Checking My Privilege

Back when I was in college( right after electricity, just before indoor plumbing ), the big thing on everyone's  mind was the existential battle going on between Communism and Democracy, represented by the Cold War standoff between us and the Soviet Union. Maybe it was the nuclear arsenals and all the saber rattling, but it seemed that no matter what class you were in, eventually the subject would come up. Existential conflicts will do that to you, I suppose. Sure, there were other issues, the Iran hostage crisis, for example, and gas lines. But basically, all the intellectual heavy lifting was being done in the arena of international politics.

Well, thanks to having had two kids finish grad school, I have been introduced to a brand new concept, which thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall, has risen to the top of the heap in academia...privilege, specifically my need as a white man to check mine. I am not schooled in the finer points of this issue, but from what I am able to pick up on social media, I will attempt an explanation. I welcome anyone reading this who is in their middle twenties, to correct me if I get this wrong.

Apparently, society runs along within a patriarchal construct, whereby white men enjoy tremendous advantages in practically every area of life, even and especially when they aren't aware of this advantage. It permeates all aspects of human interaction, and the only way to overcome it is to first, be aware of this privilege, and second, to check it. By "check it" I assume this would take the form of some sort of self-censoring, self denial mechanism whereby we white men, upon sensing that we are about to become the beneficiary of some huge unfair advantage that our whiteness affords, suddenly correct our behavior in a way that places us at the back of the line, behind people of every other color, and women...lots of women. I thought, in my ignorant privilege, that this was what affirmative action
was all about. But, AA is just the legal arm of the issue, while the "check your privilege" concept is
more like a hearts and minds sort of thing. The list of things that I enjoy privilege in is rather long and includes, but I'm sure is not limited to:

1. White privilege.

2. Male privilege.

3. Wealth privilege.

4. Heterosexual privilege.

5. Able-bodied privilege.

6. Educated privilege.

That's a lot of privilege. And to think that when I was born in 1958 I spent my first year living in a trailer park in south side Richmond. But, I suppose the fact that I have managed to overcome those humble beginnings serves as proof of just how powerful those privileges are. The fact that the
majority of those who lived in that trailer park in 1958 are statistically still there does not in any way call into question the power of privilege, rather they serve as an indictment of the unfairness inherent in a life that is ruled by the class struggle. My escape from the trailer park only proves that I benefitted from:

7. Competitive privilege.....the unfair advantage that many white males have gained by participation in team sports at a young age.

Of course, to fully buy-in to this privilege thing, I would need to devalue most of what I've accomplished so far in my life, since it was all so ill-gotten and undeserved. It would also require a reorientation of my thinking about what brings success in life. Instead of relentless hard work and sacrifice being the source of good fortune, I would have to believe that the guarantor of prosperity was the random accident of my birth as a white, able-bodied, heterosexual male. If I do this, I will become a guilt-ridden, self-loathing, emasculated wuss....which from much of what I have read seems to be the whole idea.

I better check my:

8. Sarcasm privilege.

It's All My Mother's Fault

"I think being in charge of 112 hormonal humans each day at work has awoke a Dunnevant Family take-charge brazenness that's lain dormant within me for most of my life. I smiled and nodded understandingly through plenty of nonsense and inconvenience as a younger woman, but my tolerance for incompetence has worn thin. Today, after being told that my car would stay in the repair shop for yet another day, I heard myself declare in no uncertain terms and without missing a beat that the lag time on this repair was unacceptable, that my husband and I were very disappointed in the poor customer service, and that we expected better. My tone made ME nervous. I mean, I came close to issuing him a lunch detention. The man stuttered and stammered for a while and then miraculously found a way to finish the repair before closing time tonight.

Lately, when I hear myself speaking, I feel simultaneously impressed by my assertiveness and humbled by my lack of patience and grace. Whichever way the cookie crumbles, I blame/credit the shenanigans of my 112 middle schoolers...and the Dunnevants."

                                                                                                   

When I read my daughter's Facebook status from yesterday, I had my own "simultaneously impressed and humbled" moment. I had such high hopes for Kaitlin. I thought that maybe, just maybe she was going to turn out to be the nice one. I mean, Linda and Bill have Christina so it is possible. But no...two years of middle school has unleashed that old familiar family tradition in my sweet, beautiful Kaitlin. I blame my mother. It's all her fault. Let me explain.

