White Privilege

Dave Chappelle as a white

An University of Minnesota residence hall pointed out to those students who might not have understood "white privilege" exactly what this term entails. On a bulletin board there was listed the eleven signs that someone is enjoying this WASPish deference ... see: Campus Reform Item. The scribe of these race differentials says that "whites" can always find the food that they grew up with ... or use credit cards without suspicion ... or not have coworkers assume they got their job because of their race.

Did these eleven statements fully define this term? Have they mined the entire mother lode of this list of ethnic advantages? No, all ye Bannon wannabes ... far from it. So I have decided to fill out this prejudicial dossier with my expanded list the real white privileges:



- You can sit at the back of the bus without concern or a sense of history.

- You can attend a Blue Lives Matter rally on MLK's birthday.

- You feel free to display a poster of Clarence Thomas in your dorm room.

- You get a full-ride scholarship to Howard University.

- You can eat fried chicken and watermelon at a church picnic without a second thought about it.

- If no one of color is nearby, you needn't pay for any periodical at a news stand (thanks to Dave Chappelle for this one).

 -You never get a traffic summons for a broken headlight.

- You are allowed to go through a "12 or under" line at the supermarket with 28 items


But, most of all, "white privilege" isn't even in your lexicon ...

Loose Lips

I have been verklempt at President Obummer for his frequent swipes at American exceptionalism... most recently at Howard University when he told the wide-eyed graduates there that a person's success is only due to luck ... see: Breitbart Article. Shades of "you didn't build that." What an absolute boob! Now we have Donald Trump taking a swipe at Jeffery Bezos for his remarkable success at building Amazon.com into a retailing giant that is now threatening the entire "bricks and mortar" U.S. retail industry. However, Trump's motivation may not be as a trust-buster, but rather to get back at Bezos for how his personally-owned newspaper, the Washington Post, has been mistreating Trump in his bid for the presidency.

Donald Trump needs to quickly learn the lesson that Obummer never has ... that shooting from the lip,  as a person of such great consequence, is just that ... consequential. Is Amazon's success to be praised or condemned? That is a tough question because, like many things in life, it is relative. Walmart was the last great retail juggernaut ... condemned by liberals as the destroyer of many Mom and Pop operations. And it was, but look what then happened. The Internet allowed this upstart visionary, Bezos, in twenty-two short years, to begin turning Walmart into the next Montgomery Ward.

To completely answer this question requires a look at how Amazon has won the strategic high ground in retailing. Has Bezos used collusion, subterfuge or corruption? Likely not. He has used vision, innovative automation, superior organization and imaginative marketing. And, sorry Obummer, not a lot of luck ... other than that which was achieved through hard work and good decisions. Does this make Bezos into a beloved figure to anyone but his stockholders? Probably not, but then few of the transformational American entrepreneurs of the last two centuries have been known as pussy cats.

They, like Jobs, Edison, Ford, Watson, Carnegie, Rockefeller and many others were tough cookies ... and some did cut too many corners. But eventually, most of those that did paid a price. Trump is attacking Amazon for not paying sufficient taxes. This may be the case. But this is an issue for the IRS and, if this government agency has (once against) been corrupted by political influence or bribes, then this is very serious. But if Trump is making such a charge, he should supply some fiscal details. Otherwise, he should take the advice I am continually giving Obummer ... and zip his lip.

Racism

Please read in detail about what recently happened at Dartmouth College where a group of black students went on a rampage denouncing their white classmates with profane vitriol ... see: Campus Reform Story. Now, as an exercise in turnaround is fair play, imagine that this was a demonstration of white students at Howard University ... and replace the chanted word "white" with "black" and you will see racism in its purest and ugliest form.

Yes, these black-student protesters at Dartmouth clearly do not have fully-formed senses of social consciousness ... and probably will eventually live to regret their impetuousness. But they nevertheless put a KKK stamp on their repulsive actions that will quietly resonate in the ivied halls of Hanover.

I do however doubt that the administration there will have the gumption to give them their due ... rather taking the attitude so prevalent these days that "blacks will be blacks." But, to me, lack of push-back against such disgusting demonstrations only makes matters worse ... giving these miscreants a sense of what they did was sanctioned and even encouraged. This is exactly the wrong message from a college that should know better.