This, this, this, this, a hundred times, this.
I am a 54yo white man. You are goddamned straight that I use my privilege of looking, sounding, and talking like an educated 6-foot white executive to constantly denounce Trumpism, the various culture war idiocies, support universal health care coverage, argue against income inequality, a whole helluva lot more topics - I am ready to go at it, any time, any where.
For example, was talking to a typical conservative housewife two weeks ago. Conversation effectively went like this:
“I can’t understand why people don’t want to work.”
“Well, COVID did kill 700,000 people, most of them the very people who work in restaurants and other low-paying jobs.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s smart, I didn’t think about that!”
“And then, there’s this: Say you work at Walmart, stocking shelves. You get paid $8 an hour for 40 weeks, $320 - and that is pre-tax, meaning you’re taking home about $270. Let me ask… how hard do you think it is to use your cell phone to replace a measly $270 a week? And when Walmart calls saying they have your old job for you, do you go back to having a time clock and a boss, or do you sit at home, making money on your phone when you want to?”
“I didn’t think about that either! There’s no way I would work at Walmart for $300, hee-hee.”
“Well, the people who aren’t coming back to hourly jobs, if they’re not dead, they just learned how to earn a crappy $10 an hour in ways not covered by W-2 employment. Or they may, in fact, be making far more!”
I’m sure many of y’all have seen my thread about how I blew up a Toastmasters group because the host was expressing fascistic, authoritarian thoughts, and I had no problem standing up, looking at the man, pointing towards him, and telling him that he is damning his soul to Hell. In the very same thread I talk about how I just trashed Trump and Trumpism to a typical bunch of white and Hispanic conservatives. And, again, as I like to do, I stood up, looked them in the eye, and just held fucking forth.
I am heavily involved in a public debate group. Last week, the group moderator… an economically conservative African-American ex serviceman, came to me and said “Man, I really was 100% pro-capitalism, and then you started coming and hell… I looked into it and there’s a lot to what you say.” And we discussed this, me clarifying that I’m not anti-capitalism, I’m anti-Reaganomics and that I hate the turn capitalism has taken since 1975, etc.
I was featured yesterday in an anti-Trump article on Chron.com (for the Houston Chronicle):
https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Trump-lost-billboards-san-antonio-texas-16582771.php
Fuck, I mean, the other day I found myself driving past this place…
I had no choice but to stop. I went in, up to the counter, and ordered a Trump burger w/ fries, to-go, no tomato. The woman at the counter, who apparently was featured in the article above, asked me if I was a fan. Looking her in the eye I said “I absolutely detest the malignant son of a bitch, but I’m willing to reach across the aisle for a good burger.” And the burger was fantastic… this is Texas, after all, you better not be selling crappy beef… and the fries were perfectly hot.
This is America, guys. You have to speak out. Even if you’re the only Blue dot in a seeming sea of Red, you owe it to yourself, to us, and to the ideals of the country to swallow your fear and speak truth to Power.
And, especially for us Dopers, who come here to practice our rhetoric, hone our arguments… what good is it if you don’t take the goal of fighting ignorance out among the ignorant? And triply so if you’re white, and even more so if you’re a white male.
Lastly, personal safety: I was first doxxed in 1990, 1991, on some local BBS in Atlanta… “Hey, I know you… isn’t your sister <my sister’s name>?” I get at least 2-3 Twitter accounts every year who find out my address and then say “I know where you live”, whereupon my response is “And now @SAPD knows you know where I live, and so does my lawyer @JohnTAttorney. Thanks for the evidence of premeditation.”
Again. White privilege. I have an attorney. Even if I didn’t have an attorney, to look at me, you would not disbelieve me if I said I had an attorney.
Frankly, my likely death is some heart attack or lung disease offing me when I’m 82. If I somehow find myself in a historical context where I end up dying for my beliefs… as an American, I can think of no better ending.
I, honestly, don’t think white male liberals can sit this one out. Fuckin’ speak up if you have the privilege.