My dad and mom were both born before WW I, mom lost a 12 year old sister to infection from a boil on her neck, both of their parents families were badly hit by the depression, they got married in 1936, dad went broke and lost his house and business in 1939, went into farming as a share cropper with horses, cattle, and equipment given or loaned to him from the families, farmed 160 acres with horses, milked 20 cows by hand, lived without electricity or running water and butchered for a second job. I don't see much white privilege there. That said, we always had a good life. We were never poor, we just didn't have any money. I never went hungry, still eat oatmeal every day, we never suffered from the cold, bedroom might be below freezing, but we had all the quilts we needed, we were never bored, had no TV, radio. computer, but always read or were read to. Hunted, played with the cousins and neighbors kids,run around like a pack of wolves in retrospect, went to a 1 room schoolhouse and received a good education and a lot of healthy outdoor play. The school was heated with wood, had outdoor toilets and 12-16 students in all 8 grades. Dad said he loved to pay income taxes, there were to many years in his life when there was no income and he was glad to have enough income to be required to pay taxes, in fact if they took 20%, he wished he had to pay $2,000. We all have a good life now, no whining abut white, black, gender, poverty, or anything privilege. If you want to get an education, you can get one, we aren't for the most part dying from lock jaw, TB, polio. measles, heart attacks at 40, diabetes, and a hundred other things that used to kill half of us before we were 20. If a female, you will go to high school, you aren't likely to have 12 kids and have a good chance of dying in childbirth or of complications of a pregnancy, sexual abuse is considered a crime, you will not be given to a "wealthy" family at age 12 as a servant and are not likely to be considered a household accessory like in Sen. Thrumond's case, and so. If male, you can expect and will be required to get a high school education, not be apprenticed out to someone at 12-14 to work for free until 21 to "learn" a trade, etc. If black, you can no longer be bought, sold, you can go where you wish, learn what you wish, go into any trade you wish, marry who you wish, your children belong to you and not to "massa" , and you can make whatever you wish and can accomplish out of your life. We are all privileged at the moment and should thank the Lord for his gifts in education, medicine, social change and do our best to continue to improve it. That being said, the devil seems to be the dominant force in our country today and many are doing their best to destroy all those gifts we have worked so hard to receive and expect and demand that they be given to them as "rights" for some repayment for past wrongs, and refuse to admit that we all, in the past, have suffered those same wrongs.
well this old redneck cracker picked cotton in the fields of Mississippi right along side the blacks in the early 60.s and worked harder than most of them just to prove that I could in fact when I grew up in the south the rich kids in my area were blacks so were does that white privilege get me
I keep hearing about all these wealthy privileged people, I know many that are comfortable but it has occurred to me, that I do not know any really rich people? Where are they? The bunch that jet-sets do not associate with us worker ants. That is the privilege. Problem is that some of the wet paint runs off on those that have to work and pay the bills for those that don't and the ignorant think it is all of us.
Still looking for that 'white priviledge' I keep hearing about. Does anyone know where I could get some?
