Wolves

It seems that the culture in our country has reached a tipping point with regard to sexual harassment and assault. Many would claim that Harvey Weinstein moved the needle into the red, but I would argue that it started with Bill Cosby. Weinstein was a reviled figure in his own circles, more feared than respected. But Cosby was mostly beloved by the public at large for many decades. I also sense an irony in the election of Trump. Many victims of assault probably cried, enough! We’ve had it with people getting away with it!

I’ve always said that sexual transgressions are non-partisan. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. It is a sad flaw of humanity that certain men exercise their power by trying to coerce women into sexual submission. When Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly fell, the left rubbed their hands with glee. But now, you have Mark Halperin, who suddenly finds himself without a job or a book deal.

I have a glimmer of understanding as to why women who are fodder for these predators don’t want to go public. I’ve known far too many women who are victims of sexual abuse not to know the pattern. If they go public, they may be believed, or they may not. But certainly, a crowd will form around the man who is accused who will defend him to their last breath, no matter what evidence emerges that may damn him. Trump’s “locker room talk” tape is exhibit A in this regard. It is far easier for the victim just to shut up and carry it than to wage a public battle that she may or may not win. My heart goes out to these wounded ladies. I’ve held too many of them as they cried over their pain not to be a little biased in their favor.

But it’s not just the predators whom I despise. A predator is usually surrounded and supported by a network of active or passive enablers. Receptionists and secretaries, for example, or other office staff. Spouses, parents, relatives or close friends. These are people who either have firsthand knowledge of the predator’s bad behavior, or who at the very least have heard whispers of it in the office or on the street. These are the people who ignore it, or help cover it up for personal or professional gain. Hillary Clinton is exhibit A.

Damn these people to hell! They are almost as bad as those who violate women. And many of them are the same self-righteous, sanctimonious Hollywood crowd who have lectured Middle America for years about our evil, backward, redneck ways. Harvey Weinstein was an open secret. So, apparently, was Kevin Spacey. How many people just clucked their tongues and moved on, or blamed the victim? Hell, how many of them gave Harvey or Kevin a friendly nudge and a wink and said, “Watch yourself, bbucko.”

A lot of these predators think they’ve gotten away with it. They go home and mix a cocktail and congratulate themselves on slipping out of the noose of a public hanging. But their time is coming. The glut of Hollywood outings has only just started. That place has been a festering cesspool for decades and Weinstein and Spacey are merely the tip of the iceberg that may just sink the Titanic.

Now, it’s our turn to cry, enough! It’s time for Hollywood to put up or shut up. If Ashley Judd wants to shake her finger at me, let her name names and support other women who take a public stand. Moreover, let all women who proclaim to be feminists shame those who falsely accuse men. There is nothing to be gained by slander against the innocent. And finally, let those who find the strength to name their abusers find solace in their loved ones.

Yes, it’s been almost three months since my last post. I’m in Omaha now. I took a new job… It’s a long story that I’ll go into when I have more strength after that last rant.

Ghosts

There has been a great deal of talk over the past six days about Nazis and racism, punctuated by the violence in Charlottesville. Given the presidency of Donald Trump, this was a flair-up that was bound to happen sooner or later.

Someone I followed on Facebook made a comment that I’m paraphrasing here. “My grandfather fought in World War II, so I take this Nazi stuff very personally.”

I sympathize with this view. Both of my grandfathers, plus three uncles, fought in World War II, so I take it personally as well. I also take personally the fact that some members of the left are comparing the Antifa thugs to men like my grandfathers and uncles.

While the focus has largely been on President Trump, my thoughts are on Iceland. This past Monday, CBS News ran a story, discussing the fact that 100 percent of women in that country abort their babies if they are found to have Down syndrome. This is a phenomenon that is growing in Europe and beginning here in the United States as well. In my view, the tone of the report was positive.

