Response to Charles Benz
I understand why the shifting of power dynamics from white-male-at-the-center to a move even plane makes you feel aggrieved. Rarely someone who's been given a nice seat feels too keen to give it up so that someone else can sit down.
You have a few things wrong. Yes, you didn't ask to be born white or male. Just like a Brahmin in India did not ask to be born in that caste. Just like Bennedict Cumberbacch did not ask to be born in that family. And the accomplishment of the Brahmin, the accomplishment of the actor from a rich family, and your accomplishments should not be diminished. Your accomplishments are your own.
That said, it's a graceful, compassionate, dignified thing for the Brahmin to have the humility to acknowledge that the caste system exists, that it is evil, and that it has boosted up his family while pushing other families down. It is likewise compassionate for Bennedict Cumberbach to acknowledge that the wealth of his family, which benefited him directly, came from slave plantations in the Bahamas. And it would be a compassionate thing for you, a white, make American, to acknowledge that while your father could decide his destiny, your mother couldn't own a credit card of open a bank account without his permission. That when you talk about whose labor built this country, you forget details such as the fact that the Whitehouse was built with slave labor. Details like white GIs got preferential house loans after World War Two, but Black GI's didn't.
You forget that it wasn't that long ago that Black people couldn't use the same libraries, or go to the same schools, as white people. And that this built an unequal country, where white people have many times over the wealth that Black people have.
You forget that queer people, hard-working, tax-paying queer Americans, weren't allowed to marry the person they love until a few years ago, and now that very right is being debated again.
No one says you didn't accomplish, or didn't earn, or don't deserve. What we are saying is that with a little humility, a little compassion, you'll see the ways in which America boosted you up, while pushing others down. Ways in which your journey was eased by being male, by being White.
And hopefully, as you think of that, you ask yourself if that's really just. And then, instead of complaining, you'll put your shoulder to the wheel and help us build a society that is more just, more fair, more equitable.
