Bye-bye, whiny white dudes: Tucker Carlson, Tal Fortgang and the weakening grip of entitlement

[badtoworse]

14. Framing the issue as privilege creates a conflict that cannot be resolved.

Leaving the trust fund babies aside, there are many people who started life with little or nothing but were very successful. I'll cite my parents as an example. My mother grew up dirt poor in what is now Slovenia and came over when she was 6 with literally nothing. My father was orphaned at 8, never went to high school and he too started life with nothing. Both worked various jobs and ultimately, my father had a successful career as an insurance agent. My mother stayed at home and raised me and my brother. By any standard, they were enormously successful in life. I attribute their success to having a strong moral compass, working hard and never giving up. I don't see where either of them enjoyed any privilege despite the fact that they lived in a different era.

There are many people like my parents and asking them to attribute their success to privilege is asking them to diminish their sense of accomplishment and their sense of self worth. IOW, they got where they are because they were white and their efforts had little to do with it. That's just not going to happen and pushing that meme is only going to create animosity.

I don't believe that pushing the "white privilege" argument serves anyone's interest. Besides the animosity, I believe it reinforces a defeatist attitude, that says "because I'm not a white male, I can't succeed".