I checked my privilege

[Prometheus]

It's still there.

I grew up poor. My parents didn't own the house I grew up in. We had one car and one TV. I trimmed the hedges with clippers and mowed the lawn with one of those doohickeys with blades between the wheels. We hung our clothes outside to dry or inside on racks when the weather was too cold or too rainy. I walked or took public transportation to school... private school because my parents got tired of the violence associated with busing... or I walked or just had dad drop me off on his way to work.

I could go on about my mom dying the summer before I started high school or how my dad got injured at work a few months later and how we had to live on (essentially) one quarter of the income before both of those tragedies, and how I had to join the work-study program just to stay in school, but it doesn't matter. I'm white and I'm male. The black kids all had "scholarships" even though I scored higher on the entrance exam.

When I had to get a job (beyond work-study), it was easy. I was the only white guy applying for the job. The fact that no black people - male or female - were applying was immaterial. I got promoted to General Manager on my 18th birthday. It had nothing to do with my work ethic. I guess none of the black employees wanted the job.

OK... OK...

I'm not saying that "white privilege" doesn't exist - it does - but it doesn't mean that every white person got ahead simply by being white. Some of us had to work at it and I don't like when POC assume that I had my life handed to me on a silver platter. I worked for it. I worked HARD. And I'll be damned if anyone is going to try to take that away from me.

Had I known that I didn't have to work for anything, I wouldn't have. I'd love to be a lazy fuck and have shit given to me for no reason other than the happenstance of my birth.

But the fact remains that my "whiteness" has also caused me grief.

I was laid off and needed "fuel assistance" so my apartment wouldn't be a freezer, so I went down to the welfare office. I parked my 10-year-old car between a brand new Mercedes and a brand new Cadillac and went in just to get laughed at by the white guy behind the bulletproof glass. There are other circumstances but I think I've belabored the point enough.

Everyone's circumstances are different but I don't want to hear from some millionaire black guy about how hard his life was growing up while I'm sitting in China teaching English just to try to make ends meet.

"But you don't know what it's like to grow up as <insert whiny special interest group here>!"

No. I don't. I can't.

So stop using that dumb-ass phrase like a weapon.

YOU don't know what it's like to be a straight, white male in the 2020's with everyone hating you for things you never had a hand in.

Stop with your bigotry!

I try to take each and every person as I meet them.

I treat them as individuals rather than as part of some group.

But as soon as they exhibit or expound any sort of "group-think" I dismiss them. And I'll be even more frank: it's hard to NOT dislike the groups these fucktards profess to represent.

I simply don't like being hated for the things I have no control over.

Sound familiar?

[abbey1227]

Apr 22, 2021 18:03:15 GMT Prometheus said:

It's still there.

I grew up poor. My parents didn't own the house I grew up in. We had one car and one TV. I trimmed the hedges with clippers and mowed the lawn with one of those doohickeys with blades between the wheels. We hung our clothes outside to dry or inside on racks when the weather was too cold or too rainy. I walked or took public transportation to school... private school because my parents got tired of the violence associated with busing... or I walked or just had dad drop me off on his way to work.

I could go on about my mom dying the summer before I started high school or how my dad got injured at work a few months later and how we had to live on (essentially) one quarter of the income before both of those tragedies, and how I had to join the work-study program just to stay in school, but it doesn't matter. I'm white and I'm male. The black kids all had "scholarships" even though I scored higher on the entrance exam.

When I had to get a job (beyond work-study), it was easy. I was the only white guy applying for the job. The fact that no black people - male or female - were applying was immaterial. I got promoted to General Manager on my 18th birthday. It had nothing to do with my work ethic. I guess none of the black employees wanted the job.

OK... OK...

I'm not saying that "white privilege" doesn't exist - it does - but it doesn't mean that every white person got ahead simply by being white. Some of us had to work at it and I don't like when POC assume that I had my life handed to me on a silver platter. I worked for it. I worked HARD. And I'll be damned if anyone is going to try to take that away from me.

Had I known that I didn't have to work for anything, I wouldn't have. I'd love to be a lazy fuck and have shit given to me for no reason other than the happenstance of my birth.

But the fact remains that my "whiteness" has also caused me grief.

I was laid off and needed "fuel assistance" so my apartment wouldn't be a freezer, so I went down to the welfare office. I parked my 10-year-old car between a brand new Mercedes and a brand new Cadillac and went in just to get laughed at by the white guy behind the bulletproof glass. There are other circumstances but I think I've belabored the point enough.

Everyone's circumstances are different but I don't want to hear from some millionaire black guy about how hard his life was growing up while I'm sitting in China teaching English just to try to make ends meet.

"But you don't know what it's like to grow up as <insert whiny special interest group here>!"

