10 examples of the White Prilavage Myth

         Here are my 10 responses to the 10 examples of so called "white privilege"from this article.

 

I Have the Privilege of Having a Positive Relationship with the Police, Generally.  

 

    Well, at least the author had enough sense to add generally at the end.  Though, in general, most people will find any interactions with police to be neutral, at best.  The idea of this myth is that every police force nationwide is full of packs of officers that target, hurt and even kill non-white people.  And then as so called proof they list years of minorities that were killed by police.   They are all given no context, and no mention is made of the great number more white people killed by the same police.  And it also fails to mention that many of the police are people of all colors, not just white.  It's not as if the police are some massive all white hit squad targeting people of color.  This is little more then cheery picking a couple of incidents per year and then trying to build a falsehood out of that.

 I Have the Privilege of Being Favored by School Authorities. 

    I would guess what favored means is a bit in the eye of the beholder.  The vast majority of kids act up and get themselves into trouble.  It's all part of the experience of being a kid.  It's more then safe to say that the vast majority of people got into trouble as a kid, and few would say they were shown any type of favor.

 I Have the Privilege of Attending Segregated Schools of Affluence

    This simply makes no sense.  Public schools are open to all, and every type of higher learning is not segregated.  Most "schools of affluence" even specifically have huge promotions to attract people of color.

 

I Have the Privilege of Learning about My Race in School

    This is a good example of why white privilege is a myth.   This so called "privilege" is that only white people get to learn white history in school.  It's nothing less then a lie.  The headline history of Western Europe and even more so America, until roughly the last couple decides, has been about just about all white men.  This is historical fact.  American headline history is not multicultural or diverse, and it never will be as it's all history.  This does not say that both women and people of color were not around, but it does say they had very little to do directly with headline history.  This is just something that needs to be accepted.  Any bits of both women and minorities history simply don't have a place next to any headline history.  You can't learn about a presidents actions during the Civil War, and then pick some minority that did a very minor footnote of something.  

 

I Have the Privilege of Finding Children’s Books that Overwhelmingly Represent My Race

    Well, plenty of children's books don't even have people in them.  More then a fair share have animals or animated objects or robots.  Though, this is about the simple number that only 13% of Americans are black.  So how many books do you think they need?  Even if you did pass a draconian law that forced all book sellers to have 50% black books: would you not just be reversing the problem as you would expect millions of white people to buy all the black race books?  The worst part about this example, is that it is all on the parents.  If your a black parent, and want your kids to only read books about your race, then you should make the effort, no matter how hard, to do that.

 

 

 

I Have the Privilege of Soaking in Media Blatantly Biased Toward My Race

    Well, I'd dare say to start right here: don't soak yourself in media.  This is yet another example of cheery picking only the parts of media that fit the example you want to give.  

I Have the Privilege of Escaping Violent Stereotypes Associated with My Race

    I hate to break it to you: but you don't. There is no escape from violent racial stereotypes.

I Have the Privilege of Playing the Colorblind Card, Wiping the Slate Clean of Centuries of Racism

    I would say that most white people think colorblindness is a good thing: it's good to treat all people as human beings.  And again, this is all cheery picking a couple things.  It's not wiping the slate clean, it's just not being stuck in the past.

I Have the Privilege of Being Insulated from the Daily Toll of Racism

    Well, the white people learned about this in the history class, mentioned above.  No one in America has been a slave in well over a century.  So there is no daily toll.

I Have the Privilege of Living Ignorant of the Dire State of Racism Today

    More cheery picking, now with more added doom and gloom. 

     

Calling out the Academy

         

 

     So the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has new Diversity rules.  The Academy is limiting Best Picture award nominees -- beginning with 2024's slate of entries -- to those that can meet requirements that "encourage equitable representation on and off screen" by ensuring more people of color fill positions on a film set from the starring role to interns and everything in between.

