Ex Cathedra

AngryBrownButch tells the truth, with a lolcat

Is so hard being white. And straight. And able. And male.

Just click the links in the right-hand column. Any categtory. It’s hard to avoid examples of people uncovering white, straight, male able (i.e., privileged) people whining that other people have caught on to their privilege.

Liza Talusan reports on how wearing a “Got Privilege?” T-shirt made a coworker of European ancestry go ballistic.

I want one.

It isn’t just the uncomfortable question on the T-shirt (I still want one). Republicans are having projectile diarrhea attacks over a word supposedly used by Michelle Obama, who, not being a member of Sly and the Family Stone, never even said it — because it might remind them of their privilege.

Privilege. We’re soaking in it.

We’re all in denial because all it takes to put us in the ranks of the underprivileged is a layoff, a big illness, our houses becoming worthless, retiring and discoverring that the richest 1% have stuffed Social Security into their own pockets, our pensions going to “imrpove shareholder value,” and discovering that all our savings and investments will pay off in Bush Bux.

But there’s good news for us moderately privileged folks who thought of ourselves as winners in the Reagan Revolution and its sequellae. Our privilege needn’t be fragile and temporary. If we die now.

Or we can wake the fuck up, shake hands with our real allies who already are the way we’re fixin’ to be, whether it’s economically or in status and agency — and organize.