White Men Rule

[hifiguy]

104. You are correct sir.

I am a white man in my early fifties.

My best friend in law school (the one in Cambridge MA - I graduated in the same class as Michelle Obama) was African-American. He was raised in very posh surroundings, attended private schools until college, spoke four languages fluently and is movie-star handsome.

He once told me, when we were in school, that I would have a much harder time in the professional world than he was because even though he was a black man, everything else about him veritably screamed "I am part of the upper crust" whereas everything about me screamed "working class oddball" who just happened to be intellectually gifted. Clearly, he observed, the decision makers would pick up on that in two seconds where it would not redound to my benefit. He was right. Brother, was he ever.

Most of the last 20+ years I have made a subsistence level wage or somewhat higher. The average income for my classmates in private practice is somewhere in the mid six figures and my best friend from law school makes $3-4M per year. A few years ago I was scrounging dumpsters (literally) looking for food.

My working class background together with what I much later discovered to be my Asperger's characteristics kept me from ever getting anywhere in my chosen profession.

In the first interview I ever had with a law firm (for a summer clerkship after first year) I was asked point blank whether my friends were mainly people I knew before I went to college or people I met in college. I was, shall we say, gobsmacked. I didn't get the job offer either.

No how matter how people try to fractionalize Marx, one thing remains true and that is that economic class trumps everything, and The Rock means EVERYTHING, else and that is Marx's eternal truth.