 

     The Oscars have been around for 90 years and were never created for anyone other than white talent to thrive.  The Academy was created because one incredibly rich studio executive decided he needed a mansion right on the beach in Santa Monica. Louis B. Mayer, West Coast chief at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was born into 19th century Russia into poverty and became one of the highest-paid men in the United States by his early forties.  The only issue with constructing Mayer’s beachside chateau was that the studio laborers were in the midst of unionization, and that meant construction would be expensive. To get around that, he hired just a few skilled people from the studio, and outsourced the rest of the work for cheap.  But the ordeal made Mayer worry that the actors he employed would get the union spirit in their heads and cut into his profits. He figured it would be in his business’ best interest if there were an organization that could work out labor disputes in the studio’s favor. So he got a few of his like-minded industry friends together, and they created the Academy.

    In 1940, the year Hattie McDaniel became the first black actor to win an Academy Award, the Oscars were held in a "no blacks" hotel. After accepting her award, she was forced to sit at a segregated table, away from the rest of the "Gone With the Wind" cast.  We're waiting for a system created by white males to recognize the beauty and significance in movies made by women and people of color. That system is powered by voters who can't relate to what a movie like "Queen and Slim" means as much as they would a "Joker" movie or a Martin Scorsese film.     Of the 17 black actors who have won Academy Awards, five of them were recognized for roles that reinforce stereotypes about black people, from Cuba Gooding Jr. as a NFL player in "Jerry Maguire" to Octavia Spencer as a maid in "The Help."  But compare that to the number of Latin American and Asian American actors who've won Oscars and the stats become jarring: seven total. 

 

 

 

     It should come as a surprise to no one that Hollywood is run by (old) white men. It's been this way since the film industry's conception more than 100 years ago and it's this way today: Of the five major movie studios, only one is headed by a woman, Universal chairwoman Donna Langley, and she's white.  

    Part of the problem is that we don’t know who the members of the Academy actually are, and that poses some huge issues. The Academy has only recently started publicizing the names of the people it has invited to join the voting body in an effort to be more transparent. But the organization hasn’t revealed who was in the Academy prior to the 2016 Oscars. That culture of secrecy means we can’t hold the voting body to account when they leave actors of color
and female directors off their ballot.

 

 

 

    As the gatekeepers of the Oscars, seen as the deciders of ‘good cinema’, one would expect to know more about the voting body than we currently do. In 2012, analysis from the Los Angeles Times found that the median age of the Academy voting body was 62. It also revealed that just 14 per cent of the membership were under the age of 50. We have seen the number of people of colour included in the Oscars voting body jump from eight per cent in 2015 to 16 per cent in 2019, after the Academy announced that it would be introducing sweeping changes to the awards following the 2016 controversy. While this does mean that the number of non-white voters in the Academy is up, it also means that the vast majority of the Academy is still white – 84 per cent, according to figures from 2019.

     For years, the Academy has refused to release a list of its Oscar voters, but if it decides to expose who each voter is and how they have aggregately nominated, it will allow the Academy to scrutinise how the body votes and help answer some big questions. Are white voters voting for actors of colour? Are male directors voting for female directors? Who missed out on a nomination? How have certain demographics voted? Are voters nominating their friends? The Oscars will only begin to tackle its biases when the Academy becomes more transparent about who members are, and how they’re voting.

    The Irishman is a great movie — but it didn’t have to overcome any hurdles to get nominated because a mob drama starring a legendary white guy actor (Robert De Niro) and directed by one of the greatest filmmakers (Martin Scorsese) was always going to be considered. It was “an Oscar movie” from the second it was announced, and until the Academy can find a way to dislodge this line of thinking, it’s going to be hard to avoid situations where the lineups are as non-diverse as the 2020 nominee list is. And a big part of why the “That’s an Oscar movie” narrative takes hold is because of predictors who artificially winnow the field before anybody has seen the movies.

 

     Academy members themselves have the power to expand what kinds of movies are considered Oscar contenders. One step would be to reject the preemptive hand-waving doled out to so many acclaimed films,  many of them artsier or smaller-scale, that supposedly will never play with Oscar voters for little reason other than tradition.” Until Oscar voters acknowledge—and reconfigure—their circumscribed visions of artistry, the rest of Hollywood (and the moviegoing public) will be subject to the same wearying cycles.