Anyone who knew my Dad would tell you that there never lived a kinder, more gentle soul. He was a true gentleman, possessed of endless patience, and when not in the pulpit, he was the very definition of tact. He managed to pass on these admirable traits to zero of his children. Why? Because my mother's genes were dominant. We all inherited her opinionated, forceful, aggressive, argumentative,(notice the great literary lengths to which I am going in order to avoid the word, "RUDE") nature. As such, there are a long list of occupations to which Dunnevants are ill-suited. For example:

DIPLOMAT

Ambassador From Kyrgyzstan: My country would like to object in the strongest way to the Imperialist Dogs of America who are attempting to plunder my country's natural resources in a capitalist conspiracy to...

Me: You smell.

POLITICIAN

Constituent: I've been out of work for two years and now they tell me my unemployment checks are going to be cut off! I want you to do something about this outrage.

Me: What do I look like, your mother?  Two years on the public doll is enough, you lazy slob.

A dear friend of mine said to me the other day, " Doug, some days I wish so much that I could be like you and just not care what anyone thought about me." This, I believe, is what is known as a back-handed compliment. And it's not entirely true. It's not that I don't care what people think of me, it's more like I don't care...very much. Whenever my buddies at work are at a restaurant together and there's a problem with service they all look at me and say, "Well? Aren't you gonna say something?" 

This is all my mother's fault. There's a reason why she was famous for the expression, "getting up in the pictures" although none of us is quite sure what it means exactly, we are quite sure it isn't a compliment. So when I read Kaitlin's status and imagined her getting all up in the pictures with that unfortunate mechanic, giving him the business, I was at once proud and disappointed. 

Maybe my grandchildren will be like Papa.

Stupid Stuff We Ask The Military To Do

There's a new commercial that runs on sports talk radio advertising the virtues of the United States Navy. In it a deep baritone voice lists the things that the Navy is busy doing this very minute, everything from keeping an eye on terrorists to patrolling the hostile waters off the coast of every trouble spot on the planet. And then this:

"...and building a school for disadvantaged kids in the third world."

Wait...what?

Ok, listen...I love schools. I love kids. Kids going to school is about the most wholesome, feel-good optic ever. But, we're talking about the U.S. Navy here. What in the name of Admiral Nimitz are a bunch of sailors doing building a school, uh, anywhere? You want to know why our defense budget consumes a half a trillion dollars a year? You won't have to look much farther than a platoon of ensigns throwing up a school in the Sudan. This is what happens when Statists like George Bush and Barack Obama decide that our military should get into the business of "nation building." This puts the creep into mission creep.

Throughout its long and storied history, the United States military has proven itself adept at a short list of things, namely, killing people and breaking things. Frankly, that's all I want them involved in, and rarely do I want them doing even that. Besides, no offense to the Sudanese, but I can think of a couple of places in America that could use a new school or two.

Speaking of things the U.S. Military has no business doing... In light of the recent tragedy in the Mediterranian where over 800 souls perished trying to escape the horrors of Libya, perhaps we should ask ourselves how our intervention in the Libyan Civil War has worked out. Remember back in 2011 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told us about the horrible things going on in Libya, about what a horrible man Qaddafi was and that we just HAD to do something to protect innocent civilians? Yeah, well we helped the rebels depose of the autocratic man who had ruled that unruleable land for over forty years, declared victory, and split. Now the place is the very definition of chaos and is being run by an unholy alliance of cut-throats, people smugglers, psychopaths and ISIS shock troops parading Christians on its beaches where their grizzly executions are filmed for our viewing pleasure. Victory, indeed.

We can expect a whole lot more of this sort of thing because of the universally true adage about military adventures being the father of unintended consequences. Add Libya to the long and growing list of things that are none of our freaking business. Next year when you are trying to decide who to support for President, perhaps you should ask yourself, which one of these people will be least likely to want to ask the Marines to build a community center in Bangladesh. 

God's Plan To Keep Virginians Humble

Being a native Virginian, I have often bragged about the happy accident of my origins...Southern by birth, Virginian by the grace of God...that sort of thing. Besides the rich historical heritage of my home state comes the special geographic charm of living in a place which is equidistant from the Blue Ridge mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, we have four separate and distinct seasons. We get snow in the winter, beautiful greenery in the spring, hot summers and gorgeous fall foliage. However, once a year we also get something else, something that for a brief season makes me hate where I live. 

 Pollen.

