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Whiteness Wednesdays: Addressing White Privilege, Fragility, & the David Hogg Drama, Part 1 [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-14
I normally try to stay out of the tennis match style back-and-forth, call-and-response game with diaries on the rec list. You know the kind:
“*Thing* happened, and it’s a problem”
“Why *Thing* isn’t a problem, actually”
“Yes, *Thing* is a problem, and so are you for saying it isn’t”
This tit-for-tat game is great for getting a ton of recs, and in many cases you get some very solid rebuttals or new perspectives mixed in there. The main reason I don’t get involved is because these back and forth arguments are usually ephemeral things that pass as soon as the story they’re centered around passes; I usually take too long processing for my hot takes to be ready before people have already moved on to the next discussion. I have broken the odd story here on Daily Kos, but for the most part I do slower writing and journalism: there’s enough breaking news sources out there in the modern 24/7 news network and Xitter/Bluesky world and not nearly enough thoughtful deep dives and, more important and even rarer, not nearly enough follow-ups to those breaking stories once they stop being breaking news and move on to just...news. It’s rarely worth dredging up the latest pie fight, especially once the moment is gone.
But this time, it’s different.
David Hogg’s interview has brought up a conversation about race and white privilege here on Daily Kos, and like most times it happens the quality of conversation is...lacking, to put it gently. I do NOT intend to put it gently much more past the jump, just FYI. So, let’s start having that conversation.
Before we go any further, I’m going to ask you to support me at my Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/…
I am struggling to pay my mortgage, and looking for a second job. Just $2,000 per month would be enough to cover that (after setting aside money for income tax to pay on it), so every little bit helps. If you like my writing, or anything else creatively I do and want to see more, that’s the easiest way to make it happen. I’d appreciate it immensely.
Alright, back to the writing you came here for.
Frankly, we here at Daily Kos do a piss-poor job of having honest and productive conversations about race because most of us are white and it really shows when talking about anything white people typically should be mindful when talking about. I usually refrain from jumping in when these happen, aside from the odd comment. As a Jewish person I’m Schroedinger’s Caucasian: I exist in a quantum super-state where I am both a white person and a minority, collapsing into one or the other based on if the observer knows my last name and what it signifies. So, I’m white enough in how I get treated most of my life that I am uncomfortable jumping into these conversations on behalf of POC members (especially since we have so many exceptional ones here who are usually way ahead of me in reacting anyway and whose words carry far more weight).
However, silence is a form of complicity, and I’ve reached the point where I’m done giving the benefit of the doubt. It’s clear that contributing my voice isn’t silencing our POC members (since, as recent diaries have shown, people are quite happy to ignore them or prove them right in their complaints when they speak out anyway). Both here and out in the wider world a lot of the same tropes, misconceptions, and flat-out myths keep cropping up (along with the odd cherry-picked fact), all of which seriously need addressing. There’s a lot to unpack (as you’d expect with a problem that has been festering since the 1600s), and it’s going to take a long time to get through all of it.
So, let’s start with something basic: White people are the most coddled group in the history of civilization, and that is the starting point for literally all of our problems.
There’s no sob story or anything like that you can throw at me to convince me otherwise. I grew up in poverty, with an undiagnosed disability until I was in my 20s, a religious minority in a near-theocratic community, shunned and mistreated my entire childhood, and was a closeted queer and non-binary person the whole time; I have red hair, and enjoyed all the baggage that comes with that, like jokes and teasing about not having a soul, being threatened to be beaten “like a red-headed stepchild”, hearing people talk about being grossed out by the thought of having a kid like me, uncomfortable fetishization and people trying to peep when I undressed in locker rooms; I was desperate for money in my 20s and like many young men considered donating sperm, only to be told by multiple fertility clinics they weren’t accepting red-headed male donors because they were so unpopular, they already had more than they’d likely ever need.
I worked in high school to save up the money I used to move out on my own. I moved into a rough neighborhood where I was beaten, mugged, threatened, and scared for my life. I eventually saved up, moved again (all out of my own pocket to help care for my ailing father), bought my own car and paid for it and the insanely high “under 30 male” insurance premiums on my own.
And when people found out I was Jewish? Well, that can change everything. Ask the guy who called me a “fucking ‘K-word’,” and said Hitler should have finished the job because he wasn’t happy with the interest rate the company I worked for offered him.
I could go on and on about how white privilege isn’t a thing, or how it didn’t help me, or all kinds of stuff.
