What is white privilege?
I was born in 1973. With a bachelor’s degree, I am the least educated person in my immediate family. My parents had a computer in the house before most people knew that personal computing was a thing.
I was sent to “enrichment camp” five days a week the summers after third and fourth grade where I learned to code in three languages, how to compose poetry, speak French, and other smartypants stuff.
When I was 11, my maternal grandparents, both immigrants, died and left my mom about $60,000. We moved to big house in a better school district. The high school had a planetarium. I never finished my junior year of high school.
I got a GED and applied to and was accepted by two colleges. In college, I met other geeky white people and helped start an Internet service provider where I worked for ten years.
Now I work from home, staring at palm trees from my sit/stand desk, helping companies with esoteric niche digital marketing concerns. I jaywalk with impunity. And while shopkeepers often stare at me, it’s because of my sweet hair, not my skin.
I am white privilege.
Excerpts from my mother’s remarks on this blog post:
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I don’t remember the French and poetry. Maybe you just never told us.
Also, you left out “After causing my parents great grief and heartache,” I got my GED and..
I hate the picture. But I think I have told you that before.
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(I’m an expert at posing for photos later to be frowned upon by my mother.)
It’s called working hard and being successful, get over it.
I’m not saying hard work wasn’t involved at times, but I was afforded access to resources and experiences others didn’t have. Sure, plenty of third-grade white people also lacked access to computer classes in the early 80s, but I’m talking about broad swaths, not needling specifics.
At any time in the history of the United States, if you look at what obstacles little kids must overcome to be upwardly mobile, it’s not often you’d think, “white people have to try harder“.
That’s it. That’s the gist. I’m not saying I was given anything with a silver spoon, or that I didn’t work hard. Just that, using the old baseball metaphor, I was born on first base or second base or whatever, when other people had to start swinging from home base, and work a little harder to score.
“I want to stab your eyes out with my favorite pocket knife”
…you are referencing a line from a song I did not write.
https://dandreifort.com/2012/07/09/a-long-acronym/
Some upper classmen band nerds wrote that lovely teenage drivel.