Wilma de Soto
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read

“You have no idea what I have or have not had to ‘consider’ in my life or my family’s life. You are ASSUMING what you think I might or might not have had to consider, because I’m a white male. This is the moral and intellectual laziness I spoke of in my last comment.”

  • You’re correct. I do not. What I have to glean from your post and the points you make is perhaps this does not apply to you. If it did you would more than likely say otherwise, because it would be something you have to contend with each and every day.

“I do have the advantage of seeing me as ‘just me,’ and so do you, whether you believe it or not. You do not lack this advantage; you VOLUNTARILY choose not to partake in it.”

  • This assertion in particular is troubling. Why would I or anyone else deliberately NOT see myself as an individual? For the record, I most certainly do. It’s society that does not. To believe that anyone would consciously want to self-inflict such pain is preposterous. To even suggest one willingly seeks the harassment, disrespect, and degradation despite one’s work and accomplishments is over the top.
  • Rather it is you who choose not to see what happens to people like me. That doesn’t stop it from happening, it’s just that you refuse to acknowledge it and would prefer to blame people like me for their treatment by this society and its institutions.

“I have, in fact, been singled out as the ‘other,’ so you’re wrong there. When I moved from Brooklyn, NY, to a small-town NJ suburb at the age of 7, I was singled out as a ‘Jew-boy,’ and my family was generally singled out as ‘Those Brooklyn people who are not from here.’ I never really cared about it that much. But of course, the main thing to you, is that I belong to this over-arching Group known as ‘White People’ that has glaring advantages over Groups demarcated as ‘Other than White People’ so my past experiences must not be as relevant as yours.”

  • We were not discussion your past experiences so I did not say your past experiences were not as relevant as mine. The operative word is “past.” They are past for you, but not past for me. They are present and ongoing. They may take a different form and go by different terms, but the goals and the effects on the quality of my life are the same. Your past experiences do not encroach on the present circumstances of your life by your own words.

“If you’re striving for equity, WORK HARD. That’s it. That’s all you have to do. There are brown-skinned ethnic groups that migrate to America with almost nothing, and within a generation, they achieve MUCH higher status than ‘equity.’ Just sitting their and claiming victim status will do nothing for you. No amount for forced economic redistributionism will do it for you. Throughout history, it has been shown that the only way ethnic groups have achieved agency is through ECONOMIC POWER. Access to and control of resources = AGENCY. Poverty= lack of AGENCY. And guess what; no one can make someone else ‘not poor.’”

  • Here’s an assumption you have made that I and others like me do not work. I happen to have worked and had a job since I was 12 years old. I have very good education. I am my family have achieved many prominent positions in this country. That is why I can state unequivocally that ultimately it does not matter. That people will single you out and find a way to let you know, (in a subtle or sometimes not so subtle way), that you are not an individual who has achieved much through hard work and effort. That you are just another one of them.
  • It would still give me pause as to where I can live, )not just whether I could afford it or not), where I can stay while traveling, where I shop, where and how I drive safely as an individual. If I wish to continue surviving, this had better be first and foremost in my mind.

“If your answer is, ‘Well, you’re white, so you just don’t understand,’ there’s no point in us going any further. You stay in your Group, I’ll keep believing that AGENCY is something only the INDIVIDUAL can achieve.”

  • That is NOT my answer. My answer is to show you how my life in this country is quite different from mine through no fault of my own. Just that I happen to belong to a certain group of people and no matter how hard I work or what I accomplish will never be seen as an individual worthy of respect and equity by the majority culture.
  • No one can make you understand anything; especially if you are bound to not take into consideration any of the facts I have tried to present.