Yes, about the time that we shake off the surly bonds of winter, we start noticing the yellow/green menace. It begins to sneak into our lives, a thin haze of goo, the residue of a veritable orgy of plant copulation going on all around us. All this vegetation has no shame, no sense of decorum. Everywhere you look, all manor of stamen, anthers and pistils are doing their business in full view, with no concern for the God awful mess they leave behind. It is left to us to clean it from our cars, our driveways and side walks. It is up to us to somehow prevent it from infiltrating our homes. Just this morning amidst radiant sunshine and mild temperatures, I briefly forgot that I am a Virginian and it is mid April. I foolishly decided to take my breakfast out on the deck. Within five minutes I noticed that a yellow film had coated the top of my coffee. It took five freaking minutes!!!

So, for the next month or so, Short Pump will see probably half of its citizens clutching white hankerchiefs in one hand and a bottle of Claritan in the other. Everyone's eyes will be red and runny, and half of us will be high on some sort of anti-histamine, making car travel on Three Chopt, Pump and Broad an even dicier proposition than normal. You put a West End woman behind the wheel of a Tahoe under the best of circumstances, and your odds of damage are pretty high. Hype that woman up on Benadryl and you've got an M1 Abrams tank with a half blind teenager at the wheel.

Then there's the problem of what to do with the cars. I mean, you can't just drive them around with an inch of nature on the windshield, but you also can't spend 30 bucks at Carpool getting them cleaned either. So, you put them in the drive way each night and while wearing all the required protective clothing, you hose the things down. Then you watch the yellow river of pollen flowing down your driveway into the street, a trail of tears. Then you turn the leaf blower on yourself before going back inside the house. Still, a cleansing shower must be taken before you dare get into bed for the night.

Fortunately for we Virginians, this is only a four to five week adventure. It is the price we pay for being so clearly better than the other 49, God's way of keeping us humble, I suppose. There's more I could write on this subject but I've gotta go to Lowe's to buy some air filters.

Lucy and Me at the Hospital

In the past 24 hours I have discovered that the only place worse than an actual hospital is a pet hospital. Last night I spent 3 and a half hours at the Veterinary Referral & Critical Care facility in Manakin-Sabot with Miss Lucy. I spent most of that time in the "family room" waiting on reports from the doctors, and talking with my fellow stressed pet owners. I heard the life story of a 14 year old diabetic Chitzu who was near the end of her life. Through a stream of tears, a middle aged single woman told me about her chocolate lab Willow, who, like Lucy, had eaten something she had no business eating and was now plagued with gastro-intestinal issues. Since this woman had never married and had no children, Willow was her child and she didn't know what she would do if she didn't pull through. About the time I figured that the place couldn't possibly get any more depressing, in walked a giant of a man clutching a Dalmatian puppy close to his chest pleading with the nurses to help his little guy who had apparently broken one of its back legs and was in extreme discomfort.

It was a long night.

In Lucy's case, it has been a couple of days since she has eaten anything, and after a rather routine bowel movement 36 hours ago, she has been a hot mess, obsessed and extremely agitated with her bottom. She can't take two steps without practically giving herself whiplash whirling around trying to smell or inspect it. Her personality has drastically changed; she wants nothing to do with us. It's as if she is embarrassed by whatever is wrong back there and wants to be by herself. Well, 36 hours, three trips to the Vet and pet hospital, two sets of X-Rays and $987.36 later we still don't quite know what's wrong. Although there are no obstructions, she obviously ate something out in the yard that has given her fits as it makes its way through her system, vomiting and now diarrhea. They kept her last night for observation and hydration and as I type this, I am waiting for the promised 7 am phone call from the Vet to let me know how she did during the night and to inform me of what the next step should be. At least no surgery will be required which was very much a possibility last night.

See, this is the thing with dogs. They barrel into your life like an out of control freight train, completely disrupting your routine. You throw everything into their care, spend ridiculous amounts of money in pursuit of their happiness, then slowly feel them wrapping their tentacles around your heart. In no time, despite bathroom accidents, ubiquitous slobber and occasionally ill-placed vomit, you wake up one day and realize that you are hopelessly in love with a 60 pound shedding monster. Then they dig up some plutonium in the back yard for an afternoon snack and you wind up at the Veterinary Referral & Critical Care facility listening to a brick layer telling you the story of an eight year old Boston Terrier named Max. You're actually fighting back tears.

Dog ownership is not for the selfish, not for the poor and definitely not for the faint of heart.

