Surviving The Fall, 28

I made the mistake of listening to yet another Ideas program about political correctness and Privilege. Those people on the CBC seldom fail to raise my blood pressure. And for the simple reason that they have certain elephants in the room, or they make silent, unspoken assumptions. For example, that all white Canadians are well off, that we all own our own homes, we all drive cars, earn an above average income, have enjoyed post graduate university education, dine in nice restaurants and go on lovely vacations every year that we post on Facebook for our envious coworkers who share with us our lovely, decently remunerated and meaningful occupations. It was one of the Munk Debates, by the way, and it was about whether it is political correctness or progress. Why am I so annoyed? Because in these programs, I don't exist. No one in my category exists, except as an occasional program about what an embarrassing social concern is the poor, underemployed white male. We're not supposed to exist. We are not allowed to exist. And if we do exist, then we are mouth-breathing Trump and Harper supporters on the Alt-Right. We are not allowed to or expected to be: well-read, educated, well-travelled, with progressive views and opinions, fluent in another language, able writers and talented artists, as I happen to be, nor are we allowed or expected to work in underpaid professions with vulnerable adults, as I do. We are expected to be religious, as I am, and if we are then we are Christians, which I am, and mouth-breathing fundamentalists, which I certainly am not, and with below average IQ's (mine is above 140, if you must know, placing me in secure Mensa territory, which I care not a rat's ass about since I don't approve of elitism, intellectual or otherwise. If we are ever mentioned on the CBC we are always spoken of in the context of "The Other". This is such an insidious and nasty expression of classism and casteism that I don`t even know where to begin. Perhaps by explaining to the eggheads of Ideas that when I worked in a homeless shelter for a year in 2003, that almost all of our clients were Caucasians, more men than women, some but not many aboriginals, very few blacks, Latinos and almost no Asians. Yet the theory of White Privilege would have it that the shelter be teeming with people of colour and hardly a pale face to be seen. Neither are the eggheads at Ideas able to explain why so many of our panhandlers and homeless population are-guess-white males. Could it be that the reason why has very little to do with the postmodern nonsense about categories and privilege and a lot more to do with the unfortunate and individual circumstances that people find themselves in: that my own failure to succeed in life might have a lot to do with childhood abuse and family breakdown and instability and simply not being able to do more with my life than survive? Race has nothing to do with my situation. Yes, categories do matter, up to a point, but only insofar as understanding demographic trends. Individual variables trump categories. Get your large heads out of your asses, already and start to think with some sense of nuance, please! And start talking about those of us who don't fall under your neat, safe but intellectually lazy generalizations.