A bit more about the $15 minimum wage

 

    Article 5 ,Quote 1-"some 21.3 million employees would eventually be guaranteed a raise, assuming they kept their jobs. (Another 11.1 million might theoretically benefit if companies adjusted their whole wage scales upwards, which is what the light blue section on the chart shows."

 

    This is the big part most articles miss about the $15 an hour minimum wage: it is not just about the workers that make the exact minimum wage.  It is, in fact, about all workers that currently make less then $15 an hour.  While plenty of places have a local higher minimum wage, most businesses also simply workers at least a couple dollars more.  The article says this number is 21 million some, but the real number might be much higher.

    Article 5, Quote 2-"increasing the minimum wage should cost some people their jobs. If the price of low-skill labor rises thanks to meddling politicians, demand for it should fall. Employers might slash their payrolls to preserve profits."

 

    The truth is here, people loose jobs everyday for dozens of reasons.   One of the more common reasons is simply pure greed on the part of the business.  There are even businesses owners that will get rid of most of their employees, or at least dream about it.  The truth is that most businesses can't get rid of all that many workers.  A small business with two shifts of five employees each can't really cut too many jobs and expect to stay open.  

    Article 5, Quote 3 -"They say that instead of forcing businesses to cut staff, raising wages simply spurs them to become more efficient. The typical Burger King or McDonald's does not really run like a well-greased machine. Fry cooks slack off. There's lots of turnover, which bogs down operations."

 

        Another good point.  This also goes far, far, far beyond just the fast food jobs.  The vast majority of businesses are very inefficient.   Most of the simple reason as it does not matter all that much to the bottom line.  The turnover is most bussiness that pay less then $15 an hour is also huge, but it's not like businesses care at all.

    Article 5, Quote 4 -"They have consistently found that requiring businesses to pay their workers more reduces employment among teens."

 

    I somehow doubt any of these studies was done in the real world.  Thousands of businesses need millions of workers: this is very basic.  Teens make up a part of the population, so you will have to hire them.  Even if a business wanted to set an age minimum to hire, say 25, what would they do if they could not find enough people over 25 to fill all the open job slots?  

    The simple fact is that there are millions of Americans working 40 hours a week, unable to exist without government handouts, like "food stamps," medical assistance, and even welfare. To look at it another way, it's simply CORPORATE WELFARE, where we taxpayers are allowing corporations to pay their employees less than adequate wages by subsidizing their workers. The corporations will gladly let us feed, house, and care for their workers while taking all the extra cash as outrageous pay and bonuses for the bosses. Minimum wage should be graduated up over time and by the size of the business, but it should be increased.

 

     When People say that higher wages will 'kill jobs' what they really are saying is it will kill the obscene bonuses of upper management. They are just scaring you to protect their own interests.  This idea that you don’t want to increase the minimum wage is it will raise prices. We don’t seem to have a problem raising prices when raw materials go up, we don’t have a problem raising prices when rent goes up. We don’t have a problem when electricity or taxes go up. We don’t have a problem increasing prices when the government increases tariffs. We just do it. But, when it comes to people making a minimum wage that has not increased in 10 years, there is a problem. Am I missing something in the logic here?

    

In the mid-’60s the equivalent of the minimum wage would give us about $12 in purchasing power today. In the meantime, productivity has increased about 150 percent. Does it seem we have to get back in balance?   If it becomes an issue, many will cry that they have to layoff workers. I say, lay them off at your own peril. In business, workers contribute to the bottom line, don’t subtract from it. They will cry that they have to raise prices. If you increase the minimum wage say 20 percent, it is actually a small part of the cost of your hamburger. If one insists on raising their prices 20 percent, they are likely taking 90 percent or more of the price increase to the bottom line. From a national point of view, which Congress should be interested in, an increase in the minimum wage puts more spending money in people’s hands and they spend it. And each dollar they spend multiplies through the economy seven to nine times. Sounds like a good deal to me.

More things about a $15 an hour wage

     My next post of answers to another minimum wage article.

