is. It just has different targets. To give you an idea of my home's demographics, the Chinese restaurant my family eats at is Korean owned and has white servers. I first left my state at 25, visiting the East Coast and was shocked by the culturally institution of racism. At restaurants all the busboys were black, all the managers white. Hotels were the same and so on. All black neighborhoods, all white neighborhoods. Very strange. Sometimes it is hard to make sense of what is going on in the rest of the country from up here.

9/26/2017 3:43 AM
JFM said...

Oh BadTux, cops do shoot unarmed teenage white people. Doesn't make national news. In sheer numbers cops shoot more whites. As a percentage of population blacks get shot more often. Just fucking sad all around.

9/26/2017 3:52 AM
BadTux said...

Well, Matus, there was the shooting of Scout Shultz. But that fit a pattern in most unarmed white people who are killed by cops -- in most of those cases, it is suicide by cop. Scout called the cops and gave Scout's description as an armed shooter out to kill people. (Avoiding gender pronouns because there are none that work for Scout Shultz). (Note: I say that Shultz was unarmed because Shultz had a multi-tool in Shultz's hand, but the knife was not open).

In cases where it's not suicide by cop, it definitely gets news coverage. E.g., Dawn Rae Nelson.

9/26/2017 4:53 AM
BadTux said...

For another perfect example of white privilege, Watch the video at this URL. White and black men get treated very differently doing the exact same thing....

9/26/2017 4:55 AM
CenterPuke88 said...

One may hope that the vociferousness of the snarled denials of white, male privilege are indicative of the old saw, "It is always darkest before the dawn."

9/26/2017 6:33 AM
Ten Bears said...

As a per capita percentage of the population, John, native women, First "Americans", are the most likely to be gunned down by cops. Doesn't make national news.

There is much there (here) that as a male I can only shake my head sadly and say yeah, I've seen that. As a Metis male, red white and black, of a fairer complexion than even my brothers and a couple sons it would be inaccurate of me to suggest it hasn't served as providence yet... it's been my experience that once for possibly not the best example a prospctive employer gets past the fairer complexion the resume goes in the dumpster. Regardless.

As Bad Tux points out, what we're dealing with is three hundred of Pavlovian conditioning. All of us. I at times catch myself at some attitude, bias or bitch and wonder where did that trickle down from? It may take three hundred years to uncondition.

Though if we make it three hundred years my bet is the so-called "races" will be shall we say far less distinct.

We are all Metis. Mixed blood.

9/26/2017 11:03 AM
Dark Avenger said...

We've been around for a long time, apparently:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-03029-9

9/26/2017 1:43 PM
JFM said...

Tux Never said black men don't get treated differently. Never said cops aren't more likely to shoot unarmed black men or any black man. All I did was rebut "for one thing cops don't shoot unarmed teenage white people". This was a silly statement. Cops shoot unarmed people whatever their race often enough.

Thomas, I didn't know that. Up here (Alaska) Native women are victimized at such an incredible rate, but aren't shot more by police. There was a scumbag serial killer in Western Alaska who it seems came up here and took a job as a cop in order to kill Native women.

Alaska, like Hawa'ii seems just different from the rest of the states. I don't know what it's like in "America ". People move up here bring a lot of hate with them. The smart ones let it go.

Like I said, reading your opinions on race and politics is very interesting.

9/26/2017 3:32 PM
Ten Bears said...

The Crete footprints have pretty much shelved the Out of Africa theory, or at best pushed it back a couple a'three more million years.

I was alluding to the distinct possibility that we and much of life as we know it may not survive the next three hundred years.

9/26/2017 7:03 PM

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