Well... We have...

So, Tucker Carlson, and Kurt Schlicter (sorry started to call him sphincter) decided to get up and talk about privilege, and basically how white privilege is racist.  Somewhere on that chart I am way to the left, well beyond negative 100 where the scale ends.  Most of the tests on this matter reflect a similar number, well past -100.  But onto what these two jokers are on about.

Lets be clear, if you look white, christian, straight (or present yourself as such), and have no criminal record (good luck hiding that today) you are more likely to get a better chance for a job.  If you are the opposite of the first three things, good luck.  If you have the last of those things, you are pretty much screwed.  Yeah yeah, we have affirmative action but that does not play the role you think it does. Hell, by you having your genitals outside your body you have a slight advantage in privilege. 


So, today we were assaulted by the views of a man who used to only wear a bow tie.  So, in his opening remarks he said that by pointing out white privilege that it is a racist attack.  He furthers by saying that it is silly, as there are some very privileged people off all stripes.  Well, we have his reason, it generalizes white people.  It places a stigma on successful white people.  In return his guest agrees, and further claims that it is immoral, and un-American.  Character is based on your work, not on what some pony-tailed grad student says. Yeah, those pony-tailed grad students are going to be the people running this country in the next few years.

See, what Tucker and this other guy are refusing to accept is that they are the future.  Yes, I am only middle aged like many others, I am part of the future as I am slightly older than most graduate students, I am slightly older than some PH.D students.  These guys represent the past.  Back to their exchange.  So off to find this written piece that was referenced.  

Liberals have a new word for what normal people call “success.” They call it “privilege,” as if a happy, prosperous life is the result of some magic process related to where your great-great-great-grandfather came from.

Um...  Certainly being born into a rich white christian family, while you are straight and manage to keep yourself out of a criminal record does make for a happier more prosperous life.  It automatically opens more doors for you than being born poor, black, or into a non-Christian family.  Sure you can always work your way out of it, but it it is like scaling a rock wall covered in ice these days.  Being born into the circumstances of a rich white christian family is not guarantee of success, but it makes it a lot easier. 

So, if you read this check your privilege, not because I am saying you are privileged.  I want you to check so you know where you stand in this country at this time.  But Schlicter, feels you should respond by saying "What you call privilege is just me being better than you."  All men are not created equal, it is a fact of life, I am slightly more intelligent than many of my peers, but there are peers who are drastically more intelligent than I am.  I, despite what I feel and what some others feel about me, I am average.  I am just like the majority of people.  Born to a middle class family, average height, slightly obese, brown hair, green eyes, carrying the classic Joe Dirt beard that slowly grows in patches.  He then goes on about accusing them of being transphobic cisnormative paradigm.  Yeah, that right there went over my head.  I have no idea what the hell that is.  Its not the words, I know which each of them is.  Transphobic is being afraid of people who are transgender.  Cisnormative is being straight for your sex.  Paradigm is just being a normal example of something.  So, I guess when I say check your privilege you are supposed to call me an example of being a straight man being afraid of transgendered women?  Maybe he means men..  So, I am suppose to be afraid of Ru-Paul?  Wait... What...  That doesn't even make sense.  +Larry Dillon explain this to me man...  So then he gets into digging on college graduates by saying they aren't intelligent enough to know when someone who is smarter is insulting them.  Yeah, I figured that was meant to be an insult.

But here is the problem I have with these two jokers.  White privilege is not what they are framing it to be.  Even my tone doesn't really reflect what this is about.  White privilege is not something that makes or breaks a person.  It just makes making it in life a bit easier for the people who can tap into it.  This in no way applies to every white person who has made it big in life.  Who does it apply to then?  It applies to the likes of most white christian straight politicians.  Let me ask, how many of you would vote for the poor Jewish guy?  How many votes in an election would I get today?  How many votes would I get if I put a million dollars into the election?  Even then I might not win, someone could out spend me, someone could just be better.  But if two comparable candidates of opposite races ran in most parts of this country, using the same amount of money, how would that election turn out.  Even then, that is not the correct usage for the phrase white privilege.

What is it then?  Well, it is the companion phrase of affluenza.  You are white, from a rich family, you are straight, and you don't have to do much of anything.  You have all the opportunity handed to you.  Because of the station you were born into, all you need do is apply the minimal effort to get the maximum rewards.  If you can say that because of who you were born all you have to put forth is minimum effort to get maximum rewards you are privileged.  For me, book smarts came natural, a decent enough memory that I can read something and remember it until the time comes that I no longer need it.  Most people are privileged in some interesting ways.  But not in the ways that make for a very happy life.  If I had some great opportunities come along, I would be golden, the opportunity for a nice six figure salary as an example.  Give me a million dollars tomorrow, I could go decades on it.  Wait, how many poor white christians do I know?  A lot.  How many could do that, just about every one of them could.  Now, how many of us could earn that million dollars?  Very damn few. 

But that is how this phrase should be applied.  White privilege is not racist, it is simply being born into a rich white family, that allows you to coast through life with minimum effort.  If it did not exist we would have several hundred million millionaires.  I would be a millionaire with the effort I put forth, just about everyone I worked with would be.  Everyone you worked with would be as well.  The conservatives like Tucker and this other guy, they want to frame it that they got where they are by the sweat of their brow, and sure they put in the effort, the time to get what they have.  But they also had opportunities that not everyone gets.  They also had the education to go with it the work they did.  Really this is just a different spin on "It's your fault you are poor." and the compassionate conservative.  Do not blame the system for your own errors, just work harder, and you will make it.  Failure to make it is your own fault.  Forget that you grew up in the slums, you dropped out of high school because your family needed more money to eat on.  Forget that you come from a broken home, or you made mistakes when you were younger, and then did it just to earn a living to support your family.  This is an entitled country, people feel like they are owed something just for being here, but it is not the poor or the liberals who are that way.  It is the Paris Hiltons, the Lindsy Lohans, the wealthy who think they are owed something.