At the Novemeber 20th Democratic debate, Pete Buttigieg touted his “outsider” status as the secret weapon that would help the Democratic Party defeat Donald Trump. He argued that although he doesn’t have the “Washington experience” of his opponents, he has other experience that qualifies him to be president.

The fact that Mayor Pete can stand up on Oprah Winfery’s Sound Stage at Tyler Perry’s studio and say that he doesn’t meet or even need what many people would consider to be the basic qualifications for holding the highest office in the land ain’t nothing but white privilege.

Society appreciates white men who are “outsiders” to a system coming in to “shake things up” but balks at the idea of black women and other people of color doing the same. White men are allowed to be “innovative” and “creative” while everyone else must color inside the lines, lest we be told that we don’t know how to do our jobs. People are okay with new ideas and a new ways of thinking as long as it is a white man pushing it. Everybody else is patted on the head and sent away until a white man comes around saying the very same thing.

What kills me super dead is that white folks–especially white men–get the privilege of showing up wherever they want with little experience and lots of loud opinions and people will make time to listen for them. I cannot tell you how many times in my career that I have had to convince people that I know what I’m talking about concerning somthing that I was being paid to know or had dedicated years of study to be able to have an informed opinion about only to be over talked by a white man who was loud and wrong. Not to mention all the times that I have had to fight to be given a title or perks concominant with the level of work that I was doing because people questioned my level of knowledge or experience.

https://thearmchaircommentary.com/2019/11/21/pete-buttigieg-donald-trump-and-the-privilege-of-inexperience/

Amazon’s formal challenge to massive Pentagon award uses videos that mark potential influence exerted by Trump

Amazon on Friday cited comments by President Trump at a rally and to journalists as it pursues its challenge to the Pentagon’s surprise decision to award a lucrative contract to rival Microsoft last month.

For the first time, Amazon directly linked comments by the president to the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract to Microsoft last month. Though Amazon filed its protest under seal, it also notified the Court of Federal Claims that it intends to use four videos as exhibits, including one of Trump at a February 2016 campaign rally, as well as a Fox News host urging him to prevent the Pentagon from awarding the contract to the online retail giant.

The e-commerce giant formally filed a protest with the Court of Federal Claims to protest the award of the cloud-computing contract, following through on a threat it made last week. It did so under seal to protect trade secrets.

In a statement, the e-commerce giant repeated its claims that “unmistakable bias” and “political influence” tainted the decision-making process. Trump has repeatedly criticized Amazon, whose chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/22/amazon-files-protest-pentagons-billion-jedi-award-under-seal/