But it would be a lie. That’s not something I realized at the time, because for years I (like many white people) found the notion of being lectured about my privilege vaguely insulting: I wasn’t a racist, didn’t act or speak like one or treat POC any differently from white people. Moreover, I had no money, no family connections to pull on, no leverage or power of my own. As a poor white person (a white MAN, no less, which we’ll touch on later) I knew damn well I was in many way’s society’s most disposable person. Everything I just listed, that litany of hardships and countless more I haven’t even thought to pile up, all of it was real, was true. I had busted my ass to overcome and excel in spite of it all, and without handouts from The Man: how did white privilege come to my rescue when I had worked so hard to rescue myself?
Oh, sure, I knew systemic racism was a real problem, and I knew bigotry of the shouting the “N”-word or making hurtful jokes variety was a rampant and real issue. Growing up around cops I’d even begun to learn firsthand that the police are often a part of the disease rather than a cure. I knew that white privilege was very much a real thing that DID affect a lot in the world.
Still, my mind rebelled against the notion of me, personally, benefiting from it or that I was part of the problem anyway. How could that be?
I’m sure most of you have similar stories. We all have problems and hardships, after all. That’s what makes this so insidious, this story. But, here’s the truth that all of us who are white (yes, including and especially you, White Reader, just like me) need to accept: we did have it easy compared to People of Color.
That’s not your fault, or mine, in and of itself. It does not diminish the effort you and I exerted to overcome our obstacles. It does not make our pain and hardships less real, less difficult to live through and endure. But, it’s also true.
I would not have had the same opportunities to pull myself up, had I been born the exact same person in the exact same circumstances, but with brown skin. I would have faced challenges, obstacles, and hardships all unique to being a Person of Color on top of everything else had I been born black instead of white.
That’s the hardest thing to accept, a brutally humbling thing: you won the lottery the day you were born, and all your hardships do nothing to change that. Your life is, and always will be, easier than someone darker than you in the same boat.
I know the feeling of my mind rebelling against that fact, because it feels like an attack on me: like I am choosing to benefit from it, like it’s my fault things are unfair. I didn’t ask for privilege, I don’t try to wield it, I personally denounce and reject bigoted actions and thoughts in my life. It feels unfair to be marked as the villain from birth for something you can’t help.
But, here’s the important thing: this isn’t about us, white people. Someone else shouting for help doesn’t mean they think you shouldn’t ask for help either. We aren’t the villains because we were born into an unfair system. We aren’t the villains because we want our pain and hardships acknowledged and our victories and achievements celebrated. We aren’t the villains because we want our lives to be rich, happy, and full, with everything that entails.
We become the villains when we choose to center ourselves and our problems, our stories, our existence, over others. We become the problem when we continue to assume a “first among equals” position in the American public. The only reason we even have to learn to recognize and fight that impulse is because we were born into a world that put us first among “equals” in the first place.
Oh, there’s a myriad of “What about” arguments that get thrown up here, and this series will be taking them on. I’ve been there, done that, learned my lesson, and started arguing with others. I know the excuses, the rationalizations, and yes even the valid points. No faulty belief system would be complete without a few solid, logical cornerstones to build upon, after all.
But the first, the core issue, is admitting that this is a thing that exists, that it benefits us, and that it makes the lives of POC worse than ours in every measure we find. It’s everywhere, all encompassing, and touches on all facets of our existence. And, it’s going to require our ACTIVE involvement to dismantle.
Active, meaning doing things, not just saying things or refusing to say or do certain things.
You don’t use racial slurs, make racist jokes, make assumptions about people based on their name or how their accent sounds or a million other things on the “Bigoted Behavior and Microaggressions” checklist?
Great! That’s awesome! I mean that sincerely. However, that is also not even the bare minimum.
That’s you, personally, in your small sphere of influence, not being part of the problem. But the problem is bigger than you, individually, as it is with all of us. It’s not enough to just not be, personally, a bigot. You, me, all of us, we have a civic duty to our fellow Americans to do more than passively stand by. That means taking action, tearing down things that are helping you, and accepting that your pain, while real, may not matter as much as someone else’s. Most difficult of all, it means putting yourself at the back of the line because someone else needs your place more than you.
In hospitals, they call that “triage” and if you howl about how unfair it is, you’ll find the workers there for the most part don’t really give a shit: they’re focused on the important work of saving lives, and to do the best job possible some people have to suffer in their relative pain for longer while the critical emergencies get taken care of first.
Suck it up, buttercup.
We’ll get to part 2, with the David Hogg interview itself and my thoughts, next week. I, as a general rule, refuse to watch Bill Maher so this has already gone somewhere unpleasant for me.
If you like my work and want to see more, support it on Ko-Fi! Also, follow me on Bluesky @toroblanco.bsky.social. Or buy one of my stupid shirts.
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