> Even as a kid I instinctively understood that as a white dude I have it easier in America I think Barack Obama got it right, when he recognised that talk of

> Even as a kid I instinctively understood that as a white dude I have it easier in America I think Barack Obama got it right, when he recognised that talk of "white privilege", bred resentment especially amongst the working class, despite some, usually of the left leaning middle-class, willing to adopt the label to describe themselves. > In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience — as far as they're concerned, no one handed them anything. They built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pensions dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and they feel their dreams slipping away. And in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88478467 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=884784...