Privilege as Self-Protection
I was going to eat fried fish last night, drink Japanese beer, watch some stupid farm anime. Instead I spent three hours on Twitter getting into it with people who seemed absolutely convinced that every problem in their lives came down to exactly two things: gender and skin color. Not luck, not effort, not anything they actually did. Just those.
The whole thing started because this activist named Malaika went after one of the writers here—Jana—and when #NotJustSad got picked up by real outlets, Malaika decided it was only because Jana’s white. Not because Jana did the work well, just her face. I got pulled in defending that, which was dumb, but there it was.
What got to me wasn’t even the specific claim. It was how perfectly airtight the whole thing seemed. The system’s rigged, so nothing’s your fault, so why try. I get the appeal. I do this all the time. I’ve got a thousand excuses ready whenever something doesn’t work out—wrong body, wrong look, wrong time, nobody takes me seriously. They all feel true and they’re way easier than admitting you might just not be good enough.
Do men have it easier than women? Yeah. Do white people have it easier? Yeah. That’s real and it’s bad. But somewhere people learned to take those facts and use them as a ceiling on what they can do. The system’s broken, so I’m broken, so nothing matters. And then they spend all their energy proving the system is broken instead of just building something anyway.
I could do that. White guy, so obviously I should be destroying it, right? When I’m not, I could blame the gatekeeping, the resentment, the people who hate what I am. It would feel incredible. It would mean nothing was ever my fault.
But the honest version is way simpler. You didn’t get the job because you interviewed badly and your portfolio sucked. You didn’t get the girl because you don’t shower enough and you’re boring as hell. You got benched because you can’t keep your balance. It’s painful but it’s real, and it’s the only place anything actually changes.
What got weird was when people started attacking me for being white and male, like my opinion was automatically invalid because of what I look like. Which is—that’s the exact same logic, right? Judge someone before you listen based on their genetics. And when I pointed it out they just got angrier. You don’t understand because you’re white.
Okay, so we both agree your demographic shouldn’t determine if people listen to you. Good. So why are we angry.
I’m not saying systemic stuff doesn’t exist. I’m saying it’s really easy to hide behind, and most people do, and I do too. I just hide it better because my excuses sound more thoughtful. I’m not more honest than anyone else. I’m just better at lying to myself in sophisticated ways.
I wanted fish and beer and an anime about farming. What I got was three hours thinking about how I do the exact same thing, how easy it is to point at the world and say that’s why,
how hard it is to just look at what you can control and do it. Put in the work. Get better. Stop waiting. The system should change. But if you’re waiting around for permission, that’s a choice too.