I contrast this report with an Email I received from the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition a couple of months ago when healthcare reform was all the rage and it looked as if much-needed Medicaid reform would be a real possibility. The Email urged everyone to call and write their congressional representatives so that we might, “Avoid a second eugenics movement.”

Really? This from many of the same people who felt it necessary to occupy Cory Gardner’s office for days, until they were arrested for trespassing? All due respect, I can do without the hyperbole or the political theatrics. Moreover, if you want to see what real eugenics looks like, take a look at Iceland. Today, Down Syndrome. Tomorrow, when ultrasound technology becomes more advanced, why couldn’t it be babies who might be blind, deaf, crippled, or who’s brains might not develop properly?

You know who else loved the idea of designer babies? I’ll give you a hint. He was really big in Germany in the 1930’s and he damn near conquered Europe in the early 1940’s. So, all of you disabled people tossing around words like “Nazi,” and “Eugenics,” might want to do some research. Then, go take a hard look in the mirror and re-examine your own values system. Do you favor abortion under the pro-choice, pro-woman banner? If so, what’s your limiting principle? Many of you who call yourselves Christians or humanitarians, and who are tempted to just read this and move on, might ask yourselves some hard questions.

One more thing. Both of my grandfathers and all three uncles made it home from the battlefields of WW2, but not all of them were whole. Uncle Don had a severe case of battle fatigue; it would be called PTSD today. He could not speak coherently or fully take care of himself. He lived with my grandparents until he passed away. I was a kid when I knew him and, in my young mind, he rattled around in their basement like a strange, mumbling specter. Many countries might look at him today and decide that it would be more merciful to alleviate his suffering through euthanasia, rather than to expend the resources to provide him long-term care, despite his service to his country.

God bless you, Uncle Don. I hope it all makes sense to you now, because it sure doesn’t to me.

From dictionary.com:

Eugenics

Definition: The science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis.

A Dozen Meatballs

My buddy Art told me that a healthy life is about establishing boundaries. He’s right.

Well, here’s a boundary for ya. NO VIOLENCE!!!

I don’t give a good God damn if you’re the KKK or Antifa, or a member of the Nazi Party or Black Lives Matter. You wanna stand in a park or on a sidewalk in front of the state capital and wave signs and yell about injustice? Go for it! You wanna wear silly vagina hats and recite bad poetry about oppression? Be my guest. I enjoy a good laugh. That is your constitutional right and your privilege in this society that champions free speech.

But the second that you throw a rock, or burn a car, or take what’s not yours under the pretense of social justice; the second that you shoot a cop, or run some innocent woman down with a car, you stop being an active citizen and you become something less. You are subhuman. You are scum.

YOU HEAR ME?!!! SCUM!!!

And those of you on the right or the left who can’t or won’t stand up and denounce political violence, no matter who it comes from, you deserve to get slapped around like a meatball in an Italian kitchen and called 12 kinds of stupid.

YOU HEAR ME?!!! STUPID!

Do I make myself clear?

Of Plastic Shower Curtains

Indoor plumbing is a First World luxury we all take for granted. We get the urge, we find a bathroom, we do our business, wipe, flush, hopefully wash our hands and move on with our day. If we partake of that large cup of coffee or cranberry juice on our commute to work, we do so with the knowledge that a bathroom will soon be available for us to relieve ourselves when and if the need should arise.

What an unwelcome surprise it was this morning when I discovered that the men’s room in the underground bus terminal at Denver Union Station was closed for remodeling. Sadly, this was a morning when holding it just wasn’t an option in my 42-year-old universe.

How nice it was when a kindly security guard directed me to a temporary porta potty in the loading area outside. What was not so nice was when I discovered that there was no toilet paper available within the structure. And darn it… I was out of Kleenex in my giant man purse.

I will not go into detail as to the creative problem solving I employed to deal with this unfortunate obstacle in my day. I will only say that, thank God, a hand sanitizer pump was available at the conclusion of my 19th-century experience.