No. I don't. I can't.

So stop using that dumb-ass phrase like a weapon.

YOU don't know what it's like to be a straight, white male in the 2020's with everyone hating you for things you never had a hand in.

Stop with your bigotry!

I try to take each and every person as I meet them.

I treat them as individuals rather than as part of some group.

But as soon as they exhibit or expound any sort of "group-think" I dismiss them. And I'll be even more frank: it's hard to NOT dislike the groups these fucktards profess to represent.

I simply don't like being hated for the things I have no control over.

Sound familiar?

it does sound familiar........ that crack about the new Mercedes and the new Cadillac......... typical welfare queen anecdotal mythology. 

It's excellent and poignant reads like this that leave me wondering how you aren't more against collectivism and it's many forms of group think and Newspeak.

[Prometheus]

Apr 23, 2021 1:56:15 GMT abbey1227 said:

Apr 22, 2021 18:03:15 GMT Prometheus said:

It's still there.

I grew up poor. My parents didn't own the house I grew up in. We had one car and one TV. I trimmed the hedges with clippers and mowed the lawn with one of those doohickeys with blades between the wheels. We hung our clothes outside to dry or inside on racks when the weather was too cold or too rainy. I walked or took public transportation to school... private school because my parents got tired of the violence associated with busing... or I walked or just had dad drop me off on his way to work.

I could go on about my mom dying the summer before I started high school or how my dad got injured at work a few months later and how we had to live on (essentially) one quarter of the income before both of those tragedies, and how I had to join the work-study program just to stay in school, but it doesn't matter. I'm white and I'm male. The black kids all had "scholarships" even though I scored higher on the entrance exam.

When I had to get a job (beyond work-study), it was easy. I was the only white guy applying for the job. The fact that no black people - male or female - were applying was immaterial. I got promoted to General Manager on my 18th birthday. It had nothing to do with my work ethic. I guess none of the black employees wanted the job.

OK... OK...

I'm not saying that "white privilege" doesn't exist - it does - but it doesn't mean that every white person got ahead simply by being white. Some of us had to work at it and I don't like when POC assume that I had my life handed to me on a silver platter. I worked for it. I worked HARD. And I'll be damned if anyone is going to try to take that away from me.

Had I known that I didn't have to work for anything, I wouldn't have. I'd love to be a lazy fuck and have shit given to me for no reason other than the happenstance of my birth.

But the fact remains that my "whiteness" has also caused me grief.

I was laid off and needed "fuel assistance" so my apartment wouldn't be a freezer, so I went down to the welfare office. I parked my 10-year-old car between a brand new Mercedes and a brand new Cadillac and went in just to get laughed at by the white guy behind the bulletproof glass. There are other circumstances but I think I've belabored the point enough.

Everyone's circumstances are different but I don't want to hear from some millionaire black guy about how hard his life was growing up while I'm sitting in China teaching English just to try to make ends meet.

"But you don't know what it's like to grow up as <insert whiny special interest group here>!"

No. I don't. I can't.

So stop using that dumb-ass phrase like a weapon.

YOU don't know what it's like to be a straight, white male in the 2020's with everyone hating you for things you never had a hand in.

Stop with your bigotry!

I try to take each and every person as I meet them.

I treat them as individuals rather than as part of some group.

But as soon as they exhibit or expound any sort of "group-think" I dismiss them. And I'll be even more frank: it's hard to NOT dislike the groups these fucktards profess to represent.

I simply don't like being hated for the things I have no control over.

Sound familiar?

it does sound familiar........ that crack about the new Mercedes and the new Cadillac......... typical welfare queen anecdotal mythology. 

It's excellent and poignant reads like this that leave me wondering how you aren't more against collectivism and it's many forms of group think and Newspeak.

I'm a fan of sports teams... which are collectives...

I'm for society... which is a collective...

But in both cases, I prefer collectives where individual performance is sought after and praised rather than just handed out.

I try to not throw out the baby with the bath water.

[abbey1227]

Apr 23, 2021 4:33:39 GMT Prometheus said:

I'm a fan of sports teams... which are collectives...

I'm for society... which is a collective...

But in both cases, I prefer collectives where individual performance is sought after and praised rather than just handed out.

I try to not throw out the baby with the bath water.

I used to like pro sports......... but when Aaron Rodgers says "I need to be the highest paid QB"......so the rest of his teammates are left to fit under the salary cap, it makes me chuckle at their Union/Collective arrangement.

I'm for a civil society. It's the uncivil types I rarely shed a tear over.

Sought after? How about just plain expected?

I expect ALL able bodied people to pull their weight.......and the weight of any offspring they might choose to introduce into their equation.