Brief background, she has always been more conservative then I have. Today she saw a video about a young white boy killed in broad daylight by a black man. This is inherently tragic, in ways that are hard to express. That said they video she watched, and showed me, was littered with BLM references. My immediate problems with this set me off for a couple reasons.
The pictures involved were a smiling 5 year old white boy and a black man in an orange jumpsuit.
So, he was railing about why BLM protesters (specifically) were not protesting a white kid who’s killer was *already* both identified and arrested.
First problem, what the fuck were they supposed to be protesting? I mean it’s a fair argument for gun control, but (without any research into this tool) he was not moved to tears by a classroom full of kindergarteners killed by an AR-15, I can’t imagine why. Wait I *can* imagine why.
Second problem, these same dudes like to point out “black on black” crime as some sort of excuse for cops murdering black men. Something akin to “Well if they were just going to kill each other anyway, why persecute an honest white man that helps it along?”. It’s like no one in the black community knows it’s a problem and they are waiting on someone else to fix it.
Scratch the surface and look at the dude making the video, middle aged white male (not unlike me). So the emotion may be genuine, but I do not believe he actually understands the root of it.
I am a 50-year-old white male, if you dig a little bit around here you will find I have been a democrat from when Newt Gingrich put up his first 100 day plan in 1994. Most of my peers are conservatives and assume by my looks that I agree with them. As my existence dependents on not rocking the boat, I generally let them talk and point out the *obvious* logic flaws in their arguments and not the wholehearted (if unintentional?) racism and misogyny that comes out of their mouths.
What I am trying to say is, I know this dude. Never met him, and I am sure he would be pleasant to me if we had to work together or were stuck in the same line at Starbucks. His *fear* (let’s not quibble) is about losing his white privilege. This accurate (if wholly terribly named) concept completely eludes him. In his mind it means that armed thugs (I know, I know) will come and take everything he has worked for and sell his kids into bondage for being white. He cannot (for many reasons I will not go into here) gronk the idea that white privilege is the inherent racism in this country, that loosing white privilege does not mean he loses something, that it levels the field so that everybody gets to eat, procreate, laugh, cry, *live* without being denied rights given to others simply because they were born not white.
Eh, rant over. This idiots video will not make a difference in the world in the slightest (much like this diary) but the emotion that drove him to making it needs to be addressed. We need to *accurately* define what white privilege is and why it is a bad thing. Most of my peers will ignore any new data and keep posting dumb shit like this, some however may be reachable.
It will *not* help elect democrats, but if we are truly trying to make our corner of the world a better place, I believe it is a worthwhile endeavor. Unfortunately (for me) it will need to be done by people with more reach then I have.
**Edit, I must have missed the mark. This was not so much about my wife as it was about a way to re frame the words “White Privilege”. **