The rest of my commute passed in comfort and, to the best of my knowledge, no stains were present in my boxers. I did take great care not to shake hands with anyone along the way. Of course, the bathroom at work was my first stop, where I privately rejoiced in the sound of the swirling water in the porcelain bowl and washed my hands (twice) with anti-bacterial soap.

One last nugget of wisdom… Orange Gatorade is a great way to wash the crappy taste out of your mouth if you have to.

Always Look on the Right Side of Life

The world today seems absolutely crackers,
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high.
There’s Trump and Putin sittin’ on the trigger.
It’s depressing. It’s senseless. And that’s why…

I like beer. It makes me a jolly good fellow.

Besides spirits, how does a conservative such as myself keep his sanity? Here are some of the resources I use as guiding lights during these dark times:

The National Review magazine has been a bastion of conservative thought for decades. Although they did publish a full ‘Never Trump’ issue during the primaries, they accept him as our president. They are guided, not by a cult of personality, but by conservative principles. They praise Trump when he’s right, but are not afraid to criticize him when he’s wrong.

My favorite writer for National Review is Jonah Goldberg, though Andrew McCarthy, David French, Jim Geraghty and Alexandra DeSanctis are all first rate. In fact, the whole crew is solid.

The Weekly Standard is another publication that rests on the bedrock of conservatism. Bill Kristol, the originator, has been called the father of the ‘Never Trump’ movement, but the editorial stance of conservatism over personality still reigns supreme. Fred Barnes, Stephen Hayes and John Podhoretz are second among equals.

If you’ve burned out on talk radio as I have, try podcasts. Ben Shapiro is my favorite. He is a self-proclaimed nerd and loves to talk about Batman or classical music as much as politics, but he really knows his stuff. I also recommend, “I’ll Tell You What,” a Fox News podcast featuring Dana Perino and Chris Stirewalt. Unlike many of their Fox cohorts, they base their commentary more on experience and philosophy, rather than The Donald’s latest tweet. Also, the afore-mentioned National Review and Weekly Standard both produce podcasts that are well worth a listen.

For those of you who happily buy into the notion that conservative women are represented only by intellectual lightweights such as Sarah Palin and Tomi Lahren, check out the likes of Kat Timpf, Mary Katharine Ham, Amanda Carpenter, Heather Wilhelm, Karol Marcowicz, Megan McArdle, Brooke Rogers, Emily Zanotti and Brittany Pounders. Special shout-out to Christina Sommers and her YouTube series, The Factual Feminist. These ladies can think circles around Ann Coulter any day.

Finally, honorable mentions to John A. Daly, fellow Coloradan and columnist at BernardGoldberg.com. Also, I like Erick Erickson, even though he veers into the mean-spirited lane in the name of God more often than I’d like. If you guys don’t believe that conservative movie critics exist, check out Christian Toto at his website, Hollywoodintoto.com. And mad props to Guy Benson, an openly gay conservative who catches more flack from the left than the right because of his views. I mentioned that I’m mostly off talk radio, though I still enjoy Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt. Hugh veers into Trump apology a little more often than I’d like, but he’s still a good guy and an outlier on MSNBC. And speaking of outliers, we can’t forget Bret Stephens, token conservative at the ever-lovin’ New York Times. And we must also pay tribute to the standard bearers like Charles Krauthammer, George Will and Peggy Noonan, who are all still out there swinging for the fences.

There ya have it, folks. Go out there and try to be sane. If these coping mechanisms don’t work for you, there’s always the Whopper with a beer and cigar chaser. Or if you were expecting a different cuisine based on the beginning of this post, try General Tso’s chicken with a beer chaser.

By the way, all two of you who read this blog may notice less than normal political commentary of late. Frankly, the state of things in that realm today makes me sad and tired. Everything that I feared about President Trump is slowly coming to pass. Why write about it? With apologies to Rush Limbaugh, “See, I told ya so,” is just so pedantic.

