Not that I begrudge anyone who really just wants to be stinkin’ rich. In fact, lately I’ve been thinking of what I would do with billions - I would still live frugally, but damn, I would fund some stuff that would shake up the world and kick some ass.

But yeah, we’re all taught that being richer or living like The Joneses will make us happier, and it’s not that simple. For some people that really might be the answer, but for others it’s not.

My bio is that I was born into a upper-middle class family with all the good thangs that entails - education and dental care, etc… - and ended up living on the poverty line through a series of colorful events and personal choices.

Reasonably looking ahead, I will probably always live on the poverty line from now on. It’s only scary if you think to much on it. *lol* In reality, as long as I’m very savvy about what I do with what I have, we will never starve or be without basic needs. I moved to a white trash area, put my car up on blocks (couldn’t afford petrol), stopped eating mostly commercial food and moved to home-grown/slaughtered, disconnected some utilities, take charity freely, etc…because I value my time and freedom and the experience of my family more then I value working more for more money. What’s worse (for whatever your value of worse is) I dragged my daughter along with me.

I’m not scrambling to get back up that class ladder again any time soon. Frankly I don’t see the point. And maybe that’s because of the privilege of having been there, done that. I don’t need or want for my daughter to have to do that either - I don’t need for her to go to university or have a 5 or 6 figure salary or own a home - I just need for her to be happy with herself.

Having said all that I do (some) work for pay, and have an equity scholarship, equity re-furbished computer and am in last year of a post-graduate degree - because I knew they existed and how to apply for grants, etc…again, because I’ve been in that position of privilage previously I knew such things *must* exist. I wouldn’t want my daughter to grow up to be ignorant of those oppourtunties. Then again, I wouldn’t be upset if she chose not to take them. Education doesn’t necessarily bring fulfillment and joy to me. It’s handy, and makes me better at my job, but I could live without it if that too was beyond my reach. The irony of education of course, is that you get a glimpse of all the things that *are* possible and you’re left feeling guilty because you don’t want anything more then you have.

Obviously I’m conflicted.

*white, female, single-mother - if it makes a difference

You clearly have no idea what white women have been through and still go through because of white male privilege during all this time and the present. And that’s not even touching on people of color.

Your comments are no longer welcome, as obviously your whole concern here was indeed just to dismantle the notion that anyone’s problems could be as important as what the impoverished white man is going through.

You live in a time warp, an arrestment of time.

You can’t right all the wrongs of the aged past by committing new wrongs, and calling it humane/ a higher vision. It’s like asking the Palestinians to suck it up because of the Holocaust that happened in Europe.

Your personal experiences and pre-Civil Rights Era history
are not current reality on the ground.

The things you think are being taken away from white men are things us “minorities” never enjoyed.

I’m sure you understand that for things to become equal, white males are going to lose some privileges they didn’t realize were unearned privileges, and for the first generations, it’s going to feel like they’ve gotten ripped off. Like if you stop giving a kid an allowance they did nothing to earn, but have come to expect.

What you’re not understanding is that it’s white, wealthy men who are using minority issues to hurt other white, less affluent men. And I’ve already said all this above about liberals who want to feel good by playing their own twisted version of Robin Hood, who ignore the plight of certain whites or may even be in denial about it because it makes them uncomfortable. We’re just going in circles here.

My.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
To supplement your personal experience, I suggest you go to a law library on a visitor’s pass and spend a few weeks reading the relevant cases. The law librarian will gladly give you some relevant search terms and key words (for the books). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I agree with all you say to a point. Even though a lot of my personal experiences run exactly counter. I also happily concede the brutal past of while male power.

But your insistence nothing has changed over the last forty years, and your wilfull ignorance of official victim policy at the expense of the majority of white males born into the lower echelons of the nation is astounding.

Long after Affirmative Action put women in the workplace, sexual harassment remained tacitly tolerated. It still is in film, and I’m sure that’s not the only industry where women know “If you speak up, there are a hundred applicants ready to take your place.”

Women are still expected to conform to the template of helpmate - we’re still frequently expected to tolerate more crap and stroke egos rather than issue commands. If we behave exactly like white men, we are “bitches.” Not being of color I can’t say for sure if people of color feel this strain, too, but I am aware that a lot of women of color have to deal not infrequently with the stereotypes that black women are “scary bitches” and hispanic women are “street” and Asian women are a walking sex fetish. No men of color have discussed this with me, but from what I’ve observed from white men behind their backs, white men still largely think any man of color in a position of power got there mainly from AffAct - if he’s any good, they’re speak of it in surprised tones. If he screws up in precisely the same way they all do from time to time, there’s a tone of “Well, what did you expect?” Even *I* don’t go through that crap here in L.A., though I certainly did in the Southeast when men were floored over and over by my intelligence and complimented me to no end - which sounds flattering and probably looks it to an outsider like you, but the next comments were always either “for a woman” or a comparison of my intelligence with that of their moms or wives, as if their moms and wives had the same education and training I had and therefore were comparable. No, they thought a double-digit IQ came with the vagina, and considered themselves super-enlightened to recognize those triple digit IQs in a member of the subspecies.