Article 4  ,Quote 1-"Right now, machines and computers are capable of doing a heck of a lot that low-skilled humans can, such as driving trucks and manning checkouts. The reason that they don’t isn’t due to some fancy-pants robot-workers’ union, but because they simply cost too much. It’s way more cost-effective for an employer to keep you working at the checkout for $7.50 an hour than it is for them to buy a machine to do your job, so they don’t."

    This is, at best a half truth.  Machines and computers can do some tasks, but are a long way  from doing a whole job.  Anyone who has used a self checkout has likely had a problem doing so, maybe quite often.  And robot truck drivers won't have any effect as they are well beyond even twice the minimum pay level.  Also the cost of automation is not going down by much any time soon.  

    Article 4, Quote 2-" the vast majority of American poor either already make $15 but don’t get enough hours, or simply don’t work at all. A mass-applied $15 minimum wouldn’t affect this cohort one bit."

    If the vast majority of poor already make $15 an hour, then they would not be poor.  And just about all working poor that make less then $15 an hour work a forty hour week.  

    Article 4, Quote 3-"Around a third of minimum wage employees are working at businesses that employ fewer than 50 people.  Force a $15 minimum on these places, and they’re gonna go under or lay off staff or (more likely) both."

    This is often repeated that some businesses will lay off workers or even close if they pay thier workers even close to a living wage.  Note that no one seems to care about the workers not making enough money to live, but everyone worries about the businesses.  I have no doubt many mismanaged bossiness or greed businesses will close, but it's not like all of them will nationwide.

    Article 4, Quote 4-"In a world where the $15 is everywhere, plenty of companies are gonna avail themselves of freelance contracts."

    Well, even if companies do, the company they hire will still need to pay their employees the $15 minimum wage. And few companies will find contract work cheaper then just paying their own employees a living wage.

    Many people with low paying jobs, especially young adults that have a child . Cant afford the basic needs. If a young mother has a low paying job, often her wages barely even coved childcare. Some weeks it may not even cover that if she didnt get enough hours. This is just one expense. Not including rent, food, utilities... So what happens is she quits her job and collects Welfare.

     Businesses' ability to pay depends on the market, and the minimum wage changes the market so that all competitors are in the same boat. Prices will rise, demand will drop, and who knows what that will do to ability to pay. As long as all employers have to play by the same wage rules, there should be less impact on employment and more impact on prices, but that's as it should be; consumers should ultimately pay for the cost of production, including wages.

 

 

More responses to the proposed $15 an hour minimun wage

     My next post responding to an article about the $15 an hour minimum wage.

 

    Article 3 , Quote 1-"Many economists worry minimum wage increases tend to reduce employment, hurting young and less-educated workers the most."

 

    It really is amazing how many economists think that paying workers more money will somehow reduce employment.  Just where do they think all the jobs will go?  While I have no doubt many employers  will reduce the number of employees out of greed or spite; it's not like whole sectors of the economy will shut down forever.  Thousands of restaurants might go out of business, but for everyone that does, I have no doubt one will amazingly find a way to stay open.  After all, people have to eat.

    The vast majority of businesses operate two shifts, a first and second shift.  And many operate three or even four shifts.  Most five days a week, but plenty are open seven days a week.  Even for a small business, that can be a fair amount of people.  And as any business owner can tell you, it's often hard to fill the early morning spots, the late closing spots and most of all the weekend spots.  If the business wants to stay open, they have to be staffed with spots on every shift they are open.  So, in short, there is no reason young and less educated workers won't be able to find jobs.

 

    Article 3, Quote 2- " Many employers will be very reluctant to pay high wages to workers whose skills – including the ability to speak English, in the case of many immigrants – are so modest."

 

    I guess many employers might be very reluctant to  pay their workers a living wage, but they won't have much choice.  The choice is simple: pay your workers or go out of business.  

    Article 3, Quote 3-"For instance, fast-food workers might be more easily replaced by robots. Hotels may reduce their tendency to automatically clean the rooms of their guests, and may charge extra for doing so."

    Replacing employees with robots is nearly a pure fantasy.   Self aware robots with human level intelligence don't exist.  Some tasks can be replaced by robots, but few whole jobs.  I doubt hotels could get away without cleaning guest rooms: that sounds like it would violate a health and safety law or two.  And few people would pay for a used hotel room full of garbage and who knows what else from a previous person.  And, as always with any business, they might always and an additional charge to make more money.