You may also notice that I closed the comments section on this blog. I did it for the same reason that Good Times closed on the 16th Street Mall. If people ain’t paying, why stay open? The more practical reason is because I got tired of the spammers, just as poor Ahmed got tired of the homeless using the Good Times bathroom as a changing/bathing room. Capcha is not an option for blind folks with screen-reading software, so I just shut it off.

If I ever face popular demand from actual human beings to bring back the comments, I’ll consider it. Until then, I’m going to publish this and go off to do something else, which will not involve Tom T. Hall or British humor.

The Whopper

I was kind of running on empty this morning due to the beer I drank last night… And then I ate a Whopper.

I’m not gonna lie. The Whopper is probably my favorite fast food burger out there. The Big Mac is vastly overrated. Who wants an extra slice of bread in there!? Wendy’s Baconator is pretty damn good, but it sits in your gut like a lead brick for three days after you surround it. I do enjoy the Super Sonic burger, but until self-driving cars become a reality, I don’t get there very much. Hardy’s (Carl’s Jr. on the left coast) and Jack in the Box were both forgettable when I had them.

So, that leaves us with the Whopper. I put it in my mouth and am treated to a veritable starburst of taste sensations. The chewy sesame seed bun, the smooth, warm melted cheese, the crunch of lettuce, tangy pickles and brisk onions, the sweet, juicy tomato, the flame-broiled meat patty, and finally… The cool chaser of ketchup and mayo.

Who needs Jesus Christ when you can have a Whopper? In fact, at my funeral, don’t worry about my Sunday best. Just place a Whopper under my head and send the coffin downward. Be happy in the knowledge that I am in that great big drive-through in the sky, ordering a Whopper to go while some big-boned beauty is offering to lick the ketchup off my chin. Instead of the blind man in the bleachers, think of the big blind daddy in the Porshe.

Of course, with my luck, my spirit will go the same direction as my coffin. I’ll be in hell, where I’m in an Uber driven by a guy named Ahmed, who clearly has better things to do with his time. If we’re lucky enough to find the Burger King, the speaker will have a short, the lady taking my order won’t speak English, the cook will be a stoner who fixes it on a stale bun and forgets the extra cheese and the mayo, and Ahmed will drive away before I can check the bag to make sure they remembered the fries, which are better at McDonald’s anyway but I wanted them.

DAMN IT!!! I’m getting in a bad mood again thinking about this scenario. But I just burped and tasted that Whopper again. I feel better. Aahhhhh!!!

Put This On Your Cake and Frost It!

This article was originally posted on my Facebook page two years ago. I think it is worthy of preservation.

So yeah…gay marriage.

Almost a week ago, the Supreme Court made it’s decision. I knew it was coming and warned my fellow conservatives to prepare themselves. I’m not a know-it-all. It wasn’t hard to read the political tea leaves. Justice Kennedy and Ted Olson validated my thinking that we have reached a place in our culture where emotionalism holds sway over sound logic in the realm of public policy. Still, there is no point in debating the merits (or lack there of) of the legality of gay marriage, so we’re not going to do it here.

Let’s turn then to the religious side of it. I think it’s important that we do so, for the church will serve as the final battleground for this issue. Those who preach tolerance of the homosexual lifestyle while simultaneously castegating Christians who respectfully express descent will eventually be coming after them in the courts as well. Given recent trends, there’s no reason to think they won’t be successful in suppressing the Christian view of traditional marriage.

I’ve heard three arguments from Christians who support same-sex marriage that I feel deserve a response:

1. This is best summed up by an acquaintance on Twitter. Last Friday she tweeted, “Love is love is love.”

This is the most ridiculous argument I’ve ever heard, Yet, it is the most emotionally persuasive propegated by the media, gay activists and by opportunistic politicians; many of whom held the opposing view until it became politically convenient to shift with the social wind (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, etc.)

