Granted
by JeremySpoke
under News
I am a healthy white male in America. What the hell am I doing? I can do anything I want. I am really under utilizing the advantages given to me by a Y chromosome, geographic randomness, and the false, fleeting love between my parents that lasted just long enough for my brother, my sister, and me to be born.
I am always on here complaining about loneliness, depression, anxiety, etc., when it is scarily easy for me to just become a powerful millionaire and be happy forever. I’m really not exploiting my white maleness as much as I could. I get all perturbed when I smile at someone on the street, and they don’t smile as much as I do. If I wasn’t white, not only would they not smile at all, but they would make it a point to make sure that I know that they are trying to move away from me as quickly as possible.
When I walk into a bank, nobody gets nervous. When I walk into a prison, I leave because I realize that I meant to walk into the bank instead. I need to take a lot less for granted. I could have it so much worse. I get depressed when my wallet gets stolen, without realizing that hundreds of people get murdered every day. I’m not saying that that’s going to stop me from getting upset about getting my wallet stolen. Actually, now, it will make me feel even more dejected that I’m getting distressed about some trivial inconvenience, while people are getting killed on purpose by other people. And then I’ll feel even worse that the knowledge of these anonymous peoples’ deaths has no effect at all on my well-being. It’s a vicious cycle of obsessive-compulsive disorder and white guilt.
So, though right now, my life is great, and by world standards, really great, I can’t really appreciate how great I have it, nor can I use my inherited advantages to further advance myself because of the mental setbacks associated with this privilege.
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