The Virtue Signaling Of White People Apologizing For "White Privilege" And How The Real Privilege Is Being Lucky Enough To Be American
We've got problems in this country, for sure, but those of us who've grown up here are lucky, because this is the place on the globe that offers the most opportunity for all people -- even those who aren't born wealthy or born into "good families."
At Heat Street, there's a stark contrast between two boys whose stories went viral this week. Florina Rodov writes:
One of the boys, 14-year-old Royce Mann, attends the $22,000 a year Paedeia School in a tony section of Atlanta. His slam poem "White Boy Privilege," in which he apologizes to immigrants, black people, women, and other marginalized groups, earned kudos from celebrities and praise from millennial websites, which called him "woke," or aware.The other teen is black, homeless Fred Barley, 19, also a Georgia resident, but from the less-glamorous Conyers. Barley pedaled six hours in the blazing sun on a kid's bike, lugging water, a box of cereal, and a tent, to camp out at Gordon State College in Barnesville in order to register for classes. Barley captured the hearts of police officers, folks in his community, and regular people across America who contributed more than $180,000 to his GoFundMe campaign.
Mann offers a fatalistic, elitist, and divisive view of America. His rhetoric does nothing to actually help the people he professes to care about. Barley, on the other hand, exemplifies our country's pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps optimism, which is why he inspired people of all races to rally behind him.
Mann says that he and other white boys are at the top of the ladder, while everyone else is stuck on the "first rung." As an immigrant, I adamantly disagree with him. My family and I emigrated from the Soviet Union when I was three. My mom, a doctor, volunteered at an AIDS clinic while studying for her licensing exams. My dad, an engineer, toiled as a janitor at NYU and walked 13 miles from our home in Queens to lower Manhattan and back because he couldn't afford the subway fare. My friends' parents, who were from China, Haiti, Pakistan, and other countries, made similar sacrifices for them. As a result, we all went to college, became professionals, and achieved the American Dream.
Fred Barley isn't fortunate enough to have parents, so he's looking out for himself and doing everything he can to eventually attend medical school. It's this attitude that ingratiated him to military couple Casey and Cole Blaney, who have become his surrogate parents. Barley will undoubtedly reach the top of the ladder where Mann is perched and probably even surpass him. And when he does, it's doubtful he'll wish he'd been born there, since it's much more gratifying to have achieved success on your own.
That's what I tell inner-city kids I speak to once or twice a year at a high school. At one point, when I was living in New York, I couldn't afford my rent, health insurance, and a bed. So, for maybe six months or maybe a year, I slept on a door. Not like bat. It was an old door I found on the street, propped on two milk crates, with a sleeping bag I still have as the bedding.
Once you start making some money, you look back on those times and laugh -- but you also marvel at how far you've come and how your hard work paid off. It's cool as hell.
@Popehat today tweeted
@Popehat
When I think about it, my clients who are the most modestly, convincingly, and devotedly patriotic are immigrants. Hearts on their sleeves.
I tweeted:
@amyalkon
I find that in friends from Cuba and USSR, especially.
He added:
@Popehat
@amyalkon also Iran.
He's right.
The people I know who are wildly grateful to be here are not the ones increasingly mired in complaining that they are victims and expecting other people to apologize for their advantages. They are people who struggled to get here or whose parents did, and they tend to be among the most successful people I know -- inventors, prodigies, big buck fellowship winners...despite speaking English as a second (or third) language.
I was so touched by how noble the Mann family was to give up young Royce's spot at Paedeia for a poorer, more deserving youth.
They did, didn't they? That was the whole point, wasn't it?
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at July 29, 2016 7:06 AM
Old RPM Daddy, don't be silly. Of course not. Do you not understand how virtual signalling actually works?
Crid has an artful description for it: getting to heaven on someone else's dime. They won't give up the young man's spot, nor will they transfer him to an inner-city high school that doesn't rank well, nor will they pay for a scholarship for someone from the wrong side of the tracks to attend Paedeia. That's too much like actual work.