Love is love is love? Really? Implicit in this circular argument is the notion that God is the essence of perfect love. God loves everyone, no matter who they are or what they do. Therefore, God either approves of their actions, or will at least forgive them regardless of their intent. This chooses to ignore the many portions of scripture that illustrate that God is also angry and just. Rather than site passage after passage that bolsters this argument, I will merely ask a question for my post modernist Christian followers. Please site for me any passage in which God encourages his children to sin.

That leads me to:

2. “I have no right to judge gay marriage, because everyone sins.”

Yes, we are all sinners living in a fallen world. Yes, gay people deserve our prayer, compassion, respect and love. Yes, God is the ultimate judge. That said, can any of you post modern Christians name a sin that is socially celebrated? When someone commits adultery, do we throw him/her a public party complete with photographer, cake and fancy clothing? Do we celebrate and encourage murderers, thieves, rapests, etc?

Marco Rubio was recently asked if he would attend a gay wedding. His answer (paraphrased) was, “Yes, just as I would attend the second wedding of a friend who had previously been divorced.” This is a spurious argument. When you attend someone’s second or eighth wedding, you are not celebrating the fact that they are divorced. You are celebrating their new marriage in the hopes that it will not also end in divorce.

One of the central tennants of Christianity is that of forgiveness. This was recently reinforced by relatives of the victims of the massacre at Emanuel Church in Charleston, when they rose in court and publicly forgave the shooter. This was an incredible act! What do you think would happen if Christians said to gay people, “We forgive you, rather than, “God condemns all gay people to hell.”

3. “God created animals. Animals engage in homosexual behavior. So…”

This is also a laughable argument. God gave humans dominion over the Earth. Animals kill indiscriminately. They poop and pee wherever they wish. Animals engage in sex without gaining the consent of their partner or partners. They take food without asking permission. Do I really need to go on?

Look, I understand that it feels good not to be considered a narrow-minded bigot. It feels good to be loved and accepted by other people. Human love is much more tangible and gratifying than the long term love of an unseen God. Many of you post modern Christians are comfortable with your choice to embrace gay marriage and that’s fine. Ultimately, it’s between you and God. Just understand that the same forces that offered you this choice will ask you to choose again down the road. How good will it feel if you’re choice is the wrong one?

“Fuck the Po-Lice!”

Here comes another book recommendation. “The Force,” by Don Winslow. Let me say right off the bat that this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s right up there with “Lonesome Dove,” “The Caine Mutiny,” “Presumed Innocent,” and “The Godfather.”

Denny Malone is a New York City cop. But he is not New York’s finest. He is corrupt and North Manhattan is his kingdom. He is not the stereotypical cop of crime fiction. He sports sleeve tattoos, loves gangsta rap, has an estranged wife and a black mistress on the side and he has a bad habit of popping Dexedrine before he goes on duty.

Malone busts his share of perps, but he also steals drugs, cash and guns from other criminals to further his own interests, along with those of his partners on an elite task force designed to combat street crime. In the book’s opening scene, Malone executes a notorious drug dealer for reasons that will eventually become clear.

Does he get away with it? Faugh! Read the book. Let’s just say that Denny will soon find that his agenda comes into conflict with those of the mafia, a ghetto drug lord, a Dominican hitman, the FBI, city politicians and, most important of all, his fellow cops.

This book is not merely a pot-boiler crime thriller. The characters are fully realized human beings, all driven by human frailties. Current events such as police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement serve as an authentic backdrop to the plot and motivations of the characters. But most of all, this book is an honest, unvarnished look into the culture of the police force, for both good and bad. Though politics does play a role in the novel, I don’t detect an overt pro or anti-cop bias on the part of the author.

Yes, my blind friends, the book is available on audible, which means you can go ahead and pirate it like I know you’re gonna do. It is not on BARD and probably won’t be for a while, since the book was published only two weeks ago. Apparently, it is also available on Bookshare.

I Got the Conch!