More truth about the $15 an hour minimum wage

         Here is my second article response, this one written by Warren Buffett.

 

 

 

    Article 2 , Quote 1- "I may wish to have all jobs pay at least $15 an hour. But that minimum would almost certainly reduce employment in a major way, crushing many workers possessing only basic skills. Smaller increases, though obviously welcome, will still leave many hardworking Americans mired in poverty."

 

    Well, the article is not off to a good start.  It's all doom and gloom.  I says he wishes jobs could pay, but then immediately says it's impossible.   As millions of Americans are right now mired in poverty, one wonders what he is talking about?

    Article 2, Quote 2- "The better answer is a major and carefully crafted expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which currently goes to millions of low-income workers."

 

    Things like this come up at lot.  Just throw money at some government program.  Take a government program that as of now is not working quite right and tweak and change it in one way or other and everything will be great.  Though government bureaucracy is never the answer and has a very mixed track record of working as intended or working at all.  To be a bit more simple and direct: just give all workers more money still seems to be the far better choice.

    Article 2, Quote 3- "The existing EITC needs much improvement. Fraud is a big problem; penalties for it should be stiffened. There should be widespread publicity that workers can receive free and convenient filing help. An annual payment is now the rule; monthly installments would make more sense, since they would discourage people from taking out loans while waiting for their refunds to come through. Dollar amounts should be increased, particularly for those earning the least."

    Here, we have lots of examples why any government program is a bad idea and often don't work.  He willing admits the program is full of fraud.  This is a typical problem with many government programs.  And the program as it is now has an annual payment?  What brilliant government worker made that up? An annual payment to any low income person is nearly pointless.  They can't afford, very literally, to wait a year to get money.  Bills are due every month, and you sure can't tell them you will pay them in a year when you get the next check.  Finally he mentions that the dollar amounts are low.  Again, government programs at their worst.  

     So, as you earn more through work, the government reduces your EITC check. Tell me again how this is not a disincentive to work. It sounds exactly like how unemployment “works” today. Just make a token effort at applying for a job (that you really don’t want), and you can stay home and collect your unemployment check for a year or more. It may not be as much as you’d get by working, but on the other hand, you can stay home (with no commuting costs). 

      With EITC increases, the people who pay federal taxes foot the bill – so, just one more method of income redistribution from a government that is already in significant economic deficits.

 

 

    Article 2, Quotes 3 and 4- " this widening gap is an inevitable consequence of an advanced market-based economy. " and "It is simply a consequence of an economic engine that constantly requires more high-order talents while reducing the need for commodity-like tasks."

    Well, the article sure takes a strange turn here.  For some reason it's saying all jobs must be high order or something?  So stop pretending that anyone who wants to work can earn a living that provides a suitable standard of living. There are currently more than a dozen big cities in this country that require a family to earn over $80,000 a year, just to exceed the poverty line.
Do you know how many full time jobs you’d have to work, at $10 an hour just to keep your head above water? 

    Warren Buffett says nothing, writes nothing, does nothing, unless it is good for Warren Buffet. This guy is a gazzilioaire, how? By doing what’s best for himself, that’s how. Explain why exactly are we listening to this man?

Truth about $15 an hour minimum wage

 

    

 

      It has been a couple years now sense some cities like Seattle have raised their minimum wage to $15 and hour.  Many other places have set things in motion to raise their own minimum wages or are debating it often, including the federal government.  Many oppose giving workers anything close to a living wage, including many business owners, and naturally many ultra rich businesses. Now, with a couple years of data of what happen in Seattle they are attempting to use that data to prove that the $15 an hour minimum wage is a bad idea.  I've seen a couple of articles making wild claims, giving innacurate information, telling half truths or just outright ignoring things.  So I decided to respond to them, and that is what follows.  