Besides, they wouldn't want their young man rubbing shoulders with someone from the wrong side of the tracks.
No, his parents will pat the young fellow on the back, give him kudos and then ship him off to Yale or Harvard or maybe Emory or Tulane. They'd be horrified if the best he could do was GaTech. Or even worse, horror of horrors, UGA.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 29, 2016 7:21 AM
This was the work of his parents..
http://www.actlikeamann.com/
I wonder if the people applauding this poem have listened past the first few seconds, because it get's rather ugly. He ( they ) are trying to cast all 'middle and upper class' white mails as demented racists and misogynists. It's not an apology, it's a bigoted attack on white men.
When people say that Progressivism is like a religion, this is what they're talking about.
ummm at July 29, 2016 7:48 AM
In college after freshman year in the dorm, I bought all my stuff at the local southern equivalent of Goodwill. All my clothes, furniture, cookware. I made a bed by putting plywood on 5 cement blocks, foam pad on top of that, then blanket. it was a better bed than many students had and I think it cost me $20. Worked 20hrs/wk my last 2 years and so no debt (course it was cheaper back then). No movies or eating out. I went to grad school on research assistantships. Working your way up is real but many today think someone else should pay for it or they borrow so much it ruins their life.
The focus on inequality is misguided. The focus should be on opportunity. So many government programs punish or prevent the person trying to start a business and favor big corporations. That is not creating opportunity.
Craig Loehle at July 29, 2016 11:24 AM
To recap:
I'm so sorry I'm a white boy, it's all my fault
My life is great, I'm guaranteed success
Yours is pathetic, you are a starving retch
So sorry
I wouldn't change a thing, your life is shit
I can't imagine what it's like to be so retched and pathetic
So sorry
Me sorry, you pathetic
Thank you
white boy at July 29, 2016 11:53 AM
I think the underlying metaphor of this is a mistake.
My this central presumption —or this underlying fantasy around which these complaints are composed— came from some forgotten Hollywood movie, or a book of science fiction. (The typical explication of New Age spirituality sounds far too close to Star Wars blather for my taste.)
Or maybe it's an offshoot of one of Pinker's beliefs about the generally extension of peace that's happened across the world over the last few centuries... That literacy, and especially the reading of fiction, puts people in the minds of others in ways that give the Golden Rule some power in the practical realm.
I used the metaphor a couple months ago, but it bears repeating. Human souls are NOT lottery balls, bouncing around in a wind-blown fish tank, dropping randomly into American corporeal splendor... Particular children have good lives because particular people made babies and raised them in good contexts.
This became especially apparent to me after my nieces and nephews grew up to be sensational people... Because I watched how carefully they were crafted, beginning with sensational partner selection. They weren't going to have a troubled, violent nomad from the Takla Makan as a child in any case. They MADE their kids wonderful.
One isn't "lucky" to have the love of affectionate, sturdy, disciplined parents who demand a nourishing environment for their children, and it's obnoxious to pretend that one is.
Crid at July 29, 2016 9:56 PM
GD typos....
I think it's weird that one of the most beloved NF authors of his generation wants to make a podcast that sounds like a typically shitty NPR story....
But Gladwell touched on some of this in this program. So very, very many things have to go right for a child, gifted or not, to receive the love and support necessary to succeed that chatter regarding "luck" is pointless.
Yeah, luck: We could all have died from cancer at age three.
Crid at July 30, 2016 3:13 AM
Wow! The Takla Makan is that huge cat's-eye on Google Earth, North of the Himalayas. Top kek!
It's good that somebody is at last ready to say where the violence comes from! Hardly a day goes by without news of another atrocity from the Takla Makan.
phunctor at July 30, 2016 4:47 AM
It's been a long time, but the draft notices didn't say "Hey Privileged White Boy..." I've paid my dues, the punk with rich parents can try to inflict guilt on someone else.
There are so many people who will do nothing to help themselves that what should be normal is now noticeable.
MarkD at July 30, 2016 6:16 AM
Funk, you have a very small penis.
Crid at July 30, 2016 10:08 AM
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