Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

My White Privilege - Vanity
Self | 8 JAN 14 | SampleMan

Posted on 01/08/2015 7:16:39 AM PST by SampleMan

I tire of hearing how success is dependent upon the financial status of the parents, and the coupled assertion that whites have a shared privilege of historical financial success.

I grew up in a very rural, all white area. My elementary class was comprised of 13 kids, 11 families farmed or ran cattle, one operated a small two pump gas station, and one worked as meat cutters. About three families were lower middle class, while the rest were all working poor. We didn’t consider ourselves to be poor, but that is how the government classified us.

Not a single family took assistance. Assistance was offered even then for free school lunches, food stamps, and other forms of welfare. No one would take it. The farm kids all worked. I woke at 6am, was on the school bus by 7am, and after I got home at 5pm (yes a 50 mile bus ride twice a day takes a lot of time) I did farm chores until 8 or later. Non-school days were 10+ hr work days, except for Sundays, when I would attend church and spend the afternoons exploring the timber patches and ponds of 100 sq miles. Most of the kids had similar lives.

Of the 13 of us, 11 went to college, and all that went got their degree in 4 years. Five went on to get master degrees.

Although we were poor, our parents expected us to take care of ourselves. Not by any means helicopter parents, just parents who didn’t tolerate laziness. None of us left home with inherited money, an allowance, or a paved path. Each of us headed out on our own.

I remember overnights at friends' houses with unheated bedrooms in the winter, where your breath formed ice on the sheets. I remember 3 boys that shared a full-size bed, and when I visited there were 4 of us in it.

How did we fair? At almost 50 I look at our class of 13 and see mainly great success, both family and professional. These are the stories of my 13 classmates:

-CFO of a regional company -Editor of a well-known national magazine and published author -Naval Aviator, senior officer, and now IT project manager -Cattleman owning over 5000 acres of highly productive land -Rodeo champion and cattle foreman -Service manager of tractor supply store -Elementary school teacher -Nurse -Home maker -High school teacher -Farmer -Business manager -And we lost one classmate to drug abuse and ultimately suicide.

We never received our white privilege packets, we never got a Mulligan for our lack of moneyed family, we all left home the summer after HS graduation and forged our own paths.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: whiteprivilege
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last

1 posted on 01/08/2015 7:16:39 AM PST by SampleMan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

Y’all squandered your white privileges.
In this Marxist administration, people like you don’t exist.


2 posted on 01/08/2015 7:21:06 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (The only people in the world who fear Obama are American citizens.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

Great story! Inspiring and refreshing! Thanks


3 posted on 01/08/2015 7:21:07 AM PST by albie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

In short, your parents raised you right and never told you that you were a victim.

When I told my grandmother years ago as a teenager that I wished to be rich, she said “This is America, what’s stopping you?”.


4 posted on 01/08/2015 7:22:07 AM PST by Tulane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

Multiply times 100,000’s for the nation.


5 posted on 01/08/2015 7:26:23 AM PST by exnavy (Got ammo, Godspeed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan
My mom was raised in crushing poverty in rural Texas by a hard working white sharecropper who couldn't read; her privilege was that her parents taught her the importance of faith, hard work, love of country, and personal responsibility. My privilege is that she passed those things on to me, and I don't feel guilty for providing my kids with the same privilege.
6 posted on 01/08/2015 7:28:16 AM PST by fungoking (Tis a pleasure to live in the Ozarks)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan
You obviously are someone who took advantage of Liberty and Opportunity in order to realize your American Dream.

Asian immigrants often embrace the American Dream. They come here unable to speak the language and unfamiliar with our culture, but they work very hard. Their children become educated and financially successful.

“White Privilege” is another lie being promoted by the left in order to excuse their lack of success and to make them feel better about their miserable lives.

Too bad they have to find comfort through pulling others down. America needs to start celebrating achievers again. We have spent way too much time protecting, promoting and excusing losers, and the dysfunctional.

7 posted on 01/08/2015 7:28:39 AM PST by Awgie (truth is always stranger than fiction)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tulane

My ‘White Privilege’ consists of ‘no one to blame but myself’...


