Why its The White Man's Burden. Only white men and women can save the Darkies on TV and in Movies. And now in TruChristian (tm) churches with White Jesus. /snark
“If only they would protest peacefully...”“When are we going to have a straight pride parade?”“All lives matter...”“Some of my best friends are _____, but that doesn’t mean _______.”“What about meeeeeee?”
Hadn't thought about him for a long time. He was in my first-period class, and he came late sometimes, and when he turned up, I'd ask him if the attendance slip was still outside the door of the classroom. If it was, I scratched his name out and put it back, so he'd have one less tardy marked, and could put off the inevitable detention one day longer. His mother was a single parent of six kids, a drunk. My student was the oldest, and he'd miss his bus out to the high school on the days he had to stay to put his younger siblings on their bus. It was a fucking cold four mile walk on the days no one would pick him up. I don't remember his name, but I remember the tightness in his body, the never-ending tension he carried. I remember how hard he tried. I remember him telling me he didn't have his homework done because his mother had been up all night, and the look in his eyes that filled in all the blanks he left out of that explanation. I called the mother of a different student about her son's schoolwork, and she was three sheets to the wind, and swore at me for a solid ten minutes, dispassionately, almost bored. When he came back to school the next day, he looked at me with such raw pleading. I told him that I was so sorry, and would never call his mother again, and I never did. I called one mother to congratulate her on how well her daughter had done on some task, and the girl told me the next day that she'd gotten in trouble for the call. I stopped calling parents after that. I remember how those kids always seemed to feel responsible for the behavior and deficiencies of their parents. I remember another kid who got a month-long suspension for not much, and admin refusing my request to give his dad school books for the kid. Dad wore a green apron and worked in the produce department at the local grocery store. He loved his son, and was so proud of him, and so grateful to me for trying, and so fucking innocent. He still believed that the system had his child's best interests at heart. I remember a kid that was never anything but polite to me. Funny. Smart. But came from a dirt-poor family in a town where that mattered, a lot. I remember him getting suspended for something that went on in another classroom, and going to the principal to plead his case. I remember the principal saying, "You know what I see when I look at him? All I think of when I see him is, `He might be the reason that my kids don't get to go to a private college'." He was a fucking good kid. And I remember the arrogance of those kids whose parents owned the town, owned the school, owned the administration. The HS calculus teacher tutored them in math starting while they were in elementary school. I fucking hate.
I have run into my fair share, and perhaps then some, of doors locked against the likes of me. But there have been those who leaned out of the upper windows, called down to tell me to go around back--the gate was unlatched, and I could slip through, and I have tried to turn back and pass on the favor. I have been buffeted climbing the steep and stormy side of the mountain, while others seemed to find the path upwards a broad and sunlit way. I believe in the power of education to transform lives, but I have been too close to it, for too long, to believe that there is even a remote degree of equality of access or outcome within it. But still. It's the closest thing we've got to level the playing field, and it is critical that we make the process explicit for those who wander wondering how the hell this is supposed to work. You save the ones you can, but at the end of it all, those aren't the ones that you remember.
You know, if I were to write an opinion piece, from a white man to other white people about white privilege, reframing it as a "blessing" that we have received, in the context that we have received it unfairly and at the expense of others, it would not be a terrible idea. But ONLY in a written piece, where you can carefully and precisely parse and edit your words. To attempt to do so in a free-wheeling discussion, even with the best of intentions, could only go horribly wrong. And somehow, I don't think this guy's intentions were as pure as he thought. Pro tip: if you find yourself whitesplaining, you need to stop, back up, and root out the errors in your reasoning. Trust me, they are there.
You forgot to add "but I never owned slaves" to that. The past is the platform we stand upon, and the platforms for white and black Americans are not equal to begin with, so the past is absolutely relevant to things like getting "a fucking high school degree." Oftentimes our different platforms skew our views, and when a major part of your platform (mine, too! Hi!) is built on top of someone else's platform, it's easy to overlook, how history hasn't afforded everyone the same opportunities. True equity is when we create systems in which all of our platforms are level, and justice would be the establishment of truly common ground. We are so, so far from that.
Marconi and Curie were people of extreme privilege even by today's standards. Equating their life's work to being generationally owned and worked and regarded as inhuman is absolutely disgusting.
You mean that show about the square-headed white dude who tough-loves his high school roundball team of brown poors, shows them the error of their youthful indiscretions and lifts them out of poverty by helping their mama get a job at the lunch counter downtown so she can buy a house and get her boys out of the projects? #whitesavior
Pretty much. Except we can't change the past. I'm personally against financial payments for reparations. What I see should happen is real equality of opportunity. Sure, slaves picked that cotton - but Marconi worked on the radio, Madame Curie worked with radiation - going forward is more important than the past. Get a fucking high school degree is the first step.
So... don't turn your crank to Frank??
Why its The White Man's Burden. Only white men and women can save the Darkies on TV and in Movies. And now in TruChristian (tm) churches with White Jesus. /snark
“If only they would protest peacefully...”“When are we going to have a straight pride parade?”“All lives matter...”“Some of my best friends are _____, but that doesn’t mean _______.”“What about meeeeeee?”
yeah, but come on, they should get a fucking high school degree.