    Article 1, Quote 1-"Consider a business with seven minimum wage workers. Doubling those wages will cost the small-business owner an extra $122,000 per year.  To cover those expenses, a business operating on the typical 10 percent profit margin would have to boost annual sales by $1.2 million — a near impossibility for most small businesses."   

    So note right off the bat the article is starting with the Small Small Business Fallacy, and that is that a small business is truly a small  operation of less then ten employees and maybe a couple square feet.  While a great many small business do  fall into that size, many more fall into the size of 10 to 500 employees.  This article is going for some obvious sympathy here as they want you to pitcure a small mom and pop business, and not a much larger several hundred employee business with multiple locations.  Also, it's very dishonest to target just small business in this way, because a huge number of the effected workers are working for Big Business.  The massive nationwide big box stores employ thousands of effected workers.  

    Article 1, Quote 2- "To pay higher hourly wages without running in the red, most businesses will have to raise prices (which can lower business volume) or cut costs. The latter is done through layoffs, reducing workers’ hours or benefits, raising prices, or forgoing investments in the business. None of those things is good for workers or the business’s long-term success."

 

    Ok, you might note that the article says the small business must "raise prices'' twice.  It's as if the writer really wants to highlight this as something a business must do as a big negative.  And it's true that higher prices is a frowned upon by shoppers, it is a simple fact of life.  Also note that the cost cutting methods mentioned miss quite a few things a business can do to cut costs.   A big one that is missed is that the business can scale back a bit.  Offer less goods and services over all, but concentrate on some core areas.  Reducing the business operating costs is also a big one.   While some business do aggressively watch their costs, just as many just let them ride as "part of doing business".  The other big thing that is missed is the owners profit, and any business can save money by simply reducing this amount.  The common myth is that a small business owner is quite poor having sunk life into the business: they live in a small shack and are lucky to make a couple dollars a mouth to buy some bread and water.  And while this might be true from some very small business, most owners live quite comfortably with large incomes.  Your typical business owner has a large home on a large plot of land, several new cars, an RV or boat, a vacation house and can afford to spend money on expensive interests and hobbies.  And if the number mentioned in the article is accurate, I bet the cost of that RV could cover that extra needed $122,000.

 

 

    Article 1, Quote 3- " Less experienced workers saw their hours cut. They had to go outside the city to find additional work, and their incomes didn’t rise. Meanwhile, the rate of new entrants into Seattle’s workforce declined."

 

    Well, having worked in the trenches I can tell you that less experienced workers have always had few working hours, and would be lucky to have enough hours to "cut'.  Nearly all business treat less experienced workers very poorly in nearly every way.  And I'm sure the rate of new entrants into the Seattle workforce have declined  for a simple and obvious reason: retention.  Again, having worked in the trenches, I can tell you the turn over rate for employees making less then $15 an hour is huge.  Some workers to find a nice comfortable spot for themselves and stay there, however most don't stay at a job too much more then a year.  And the reason is very simple, as again: nearly all business treat less experienced workers very poorly in nearly every way.  And this is on top of the working not making even close to enough money to make even a poor living.  So when a manager or supervisor makes a job pure torture and you don't make enough to live off; why would a worker stay?  The answer is they don't.   With the $15 dollar an hour wage though, many more such workers will stay at their job.  Thier job might be pure torture, but at least they will make a decent living doing it.

    Article 1, quote 4- "A 2016 Heritage Foundation analysis found a national $15 minimum wage would cost 7 million jobs, with lower cost-of-living areas suffering the most."

    So just pure scare tactics here. Seven million jobs sure sounds like a lot, and call into question this so called analysis.  If the national minimum wage was raised to $15 dollars an hour, where does this analysis think the jobs will go?  Nearly every business needs workers and they have to hire someone to do the jobs.  

    Article 1, Quote 5- "And Clinton administration economist Harry Holzer cautioned that a $15 minimum wage would be “extremely risky,” particularly for young and less-educated workers who need to gain work experience."

    Risky how, one wonders?  Again it's not like businesses can simply not hire people.  And note the targeting here as this is only talking about the younger workers under the age of 25 or so.  It does not address all the workers of age 25+ in the workforce.

    Well that covers everything I saw in article one, but there are plenty more to come.