Today, our college campuses are being overrun by tyranny. It’s not tyranny of the majority, which is a favorite cliché of the left. It’s tyranny of those operating outside the boundaries of conventional authority. Radical leftists (mostly students) who feel empowered by recent socio/political shifts to take the law into their own hands and trample the rights of others in the name of social justice.

We will save the debate of the erroneous concept of social justice for another time. Sufficed to say, those students have chosen to overstep their conventional boundaries as young people on a quest for knowledge and transform themselves into radical activists in pursuit of their own view of the truth. These students are happy to resort to extreme ends to achieve their goals. Said ends include the heckler’s veto; yelling down a controversial speaker until they are no longer able to continue their speech, social media bullying campaigns against unpopular figures that include profanity-laced epithets, threats of violence to squelch a speaking engagement and even violence itself.

Said incidents include, but are not limited to:

• At California State, a conservative student group invited Ben Shapiro to be a guest speaker on February 25, 2016. Students Emailed the president of the college and complained that they felt “uncomfortable” and “unsafe” at the notion of Shapiro’s speech. One student even compared the event to an undercover KKK rally. The president subsequently canceled Shapiro’s speech, but he showed up and spoke anyway. Those hoping to attend the speech were barred by angry protesters who formed human chains in an attempt to prevent people from entering the building. After the speech, students refused to let the president leave until he explained himself and demanded that he be fired.
Note: I listen to Ben Shapiro’s podcast almost daily and he is about as far from the KKK as you can get.

• In 2015, a lecturer at Yale resigned after she was harassed by students after suggesting that Halloween costumes deemed offensive or insensitive by some minority groups should not be censored. When her husband, a Sociology professor at Yale, came to her defense, he was also harassed and took an indefinite break. You can find a video on YouTube of an angry student mob confronting a Yale administrator and shouting him down.

• In March, 2017, students at Middlebury protested conservative Charles Murray’s speech on campus. He was forced to give his presentation via video feed from a private room. When he tried to leave under the escort of a liberal professor, they were set upon by an angry mob composed of students and professional agitators. They were barely able to make it to a car when the professor received whiplash and a concussion from violent assaults. Even when they tried to drive away, the mob held the car back until a path could be cleared by security guards. As of this date, the students who were identified as participants in the violence were given only reprimands.

• In 2017, Berkeley canceled a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, after the campus erupted in violent riots that resulted in the destruction of property, including a Starbucks. Two months later, a speech by Ann Coulter was also canceled after threats of violence.

• Last week, a professor at Evergreen college in Washington was forced to leave campus and teach his class in a public park after police told him he was unsafe. This after he protested a student movement to compel all white people to leave campus for a day. As of this date, Evergreen’s administration has taken no action to resolve the situation.

I’m not including the recent student walk-out during Vice-President Pence’s commencement speech at Notre Dame in this list of transgressions, as there was no suppression of free speech during that event. It was a childish and churlish display, but it was only a display.

Why is this happening?

You will hear all sorts of explanations from the afore-mentioned social justice warriors waging a righteous battle against bigotry and inequity to the positive power of angry young people trying to change the world for the better. They are all crap.

Nothing feels better to a person in their late teens/early 20’s than a belly full of power. When spineless school administrators and sympathetic faculty demonstrate to them that they can yell, scream and break stuff in the name of a righteous cause without consequences, they will take the ball and run with it.

Another component is the scholastic environment itself. Since the 1960’s, college campuses have been ground zero for the cultural revolution. It started with sit-ins, love-ins, riots and all-around bad behavior in the name of condemning the general crime of social injustice, as well as the specific crime of the Vietnam War. Many of those students misbehaved without consequences. Many of those same students got older, but never grew up. They realized that they had won major victories in society, so they became professors and decided to seed the next generation of social justice warriors.

Yet another component are those spineless administrators, along with morally tepid politicians, who merely turn a blind eye to the problem. When violence and intimidation does erupt, they choose to sweep the larger problems under the rug in the hopes that they will go away.

