I was thirteen years old....and my mother....having separated from my father....moved back to her childhood home in East Pittsburgh....right alongside the giant Westinghouse factory that employed both of my parent's families since the early 1900s. I had a wonderful summer living with cousins but we had to find a place to live and a school to attend....this being my eighth grade year.
My mother didn't have a lot of money.....and that's an understatement....so finding a modest apartment similar to what we left in Buffalo would not be easy. I remember the taxi ride....(her days of owning a car were long gone.) There was one very pretty community only a couple of miles away....with mostly family homes.....and a few developments with very nice newer homes. I'm guessing that it is only about 150 yards long....the street that God led us to. A young boy my age.....was on a bike....right as we turned the corner....with a raccoon on his shoulder....(and this was odd folks for this is not a rural community....and I had surely never seen a raccoon before.) He would become my best friend.
Well there....right in the middle of brick and framed family homes was a duplex....our new home. Two doors down lived two boys....one just a couple years younger....and the other just a couple of years older. The younger is a professor at Carnegie Mellon....and the older spent his career as a professor at Clemson. A few doors the other way were five boys....that boy with the raccoon on his shoulder....and two younger....and two older. One was a professor at Pitt.....and my best friend an economist for the Army Corps of Engineers. Across the street was the mayor....and his grandson who is today an architect....and there was also the best man at our wedding who is a child psychologist.
I was never able to reach their level of professional vocation....but just being one of them.....through years of front porch games and movies and pizza nights....kept me on the straight and narrow. (that would drastically change later) They naturally went to a private Catholic high school....super-rich in tradition....and I tagged along. They all excelled....as I just got the diploma. Three of us went into the service....two of us to Vietnam....and the third as a medic stationed at Okinawa....treating the wounded from Vietnam.
Friends....this was my....'white privilege!' Had my mother moved to one of the other surrounding communities I would not have had the academic role models....and I would not have attended that high school....which I describe in my profile to this website...."where I would at least I experience, although hardly partake in, a scholarly atmosphere." I probably would not have gone to Pitt on the G. I. Bill after the army....because I would not have had all these friends to give me the impetus.
This has to be said....there are many who did not need all of these benefits that I had....J. D. Vance comes to mind as an example....for they had the will and the determination to succeed on their own. I doubt that I would have had that ability. I am only referring in this post to a future economic status...for these white communities have no claim to being any better than anyone else....or having stronger more loving families....or more intelligence.
The term bandied about so much today....'white privilege'....has legitimacy....I am proof positive of that....but like so many other things....it can and has been terribly distorted. This is what communist methodology does folks. It attempts to belittle and eventually destroy tradition and heritage. If we conservatives simply deny white privilege....then we are making matters worse. It is a difficult responsibility....being vigilant against communism....but at the same time remaining humble and thankful enough to realize blessings we were born into.....but it has to be done.
Noblesse Oblige.....is that French saying where if one is born into nobility then they have a responsibility....an obligation....to show concern for those not so blessed. We are not on the level of nobility....as were the Kennedys....but we still have a choice...go the Ayn Rand way....where we do everything for our own benefit....or go the Christian way....white privilege in way....born again into royalty....only the white here is not the skin color....but the robes that we will be given....
"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands..." Rev. 7:9
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of the One having called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" 1 Peter 2:9
Afterthought: I wanted to add this. There are some who in effect say....'Hey...I had it rough too. We had absolutely nothing....no one gave me anything....and I made it!" There is no doubt that there are multitudes of people like this....but even here....they may not understand the blanket effect of being raised in and by a specific culture. I walked safely to grade schools....sat next to children whose parents may have had a lot of money....nobody knew or cared....played some sort of sandlot sport after school....and then watched Father Knows Best or Gunsmoke or Lucy about people who looked like me....and talked like me.
