For the record, I am pretty sick and tired of SWEEPs — Straight White Educated Entitled Privileged folks — lamenting about how their kids won’t do as well as they have — or as well as their parents did. The tone of the conversation often sounds passive, as though America will naturally march in the direction that favors them, just ’cause they’re here.
There’s so much presumption that goes along with that. So much presumption behind the expectation that an education alone will guarantee you a job. That the world will necessarily work a certain way, because your straight outlook tells you that’s correct. That having to actually compete for a job, rather than proving your worth to your employer on a regular basis, is somehow beneath them.
Like, once you’re here, and once you’ve set up shop, you’re entitled to keep that status indefinitely, because, well, you’re here.
It all sounds like socio-economic ideological equivalent of squatter’s rights.
And it’s tiresome.
I’m also sick and tired of the belly-aching about the election results, when it’s clear we’ve been lied to, we’re being lied to, daily assaults on common decency are taking place… and white folks sit around wringing their hands, not wanting to make a fuss that might offend their white peers (who may or may not agree with them). Worse yet, is how people flock to secret Facebook groups to commiserate, but they won’t actually stand up and say in public This is Wrong, and if You Don’t Think So and Try To Normalize This, You’re Aiding and Abetting the Dismantling of the United States. You’re an Enemy of the State.
Nobody’s guaranteed anything, here. We all have to work for it. We all have to defend the rights and freedoms we feel entitled to. We all have to put our shoulders to the wheel, or the things we take for granted are just gonna go away.
If the past month isn’t plain evidence of that, I don’t know what is.
Yah, we’re not just privileged. Or entitled. Or any of those other consciousness-raising terms.
White people — any people — who take everything for granted and don’t think they’ll have to work for what matters most to them, are more than that. They’re spoiled.
kayLorraine 