Privilege is....

When I first read this post on facebook I just wanted to puke and move on – until I found out it was not just any ignorant white man who wrote it but a fuckin mayor of Bloomingdale, Georgia - a town close to Savannah, so it does not have the excuse of being a back-country, internet-deprived area, even though it is Georgia.

A town that has a 3.7% unemployment rate and almost 3000 people – mostly white people. And this is the man they put into office: Benjamin Rozier, a white man of course. He posted one of the most vile, bigoted, ignorant hateful statements of all his contemporary white mayor peers.

Rozier was letting us know what privilege is. I will put his statements in “quotes” and in RED and underneath I will write the truth:

“Privilege is wearing $200 sneakers when you’ve never had a job”

·       Privilege is when you have a job where you can afford to buy the whole family several pairs of $200 shoes and no stranger tells you how you should spend your own money

“Privilege is wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance”

·       Privilege is when you can buy $300 pair of earphones AND pay four or five grand monthly house payments while you get excellent health care that is subsidized, tax write-offs and free quality neighborhood schools not to mention large yards, paved roads, and smooth sidewalks with street lights that actually work.

“Privilege is having a smartphone with a data plan which you receive no bill for”

·      * Privilege is having an iphone, ipad, android, macbook, tablets, laptop computers, smartwatches, smartphones, e readers, handheld gaming consoles, fitbits with unlimited data and no one posts on facebook about your gluttony. 

“Privilege is living in public subsidized housing where you don’t have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table”

·       Privilege is when you have never once had to choose between putting food on the table and into your children’s mouth or paying for a roof over your head.

“Privilege is the ability to go march against, and protest against anything that triggers you, without worrying about calling out of work and the consequences that accompany such behavior”

·       Privilege is the ability to care so little about the violence your fellow citizen is suffering and so much more about making money, you can ignore the murder of your neighbor’s daughters and sons and continue your great life as usual.

“Privilege is having as many children as you want, regardless of your employment status, and be able to send them off to daycare of school you don’t pay for”

·       Privilege is having as many children as you want and being able to pay for them, often with public money, to attend school in a beautifully manicured yard, a playground abundant with grade-appropriate toys, new or restored building that insures your children a brilliant, competent, quality, descent education that will guarantee their position at the university and in society

Privilege is being the mayor of a town, using your position of power to spew all kinds of hatred, knowing you can publicly express your bigoted distain for members of your community and know there will be no negative repercussions on your job or career.