(but what i really want to say is my heart is bleeding right now for the injustice of it all)
Hadn't thought about him for a long time. He was in my first-period class, and he came late sometimes, and when he turned up, I'd ask him if the attendance slip was still outside the door of the classroom. If it was, I scratched his name out and put it back, so he'd have one less tardy marked, and could put off the inevitable detention one day longer. His mother was a single parent of six kids, a drunk. My student was the oldest, and he'd miss his bus out to the high school on the days he had to stay to put his younger siblings on their bus. It was a fucking cold four mile walk on the days no one would pick him up. I don't remember his name, but I remember the tightness in his body, the never-ending tension he carried. I remember how hard he tried. I remember him telling me he didn't have his homework done because his mother had been up all night, and the look in his eyes that filled in all the blanks he left out of that explanation. I called the mother of a different student about her son's schoolwork, and she was three sheets to the wind, and swore at me for a solid ten minutes, dispassionately, almost bored. When he came back to school the next day, he looked at me with such raw pleading. I told him that I was so sorry, and would never call his mother again, and I never did. I called one mother to congratulate her on how well her daughter had done on some task, and the girl told me the next day that she'd gotten in trouble for the call. I stopped calling parents after that. I remember how those kids always seemed to feel responsible for the behavior and deficiencies of their parents. I remember another kid who got a month-long suspension for not much, and admin refusing my request to give his dad school books for the kid. Dad wore a green apron and worked in the produce department at the local grocery store. He loved his son, and was so proud of him, and so grateful to me for trying, and so fucking innocent. He still believed that the system had his child's best interests at heart. I remember a kid that was never anything but polite to me. Funny. Smart. But came from a dirt-poor family in a town where that mattered, a lot. I remember him getting suspended for something that went on in another classroom, and going to the principal to plead his case. I remember the principal saying, "You know what I see when I look at him? All I think of when I see him is, `He might be the reason that my kids don't get to go to a private college'." He was a fucking good kid. And I remember the arrogance of those kids whose parents owned the town, owned the school, owned the administration. The HS calculus teacher tutored them in math starting while they were in elementary school. I fucking hate.
Saltine-Americans assemble!
I have run into my fair share, and perhaps then some, of doors locked against the likes of me. But there have been those who leaned out of the upper windows, called down to tell me to go around back--the gate was unlatched, and I could slip through, and I have tried to turn back and pass on the favor. I have been buffeted climbing the steep and stormy side of the mountain, while others seemed to find the path upwards a broad and sunlit way. I believe in the power of education to transform lives, but I have been too close to it, for too long, to believe that there is even a remote degree of equality of access or outcome within it. But still. It's the closest thing we've got to level the playing field, and it is critical that we make the process explicit for those who wander wondering how the hell this is supposed to work. You save the ones you can, but at the end of it all, those aren't the ones that you remember.
You know, if I were to write an opinion piece, from a white man to other white people about white privilege, reframing it as a "blessing" that we have received, in the context that we have received it unfairly and at the expense of others, it would not be a terrible idea. But ONLY in a written piece, where you can carefully and precisely parse and edit your words. To attempt to do so in a free-wheeling discussion, even with the best of intentions, could only go horribly wrong. And somehow, I don't think this guy's intentions were as pure as he thought. Pro tip: if you find yourself whitesplaining, you need to stop, back up, and root out the errors in your reasoning. Trust me, they are there.
And a further fuckity-fuck-fuck for getting We Built This City by Starship stuck in my head.
You forgot to add "but I never owned slaves" to that. The past is the platform we stand upon, and the platforms for white and black Americans are not equal to begin with, so the past is absolutely relevant to things like getting "a fucking high school degree." Oftentimes our different platforms skew our views, and when a major part of your platform (mine, too! Hi!) is built on top of someone else's platform, it's easy to overlook, how history hasn't afforded everyone the same opportunities. True equity is when we create systems in which all of our platforms are level, and justice would be the establishment of truly common ground. We are so, so far from that.
Marconi and Curie were people of extreme privilege even by today's standards. Equating their life's work to being generationally owned and worked and regarded as inhuman is absolutely disgusting.
I'd love to play poker with those people. "It's almost a straight. Doesn't that count?"
Native Americans first. We're all living on stolen land.
You mean that show about the square-headed white dude who tough-loves his high school roundball team of brown poors, shows them the error of their youthful indiscretions and lifts them out of poverty by helping their mama get a job at the lunch counter downtown so she can buy a house and get her boys out of the projects? #whitesavior
And Chicago.
Me too. Did you make it to Bribane? How's the car shopping going? Do you have Hunter pix?
Pretty much. Except we can't change the past. I'm personally against financial payments for reparations. What I see should happen is real equality of opportunity. Sure, slaves picked that cotton - but Marconi worked on the radio, Madame Curie worked with radiation - going forward is more important than the past. Get a fucking high school degree is the first step.