One day after Christmas and the first day of Kwanzaa on December 26th, a young white woman assaulted a 14-year-old Black teenage boy, Keyon Harold, Jr at the Arlo Hotel in NYC because she assumed (without evidence) that he stole her iPhone. Keyon’s father, Grammy Award winning jazz artist Keyon Harold, was able to capture the attack on his cellphone and tweeted out the video of the 22-year-old white woman grabbing the child while repeatedly accusing him of snatching her phone. The “Soho Karen”(as she has been named) then fled the scene before the police arrived after being summoned by the hotel staff. Moments after the video ended, an Uber driver arrived with Soho Karen’s iPhone, which she had left in his vehicle.
Fast forward to January 2, 2021, when the President of the United States made a phone call to the state attorney general of Georgia to pressure him to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour recorded telephone conversation that was posted online in its entirety. The outcome of the Nov 3rd presidential election has the state of Georgia electing the Biden/Harris ticket to be the next president and vice president of the U.S., which was the first time the state had not gone reliably republican since it voted for native son Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, and in 1992 when they voted for Bill Clinton. The state also voted for independent candidate George Wallace for president in 1968. The fact is that Biden/Harris beat Trump/Pence in the November 3rd election by a substantial margin of 306 to 232 electoral college votes and by over 7 million “popular” votes.
By all accounts, this was a clear and definitive victory for the Democratic ticket. However, since the night of the election and in the following days, weeks and months AFTER being beaten, the sitting President of the United States, with the assistance of the GOP (Grand Old Party), has been contesting the outcome of the election by any means necessary. They have protested the outcome vociferously ALL over the media, in the streets, in the courthouses, the state houses and even in the Supreme Court. They have been before judges and panels all over the country and have been given a fair hearing before a multiplicity of bipartisan groups, judges and constituencies with the same results. The election was in FACT, Fair, Legal, and without any irregularities that would in any way affect the outcome. In other words, He LOST, and yet, he refuses to concede or accept that TRUTH as a FACT.
He continues to defy the will of the People of the United States, he continues to trample on protocols and procedures that will ensure a smooth and peaceful transition of power as has been the tradition even during the Civil War. He continues to sow discord, dissension, disruption and disdain. Like a toddler who is told “NO”, he has been raging, breaking things, yelling and screaming, throwing a major temper tantrum that is increasingly threatening the most basic tenets of our democracy and the peace and safety of our Republic. How can he get away with this? The toxic mix of privilege, entitlement and whiteness has been on epic display. It is what both Soho Karen and the malignant narcissist who lives in the White House have in common. They are both living in the culture of the country’s Biggest Entitlement plan, which is White Privilege.
Trevor Noah recently had a segment on his late-night TV show called, “You So Lucky you White!” The satire was clear, biting and REAL. White people “in their privilege” can literally get away with anything in America! There are NO Consequences for their entitled mishaps, miscues, mistakes or maliciousness! In fact, with regard to the POTUS, there are scores of enablers, supplicants, and willing participants in his epic failure of leadership and outrageous and false claims that he actually won the election that he clearly and decisively LOST.
White privilege cannot succeed all by itself. It takes those who are complicit in its care and feeding, those who bask in its historic legacy, and those who are in DENIAL or claim to be oblivious to its existence. All of you bystanders…you are responsible for this! White supremacy and white privilege won’t be uprooted until white people see it as a white issue they need to solve rather than a Black, brown or People of Color issue they need to empathize with.
White privilege is America’s BIGGEST entitlement plan, period.