w88rxhWould you get the fcuk off priviledged white men. It's up to you to raise your sons anyway you like. As you know it was CEO Stan O'Neil who brought down Merrill/Lynch with the sub prime mortgage derivatives which helped bring on the Federal Reserve bailout of 700B. Stan O'Neil is black, educated at Harvard business school like President Elect Obama, and his grandfather was a slave that worked in the cotton fields of Alamaba. He rose above all that and became CEO of Merrill/Lynch. He had no loyalty to the company my cousin founded.
I can't suggest any advice to give to your sons but please don't instill self hatred in them for being white. Our founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, a document inspired by reason and the idea that all men are created equal. Nothing to be ashamed about.

wow, a bunch of defensive white men who mistake a critique of a power structure as an attack against white men. how fitting.

Let me first state the following: absolute power corrupts absolutely and power attracts envy. Now let me follow this statement with a thought: you don't understand how people in such predicaments can get caught? I thought it was simple. If people are envious they look for the opportune moment to take the power another has, and if absolute power corrupts absolutely, then it is only a matter of time until something occurs to draw people that are envious to action.

Furthermore let me say that if anyone responds to the aforementioned idea, let me straight up tell you now: you are a fool. Everyone with power, EVERYONE, will have a moment or more of scandalous attention resulting from their power. If you say that is not true then you have not either researched properly of their history or it hasn't occurred yet and will.

Now I turn to the statement about men mostly being in positions of power to cause scandalous affairs. Really? Seems your statement is pretty scandalous when it implies not many women can assume roles that men hold or usually hold. Seems to me that it is people like you that are the inspiration for women to prove you wrong. Also, don't attempt at using my statement here to self-promote yourself as an archetype of women; my statement is anything but.

Lastly, the comment about your white sons...was it necessary to include the adjective of a human being to label them a certain way? And you furthermore ask rhetorically in a sense how you expect to raise them to be good adults? Sir, if you are thinking these things I beseech you; never procreate again. You are the role model for their lives. The way you live your life will determine one of two things; either they will want to be just like you, or they will want to be nothing like you. You yourself know what kind of person you are, so if you are a good person there is really nothing to worry about. ....However, from what you said, it seems you are worrying and now that makes me wonder as to what it is you are worried of..

good lord, did anyone actually read what I wrote?

hello? I said of course women would do the same thing we simply haven't had the same access to power. sure, those women were corrupt.

no question.

and no, I will not get off the white male privilege bandwagon, charles. as someone who has had to deal with it, it sucks. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of white men wandering the country with enormous privilege simply because of their gender and color.

it's annoying.

Stan was one of the few exceptions to the rule- as were the other listed women. sure. there were some. but go through history, bub, and tell me how many African American men were in such a position.

or women.

and compare it to white men.

thank you. my point made.

This was a response I believe to mine? Let me quote you "there were some. but go through history, bub, and tell me how many African American men were in such a position". This is self refuting in itself. Did you live in Africa from 0 B.C. to 1800? No. Can you say for certain there was no one that rose to any significant stardom? Was there not a major warlord kind to his people and rich? Was there no African hero among the people who gave to the poor as white people's fables do? You can not say for certain if such a thing existed or not. Now let me refute you once more in somewhat modern history of African men AND women that rose to stardom:
Frederick Douglass- An amazingly well spoken individual who learned to read and write from his slavemasters as well as young white children. Became an abolitionist and a personal friend to Abraham Lincoln. His narrative documents his life, his witnesses, and the arguments that people used for slavery and in effect reduces them to absurdity. It was he that rose two divisions of black slaves to fight for the cause of freedom.
Lydia Marie Child- Uncole Tom's Cabin was based off of this person. It was hailed as the book that instilled the most hatred for slavery pre-Civil War. The woman's accounts given in the book were true and the author was able to prove such with historic documents and readings of Lydia's own narratives.
Sojourner Truth- Famous black abolitionist who was an amazing speaker to instill others so persuasively. She was visited by Abraham Lincoln as president and was hailed as an amazing orator.
Olaudah Equiano- First narrative of an account of a poor uneducated slave becoming an economic mastermind and eventually bought his own freedom. Later became the single most heard voice of the atrocities of slave shipping to the carribean when he witnessed a slave holder throwing slaves over the ship, chained together, in order to get insurance money.
Harriet Tubman- Need I say more?
Phyllis Wheatley- Admired by our first president George Washington who had the privellege of reading a poem specifically dedicated to the general. Also wrote a poem in which she backhanded white supremacy in a subtle manner and reinforced the idea that blacks were equal to whites
W.E.B. Dubois- Co founder of NAACP and prominent civil rights supporter.
Mum Bett and Dred Scott- Both attempted to sue for their freedom and were unsuccessful. Their reasoning was based off of the Declaration of Independence and state laws respectively. Both were unsuccessful but both attempted to show the hypocrisy of the Constitution.
Denmark Vesey- Denmark managed to educate himself as well as learned to read. In the 1800s, seventeen years after his arrival in Charleston, Denmark won $1,500.00 in a street lottery and used $600.00 of his winnings to buy his freedom. Now free, he stayed on in Charleston and worked as a carpenter. He began to plan a slave revolt after reading about the succesful slave revolt in Haiti. He was the exact model for John Brown, a famous white slave revolter that died for his beliefs.