The Ticking Clock Called April 15th

Today is April 15th, the day that federal taxes are due. My life is oriented around this day. As of this writing, my return is not yet in my hands, but I am assured by Carl, my accountant, that it will be ready in time. I have no idea how much I'll owe. I hope it's not very much, but I'm prepared to be disappointed.

I am not an anti-tax zealot. I have no objection to paying them. Taxes are what free people pay for the privilege of living in a free country. I may object to how much I have to pay or how it's spent, but not to the concept of taxation itself. Further, even if I think I am over-taxed and the government wastes money, it's up to me to pay what I owe. It's the law of the land, and I have no patience for free-loaders.

Still, there is a part of me that resents how large a roll April 15th plays in my life. The complexity of taxation seems intentionally baked into the cake, making it necessary for me to hire an accountant to navigate me through the maze of schedules and forms. I feel helpless. When Carl delivers my return to me today, it will resemble a college thesis written by a math major with the gift of gab. I won't even bother to look at the pages and pages and pages that follow the cover page, because it's the cover page that helpfully distills the matter into a sentence that I can understand, " please sign where indicated and make a check payable to the United States Treasury in the amount of $........" 

Although I love Carl and I happily pay him for his invaluable services every year, I resent that I need him. The fact that our system of taxation is so bizarrely complex is at the root of almost every dysfunction in Washington since it is precisely this complexity that gives those in Washington their power. Imagine how fast K Street would become an abandoned city if our 50,000 page tax code were replaced with a flat tax with no deductions. Try to imagine how less sinister our Congressmen and women would be if they were stripped of their ability to micro-manage our lives through the tax code. The reason that most of Washington is against tax reform generally and the flat tax in particular is because they all know this to be true. 

Personally, I would be in favor of a flat tax even if it meant I would have to pay more. Ironically, even if it could be proven that a flat tax would increase revenue to the government, nobody in government would want it. They would rather retain the power to encourage me to use wind-powered, carbon-neutral solar-paneled lawn mowers by giving me an accelerated depreciation allowance and a tax credit, that I will have to hire an accountant to figure out how to claim. 

"Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You?"

I have written blogs about each candidate who announces for the Presidency. This one is about the latest, Marco Rubio, senator from Florida. Actually, it’s not going to be about him, but rather about something he said in his announcement speech that has resonated with me. I have no idea whether or not I will support Rubio, I don’t yet know enough about him. He may very well be a jerk, for all I know, but these lines spoke to me,

“I am humbled by the realization that America doesn’t owe me anything; but I have a debt to America I must try to repay. This isn’t just the country where I was born; America is the place that changed my family’s history.”

Fifty-five years ago, a Democratic President stood on the capitol steps and stirred America with these famous words,

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

John Kennedy was the very last Democrat to make such a suggestion to us. Every Democrat since has had a very different message which can best be described as, “Vote for me and I’ll make sure that the government takes care of you.” In all fairness, Republicans haven’t been much better. Each election seems to be a contest between which party will bring home the most bacon. Washington is now viewed as the source of all solutions to the problems we face. The government now has morphed into a giant vending machine that dispenses favors and benefits. You want 
subsidies for your struggling business? Have our lobbyists write a sweet deal into the 
tax code. You want to insure that buying a home gets subsidized by your fellow 
taxpayers? Give money to the Real Estate lobby to fight tax reform. You want the government to pay you unemployment benefits forever when you lose your job? No problem, vote Democrat. They have all the compassion with other people’s money you can possibly imagine.

Ronald Reagan came along and reminded us that the ten scariest words in the English language are, “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you.” But, although his heart was in the right place, even he couldn’t slow the inexorable growth of the power and reach of the federal government. Today, it seems that the trend away from self-reliance and towards the welfare state is complete and irreversible.

Then, this 43 year old presidential candidate declares that this country owes him nothing. Not only does it owe him nothing, but he’s the one with the debt, because this country made his life and the life of his family possible. As someone who was born in 1958 into a family who had recently lived in a trailer park in south side Richmond, Virginia, I feel exactly the same way. On the day that I was born, no one in my extended family had ever attended college. One of my grandfathers was a sharecropper in Buckingham County. Now, I sit at this laptop computer contemplating the astounding good fortune which has come my way from a land of such profound opportunity…and I feel nothing but gratitude. I’m the one with the debt. And although Marco Rubio might not get my support, I for one am grateful for a candidate who dares to call us back to a time when all of us felt that debt and that gratitude.