Privilege Part 2

Welcome to Privilege Part 2.

Those advantages I have then translate into material wealth and/or a comfortableness that I drift through life with. And don’t get me wrong, I work hard to ensure my business is busy, making money and paying everyone. I went and worked outside of my family business to see what else was out there for me. I learnt as much as I could, followed good examples and ditched the bad, brought that to the business and strived to succeed. And all of that is built upon the foundation of my privileges and advantages. Without them, I would not have the opportunities I have now.

The foundations of these privileges and advantages go back hundreds of years. The system was set up so that I could succeed. Our society is skewed towards me and that skew is based around my physical attributes. For example crash test dummies are gender biased. They are based on the average male form. The average female form does not get a look in. No slamming into walls in cars for the female dummies. Since 2011 in America, ‘female’ crash test dummies have been used, but… they are only scaled down male dummies, not anatomically correct female dummies and they are generally placed in the passenger seat. Because Hela forbid a lady drives a car. I mean fuck me, I never see a lady behind the wheel.

Stop and search is a police tactic to try and reduce crime. An admirable goal. However it targets black people more than it targets white people. On the government’s own website, between April 2019 and March 2020, there were 6 white people searched in every 1,000 people. In that same date range, there were 54 black people searched in every 1,000 people. And you may say that there is more crime in deprived areas and the make up of those areas is predominantly peoples of ethnic backgrounds other than white. Fair enough. But I’ll refer to the system I mentioned above that for hundreds of years has marginalised ethnic minorities and celebrated… me. I get the better opportunities, which means my children (Mum, don’t get happy because I wrote down, ‘my children’) and children’s children benefit from those opportunities and so on and on and on and on and on…

Look, talking about privilege is difficult because in the hyper connected world we now live in, I can always point to someone who doesn’t look like me and who seemingly has more or gets more or looks as though they lead a better life. I’m going to tell you now, they don’t. They have their own shit they need to deal with. Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people on the planet and even he now looks like an Austin Powers movie villain in his massive space rocket that resembles a penis. The design team are trolling him surely.