So, what are the solutions for the budding problem of Orwellian totalitarianism in our institutions of supposed higher learning?

Another favored (and erroneous) cliché of the left is, “Violence never solves anything.” Sadly, the cupcake crowd didn’t get the memo. Therefore, hard lines must be drawn. Administrators must set them at the point of violence, harassment or intimidation of anyone living or visiting a college campus. No exceptions can be made on the basis of age, class, race, sexual orientation, etc.

If the passive and cowardly administrative class refuses to insure that the constitutional rights of every single person on college campuses, whether student, faculty or guest, will not be protected, then they should be called in front of their state legislative bodies, or Congress, to explain why they should continue to receive government funding? Nothing gets a bureaucrat’s attention quite like threatening his/her pocketbook.

Until the government steps in to take a closer look at this matter, the power of the lawsuit will have to reign supreme. To that end, I encourage everyone who cares about this issue to check out the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE.) I have just given them a donation and hope others will as well. For some time, they have been on the front lines of the encroaching suppression of free speech and the free exchange of ideas on American college campuses.

Folks, these incidents of suppression of free speech are but the tip of the iceberg of the problems on today’s college campuses. I haven’t even mentioned the so-called “free speech zones,” or speech codes, or safe spaces, or the curriculums themselves, or the treatment of male students accused of rape. I am not embellishing when I say that this is a deep-rooted problem in our country today.

A school teacher I know (a Democrat), said that our colleges are no longer places where critical thinking is a priority. I wholeheartedly concur. I have a niece and nephew who just graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago and I am not optimistic about their continuing education. Yes, they are white and, by the standards of higher academia, they come from privilege. Does that mean they should not be granted the same constitutional safeguards guaranteed to everyone? Do they lose all freedom when entering the university bubble? If so, it’s time to resist!

Whitewash

I was discussing the notion of white privilege with several coworkers yesterday.

One of them, who hails from Ecuador, is convinced that she faces a tide of constant discrimination in the U.S. because she is a Latina with dark skin. I chafed at the notion that white privilege is a universal concept, when another coworker jumped in.

“Yes, white privilege does exist. Societies tend to discriminate based on the lightness of one’s skin. Other cultures and countries even do it.”

I agree with this. I do think that a preference for lightness of skin is an unfortunate flaw of the species, but it’s not indigenous to white society.

I continued the discussion with yet another coworker this morning, balking at the notion of universal white privilege.

“Ryan!” he said. “You have white privilege. Accept it.”

I countered that, when people see me, they don’t see my white skin. The first thing they see is my white cane. He seemed less than convinced.

This presumption (that I encounter on my job daily) reminds me of a conversation I had with another blind woman several years ago. She grew up in the Boston ghetto (her term, not mine.) She was a white girl of Irish ancestry who was a minority amongst blacks and Hispanics. She faced a double whammy because she was also disabled.

When she was attending college, a professor told her class to write an essay explaining how white privilege had impacted their lives. She Emailed her prof and challenged her thinking, claiming that she had not benefitted from white privilege because she’d been a double minority in her neighborhood and school.

The professor’s reply was classic condescending leftist. “Sorry, Milissa. Even though you’re disabled, you still benefit from privilege.”

This lady had no inkling of Milissa’s background, yet she presumed to categorize and dismiss her out of hand.

I’m using Milissa’s name because I don’t think she’d care, by the way.

But what of this notion of privilege. My Ecuadorian coworker is probably the wealthiest person on staff where I work. She loves to wallow in her status as a victim, but she and her family live in a damn fine home. I’ve been there. What if said coworker walked into a Wendy’s restaurant, dressed in her typical upper middle class fashion, and stood in line next to a white homeless man? Would he benefit from white privilege in his treatment by the restaurant staff then?

Hell no!

If you want to talk about class privilege, I’ll listen. It’s another unfortunate flaw in the human condition that exists in every society and culture. But spare me the idea that every person with white skin gets a leg up in life.