One of the most inane concepts of Leftist semantics right up there with ‘micro-aggressions’ is ‘White Privilege’. An irrational nutty concept that sickens me to no end.
We own two luxury cars, live in a gated community near a golf course and own a house there (mortgaged) and own a small condo (mortgaged). We have saved enough money for a modest retirement and are collecting Social Security and Medicare that we’ve paid into in taxes all these years. We worked at middle class wages during our lives. But my wife and I were entrepreneurial. I started took a risk and started businesses with no help from my color. A customer at the other end of a phone or on the Net can’t tell. Like they say, on the Internet no one knows you're a dog. My wife is a nurse professional and her patients don't care what color she is as long as she has a license to practice and any ethnic group can get one if they go to school.
I am a pure blooded Italian-American born into a very middle class family in every sense of the word. I grew up in apartments. My parents, like theirs on my father’s side before them, were not home owners. They owned cars until they fell apart. My grandfather came over on the boat and through Ellis Island as a very young boy. His father was a stone smith. My grandfather made his living as a simple barber. My father went to trade school and became a draftsman working for the US Naval Yard.
My mother was a part-time housewife. She needed to work to pay my tuition to Catholic high school, but still was able to put a nutritious meal on the table for my father, sister and I every night. We rarely ate out. I didn’t do well in high school and had to attend CCNY night school as a non-matriculated student. No Harvard or Yale for me. After a while, I joined the US Army, was discharged and finished my BA degree later in Liberal Arts. That and a few bucks would get you a latte.
My wife is a WASP. Her family literally came over on the Mayflower. Unlike the Rockefellers and such, that fact didn’t add to their financial status much since their entire family, like mine, lived a modest middle class life squirreling away what they could. My wife’s parents were able to buy a modest home in the 1950s and lived there to almost the day they died. It was almost collapsing around them. Both worked to maintain their middle class lifestyle and put my wife through school.
Did I mention we were white?
So lets look at the privileges we had that were not open to any other ethnic group that gave us a leg up on those poor trodden souls.
My wife went to public schools open to any ethnic group. I went to Catholic schools – free if you went to that Church and open to any ethnic group. High school was private but costly but opened to any ethnic group and my mom had to work hard to pay the tuition. She worked as a piece worker in a factory. My dad went to a trade school – open to any ethic group.
After the war, my wife’s dad worked for an insurance company – open to any ethnic group. His wife worked in a public school as a secretary – open to any ethnic group. Neither families belonged to any ‘clubs’ and were pretty much invisible along with the common herd they inhabited.
So – where’s my white privilege? Did my white family have any better opportunity than any other ethnic group? Or perhaps we used the same resources any other ethnic group had and decided to use the opportunities available to anyone by using a little sweat and taking on some responsibiliy for our lives.
I bet my 'white privilege' is no different from many others.
Today, with racial quotas, government laws and resources, there is more opportunity and ‘privilege’ available to all ethnic groups if they choose to take advantage of them.
But I guess it’s easier to accuse white America that you are a victim of some amorphous prejudice and sit back on your ass and complain and say, “The 1% has our money!” Really? Then where was my families? Who do I see to get my ‘fair share’.