So, shall I go on? Perhaps you should read into American Literature and American History as I have? If these aren't prime examples I certainly do not know what is. And if you are going to have the gall to say that "But there were plenty of white people that retained more power" it would have to be determined what you considered power. I consider power whenever a single person has great influence on many people. I can't remember anything grand about many white people from the 1800s-1860s besides famous white presidents. I can't recall any white senator that was famous. But I can certainly remember all of the above mentioned black people who had power in their time.

Move to Detroit, 84% black. You can enroll the kids in school there and they will never have to see a priviledged white man, ever. They can even belong to a black mega church where they pray to their god at the altar of SUV's and Hummer V's for a government bailout.

I think what Sara has only been trying to say it women have not gotten often to the large table to bilk others at such a large amount

Really? Did anyone else read Sarah's statement meaning that? I mean the quip before that was pretty obvious "Men and Greed". Did no one else take that as a condescending attitude implying that greed goes hand in hand with men?

The comment after that saying "Oh sure, women can be greedy too" and the following comment seems to me to mean "sure, women can be greedy, but not as much as men can be". It was like brushing aside a notion that many, with half a brain, can understand.

Let me reveal something to you: There are 6.5 billion people in the world. I saw a few examples of men, of women, of African, etc. Is Sarah actually attempting to explain that women have not had many opportunities to be greedy when there are 6.8 billion people in the world and she just so happens to live in a privelleged country which, unfortunately, shields you from numerous examples of the "real world"? This is the entire basis for my extreme retaliation to her assertions. It is conjecture based little off of reasoning and example. To bring about such a broad and outlandish example with such insignificant examples is horrifying. If you have ever read a Supreme Court case in any country, you will see a ton of cases set up as precedents for ruling (save for Bush v. Gore which was a travesty in and of itself). The purpose (at least I once believed) of an opp ed writer was to analyze something and express either its drawbacks or advantages, not to reflect on an enormously broad topic and attempt to narrow it down using two examples. My advice? Trash this idea and get off of the neo-feminisim of male hate mantras and return, if you are inclined to feminism at all, to the 1970s feminism in which equality was sought in every aspect of life which a lot of men, including myself, support full-force.

Well, on a last note I would like to apologize for not knowing that your name, sara, is without an 'h'. I was too busy shredding the "argument" to look for it.

Secondly, when you comment that mostly white men are those in power, you think that because you have been raised in a "white environment". If you were raised/lived in Africa, for instance, you would be learning a VERY different history and feel that African men were always in power.

Lastly, to make the statement that white men are usually in power is, once again, incredibly misleading. You are generalizing from too specific examples. In other words, basing your support off of a sample size too small. Since your claim is "Men and greed are a bad combination" I still don't see how your small sample size is relevant to a planet filled with 6.8 billion people. Nor do I see how you can generalize an entire sex when considering you have been raised in one country learning one history.

Also, if you had to stop and get your kids ready for their fathers, why not just put your opp ed on hold and, once you gain the time again, post something worth thinking of rather than putting up a shoddy idea.

Lastly, about the "Obviously, as Cameron points out, because I hate men"...I don't know the absolute details of the reasoning as to WHY you do (or even if you actually do since the comment smacks of sarcasm), but is this manifestation of hatred really healthy for...anyone?

Those with privilege are the last ones to see it, or admit it.

But nobody likes being called a jerk simply because they share some physical characteristics with a few villains. I don't think that's what Sara was writing about though. It's too bad that people take this stuff so personally.

If you are a member of the privileged class, you almost have to step outside yourself to understand what that means. It isn't that life is all roses and every member of that club gets things handed to them on a platter. You still have to compete with other people in your group, and the elite of the elite are the ones who skim the cream as everyone knows. But you are allowed to compete on an elevated plane with relation to someone that doesn't have a membership card. It doesn't matter what characteristics you have, it's what you lack that damns you.

What makes this an issue of privilege isn't the competition for power, per se. It is the unchangeable nature of these arbitrary characteristics used to decide who is a member of the favored group. You can't work your way up out of having the wrong skin color. That's why these things get set up that way in the first place. And that's why tearing them down is the right thing to do, no matter who's feelings get hurt.