OK, many points…
First, data
Just one example of the money side. Feel free to look into, I don’t know, criminal justice system – look at Cynthia Whitlatch’s career, or please look at Shaun King’s current series in medium!
Back to this story. The author uses a very common literary device – a single relatable story – and if you look back you’ll see it is an example of a common trend. Factually correct or not, the use of ‘yesterday’ in the title should have twigged it for you. This does not make it worthless; as human beings we naturally relate to individuals, it is far easier to be desensitised to statistics or, for example ‘a thousand unnamed people died…’ on the news than one person you can visualise.
The privilege, and again this is pretty clear, is the author’s own privilege at being hired because he is white. The details are scant, but maybe the old guy has benefited slightly as he shot some black person with what was a stolen gun not long ago and doesn’t seem to worried about it?
You may only know really good people who abhor racism, and do everything they can to confront any they see. But, if this is merely anecdotal I don’t really see how you can begin to criticise this story.
White masochism, white guilt, I’ve seen these things. I’ve also seen people who are certainly not racist sit back and let racism go unchecked; or talk vociferously about the wrongs of the world, while doing absolutely nothing to change it.
One last thing, if your standard candle for non-racist is offended by N-word, and you’ve got nothing better with which to argue, please, please don’t bother. Your time would be much better spent digging your head out of your ass.
