| re: Gene Nelson -- No "White Privilege" Benefit | |
| Last Edit: BroadwayTonyJ 02:26 am EST 03/08/21 | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 02:13 am EST 03/08/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Gene Nelson -- Yes "White Privilege" Benefit - Singapore/Fling 11:45 am EST 03/07/21 | |
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| You and I have different ideas about what "white privilege" means. That's OK, of course -- I respect your opinion, read your posts, and enjoy sparring with you. I watch CNN and MSNBC a lot. In recent weeks I've heard respected journalists (some of color) like Craig Melvin, Fareed Zakaria, and Anand Gridharadas, (others white) like Bob Woodward opine about the subject. Their definition is closer to my experience. When they speak about white privilege, they refer to the children of well-to-do white families who grow up in the best neighborhoods, go to the best schools, attend the best universities, and stuff like that -- they don't regard working class whites as being privileged. BTW (and not that I'm complaining) but my great, great grandparents came to the U.S. some time in the 1800's from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Ireland. They were all laborers and/or factory workers, poorly educated. They, my great grandparents, my grandparents, and my parents lived in slums and/or poor neighborhoods most of their lives, and never had more than a high school education. I was the first person in my family to go to college (and the only one, my 3 siblings did not)-- against my parents' wishes actually -- they thought that I considered myself better than they were. There certainly was no money for college, but I won scholarships and worked part time after school, on holidays, over the summer. When a college education was in reach, I drew a low number in the 1966 conscription lottery, which meant being drafted as soon as I graduated from high school. As a remedy, I joined ROTC (which morphed into being in the army) so I could use my scholarship to get a BA in secondary education. While in the army (for 10 years), I taught high school, went back to school for my MA, had to quit teaching because of conflicts with the army, worked in a factory for 15 years, and eventually got a decent job in sales for a paper company. I worked hard for 31 years as a paper salesman, happily developed an interest in theatre -- seen about 1700 plays and musicals in Chicago, New York, London, Toronto, and other places since 1989 -- moved to a nicer suburb, and made a fair amount of money. Now I have a comfortable retirement. Despite all that I achieved by hard work and determination, all my life I've been called a dumb Polack, but that's never bothered me because I'm pretty happy in my own skin. However, please forgive me if my life experience has given me a somewhat different view about white privilege than others seem to have. Regarding Gene Nelson, I thought I saw a few similarities in his film career to that of Patrick Adiarte. That is what inspired my comment. You're right, Bobby Driscoll would have been a better example. Cute, white kid actor, won an Oscar when he was 12, had a lucrative contract with Disney, but got fired for having bad acne. His career was pretty much over before he was 20. He turned to narcotics, died a pauper, and was buried in potter's field. Yeah, white privilege did him a lot of good. Sorry about the cynicism. |
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