How much have you benefited from racism?

Interesting premise for a book, as I have considered similar for my life.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/us/the-white-bonus-book-tracie-mcmillan-cec

In my case, my dad got his education in a highly sought after engineering field in a segregated program in a segregated state - a program that would not have been available had he been born black. After marrying, he and my mom bought a house that would not have been available to him if he were black. And when they sold that house 8 years later, it sold within hours for multiple times above asking price because it was in a school district that was not involved in a recently enacted bussing program. White flight had driven up demand and the price of their house by 4 times. That increase allowed them to buy another house that would have otherwise been well out of their income range. And when they relocated a few years after that, that real estate investment allowed them to buy a house in a neighborhood that has since turned into one of the more expensive zip codes in the country and put me in a highly-regarded school district.

So, yeah, I have definitely benefited from racism. I don't deny it.

bijouxbroussard · F

I deeply respect that you can acknowledge it.

What I have a hard time with is that some people earnestly believe that everything is equal now, or worse, that everyone nonwhite receives automatic cash and prizes. That always blows my mind.

I’ll never forget when I became a sales instructor at a company where I ended up working for 35 years. A woman accused me of being an "affirmative action" promotion. She was manager, and a little older than me. I didn’t lose my temper, though.

I asked, "what do [b]you[/b] think qualifies someone to be an instructor ? (Keep in mind, this was around 1995). She replied, "Sales experience". I replied, "I’ve been a salesperson for this company."

She said, “We also need educated people."

I asked, "So you have a degree ?"
She replied, "No, I’m taking classes. You ?”
“Yes, I had a college degree when they hired me."

She looked at me. "But what work experience did you have before you came to the company ? I was an operator."

"I was a teacher," I told her. "So working as an instructor seems like a good fit. But you really think I was
only promoted because of my skin color ?"

She had nothing more to say.

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

@bijouxbroussard I've got a very serious problem in the union because a woman had someone gossip about how she was some kind of diversity hire rather than someone who was qualified. Horrific harassment case.

BohemianBoo · M

@Ynotisay Affirmative action doesn't give more people access to higher education, it gives non-white people access over white people.
Now if affirmative action was class-based, that actually would give more people access, since rich people already have more than enough access to anything they want. But our current program is basically, let's give the non-white working-class an advantage over the white working-class.