I am officially fed up with this campaign and the road it's taking. I received one of those garbage filled smear emails geared toward Palin and McCain. I hate receiving them as much as I do the ones regarding Obama and the wild allegations about him. I might not be the brightest bulb on the chandelier, but stuff like this will not sway me one way or another.
I'm tired of being called a Racist and a Redneck, just because I don't care to cast my vote for Obama. I may read Fairy Tales to my grand kids, but it doesn't mean I believe in them. I have been around for two thirds of a century and have truck loads of promises from politicians and a change purse full of fulfillment's. So when I don't vote for him, it could be, because I believe he is not qualified. Contrary to popular belief I have voted for black candidates. Not because they were black, but because I believed they were more qualified for the job.
What has me riled up is that this particular email was titled WHITE PRIVILEGE. The only privilege this Lilly white ass and his family received in all these years, is the right to come to this country in 1950 and make something of ourselves.
We got here on a Saturday. On Sunday they had a welcome party for us, and on Tuesday my father and a lot of other legal immigrants were hard at work in the Chicago Stock Yards . My mother was also working in a laundry room of a hospital in a short time. They didn't look for a hand out, just a chance to work. They went looking for work, instead of sitting around and waiting for it to come to them. No special programs, no entitlements.
Even tho he had only a third grade education and worked hard in the stock yards, my father found the time to go to night school and learn the language so he could become a citizen. No excuses, just hard work and they achieved the American dream. A free ticket to the States and night school were the only things my parents received. Everything they achieved was through hard work. try it some time, it builds character.
Now comes the good part and all the privileges I received for being white. Working two, three and sometimes four jobs to have my own home and send my kids to good schools. I made the kids breakfast and packed their lunches. This white privilege didn't seem to include free breakfasts and lunch for my kids. Nor does it include a hundred and one after school programs. An office wasn't set up for my kids to find after school jobs, as they had to pound the pavement in search of them.
As a privileged white boy I was punished for having been instilled with the work ethic. So for working all those jobs I was told I made to much when it came time for scholarships, and other opportunity's for my kids. All I got out of it was paying more taxes and higher tuition's.
I wasn't happy, but gave up my seat on the bus and moved further back in that bus for the past thirty years as this so called playing field was leveled for all those that didn't have all this white privilege. I saw less qualified people put ahead of me on promotion exams, even though I and others scored higher.
I didn't mind making the sacrifice all those years, so that my kids could also play on that level playing field. But when I see my son also have to pay for the privilege of being white I am getting a bit ticked off. He was passed over for advancement even though he was highly qualified , so a minority quota could be filled. Why does he have to pay?
I'm sorry, but if you haven't been able to take advantage of all these quotas, set asides and other programs in the past 30 plus years, then you are slow and will never catch up. And it's not my kid's and grand kid's fault for being white that they should have to pay for your failures.
Yes I know this post is full of grammatical errors, and I really don't care. Just like I don't care when you try and lay that racial guilt trip on me. Everything I have is not because I am one of those priviliged, it's because I have worked my ass off.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
don't you just hate being part of the privileged class....
I just wish they would stop catering to my every wish.
You are right -- alot of people get screwed when leveling the playing field. Unfortunately, it's usually the "have-nots". Why should your son get passed up for a promotion? Why did you? I also think about it alot as my son prepares to apply for colleges.
I got that email, too. It DID make alot of good points re: the media's treatment of Palin vs. that of Obama. I think what made ME angriest was when Obama's wife Michelle was referred to (by Fox news, of course) as Obama's "baby-mama". She's his wife.
This election cycle has been very painful on many levels -- maybe BECAUSE it is historical: 2 women, a black man, the first Catholic since Kennedy, a really rich old guy...
Nice, fiesty post Pelmo!!!
Never get the Good Humor man riled up. I was going to really fire away, but to keep peace in the family decided against it. Some times discretion is the better part of valor.
I can see both sides of the race issue. There's a lot of discrimination going on, and there's a lot of reverse-discrimination going on. It all reminds me of when one of my sons comes into the room screaming that the other one kicked him, and I'll get on to his brother only to have his brother tell me that the first son wouldn't leave him alone after he asked nicely, so he finally kicked him...and then the whole conversation devolves into accusations about who treated who the worst first. And it's about this time that I tell them both to quit belly-aching, leave me out of it, and go work it out on their own or I'm going to give them both something to cry about. I think that's what America needs...somebody to stand up and tell everybody that the race war is over, everybody get over it and get along. Still...I have in the past month had relatives visit who commented that the "undesireables" had started to move into their neck of the woods, and when another relative asked if they were speaking of blacks, they affirmed it. And just this past weekend, my own father used the "n" word in casual conversation, and he knows it's not acceptable in front of my family and kids anymore than if I'd let the F-bomb drop in front of my mother. So, racism is still alive, at least here in my area, and there are towns here in Alabama where blacks are not welcome. That doesn't make the reverse discrimination of having quotas acceptable or right, but it's not true that there isn't still a lot of racial friction in many parts of the country. I guess we probably agree to disagree on a lot about this issue, but good post...lots of good thinking points.
You are right. Our biggest mistake is that we don't know how to solve problems. Instead of sitting down and finding a suitable solution a bigger one is created. It's the so called leaders on both sides who want this situation to fester so that they can keep themselves in the limelitght.
Post a Comment