8 posted on 01/08/2015 7:31:51 AM PST by glasseye
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

February 2002

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing last week, Sen. Robert Byrd, who was named after a bridge in West Virginia, viciously attacked Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill for having made a success of himself. Claiming to speak for worthless layabouts, Byrd snippily informed O’Neill: “They’re not CEOs of multibillion-dollar corporations. ... In time of need, they come to us, the people come to us.”
“I haven’t walked in any corporate boardrooms. I haven’t had to turn any millions of dollars into trust accounts. I wish I had those millions of dollars.”
An astonished O’Neill responded to the harangue: “I started my life in a house without water or electricity. So I don’t cede to you the high moral ground of not knowing what life is like in a ditch.” And then the hearing spun totally out of control as Senator Byrd redoubled his own sob story: “Well, Mr. Secretary, I lived in a house without electricity, too, no running water, no telephone, a little wooden outhouse.”


9 posted on 01/08/2015 7:35:49 AM PST by calico_thompson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: exnavy

You’re right. this story is the majority. The liberal media focus on a very small percentage.
Very Very few people in this country have race issues, black or white.
In the majority of the country... away from Jesse and Al... most Americans of all colors live and work together... wave at each other on the porch... smile and nod ‘hello’ in the grocery store.
Its the very small percentage that Jesse and Al scream about. They have to keep racism alive to keep their cashcow alive. And the liberal media lap it up and broadcast it like its a nationwide epidemic. Good for ratings, dontchaknow.


10 posted on 01/08/2015 7:37:37 AM PST by envisio (Its on like Donkey Kong!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

I had the similar “white privilege” advantages, but I did have parents (note the plural form of the word parent.)


11 posted on 01/08/2015 7:40:15 AM PST by calico_thompson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

“White privilege” is the observation by those who refuse to follow Western/Judeo-Christian ethics and fail

of the propensity of those who do follow those ethics to prosper.


12 posted on 01/08/2015 7:42:19 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

What’s interesting to me .. all these people crying “white privilege” .. have no clue they live on “The Privileged Planet”.

Anybody who watches that DVD can come away with an awe-inspiring picture of just how “privileged” all humans are to live on this planet, EARTH.

So, in that context, ALL HUMANS ON THE EARTH - ARE PRIVILEGED.


13 posted on 01/08/2015 7:43:49 AM PST by CyberAnt ("The hope and changey stuff did not work, even a smidgen.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

White Privilege is a pejorative designed to perpetuate the cycle of racism for a new generation.

It is the creation of black caucaphobic leftists and their self-hating white enablers, and I will have none of it.

These days, I answer every accusation of racism by totalitarian leftist by accusing them of indulging in caucaphobia.

I hope that word catches on. It’s long overdue.


14 posted on 01/08/2015 7:43:53 AM PST by Maceman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: glasseye

Lol. Aren’t we lucky?


15 posted on 01/08/2015 7:46:56 AM PST by Tulane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: CyberAnt

Read the book, it’s even better...

There’s another dvd coming out - Privileged Species.
Sounds good.


16 posted on 01/08/2015 7:46:57 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Maceman

caucaphobia?

How do you pronounce that?
And wouldn’t that lead to some.... confusion?


17 posted on 01/08/2015 7:47:51 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan
Brave...most of the white people I know did the same thing. We didn't get anything from our parents. Our only "privilege" is that we didn't get nothing handed to us by our parents OR the government. We went to work when we were 13 or 14 and learned that working gives us money. And we learned the value of that labor and the financial rewards we would get even doing a half-assed job.
18 posted on 01/08/2015 7:51:31 AM PST by DouglasKC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Maceman

As a parent...the real key I think is making sure my kids know that only hard work and perseverance overcomes. Allowing yourself to think your a victim of....xy or z only leads to victimhood. My oldest daughter was complaint of affirmative action. I explained that, even though the policy is wrong and leads to dubious results, her job is to persevere go to college, get a job or start a business...or stay home and raise a family. There is no time to be a victim.

Don’t like the policy? Work to change it.


19 posted on 01/08/2015 7:51:41 AM PST by Tulane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: envisio

True words. Unfortunately, the great unwashed believe that which the gubmint and drive by media tell them. Big mistake. Shame on anyone who believe the experts.


20 posted on 01/08/2015 7:54:02 AM PST by exnavy (Got ammo, Godspeed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson