Rep. Dean Phillips: "I'm here tonight to say to my brothers & sisters in Congress & all around our country, I'm sorry. For I've never understood, really understood, what privilege really means. It took a violent mob of insurrectionists & lightning-bolt moment in this very room." pic.twitter.com/PqnoBMiQDu

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2021

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. Barry Switzer, University of Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach, as quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 1986.

Reading about some of the reactions to the Donald Trump instigated insurrection I was struck by how different it was for people of color than it was for the White Representatives. It brought home how privileged my life has been. I was born on third base and for most of my life, I thought I had gotten there on my own. As a teenager and into my twenties, I had a series of summer jobs as a Union Carpenter. In those days, you could become a Union member if you had a job offer and there were no Union carpenters available to fill the position. The job I was offered was grunt work, nailing off plywood floors in a large apartment complex. This was before the days of nail guns and the job only paid apprentice wages but it was a good job for a seventeen-year-old.

I went to the local and applied for a Union card, they told me to come back on a Thursday night membership meeting. At the meeting, three of us were voted in. I don’t remember saying anything, we just stood in front of the assembled members, facing away from them so we couldn’t see the voting, and got voted in. There were no Black applicants or members, there were no Mexicans or Asians, just three White guys trying to get in an all-white guy Union club (which we all three did).

Now, thinking back on that initiation, I suspect – more than suspect, really – the process was designed to keep Black and other minority guys out of what we called “The Trades” although Black guys could become Laborers. It never occurred to me that I was able to get in because I am White. In the Army, when I ended up in the Command and Control Platoon in Korea while the Black soldiers were in the Generator or the Launcher Platoons, I thought it was because of my brains and my outstanding work. I thought it was just a coincidence that there were no Black soldiers in Command and Control (but there were a couple of stupid White guys).

When Sam Berland and I started our own business, we took the numbers for our first project to a banker we knew from our days of being in management at Shapell Industries. The banker was White and we talked about the deal over lunch. A lunch between a couple of friends, with much in common, having a friendly discussion over a couple of drinks.

Looking back on it, none of these successes would have happened if I had been Black. I want to add, probably defensily, that I am a Liberal, I’ve been a Liberal for as long as I can remember being anything, and I grew up believing that everybody should have equal rights and I have tried to act that way. Still, I didn’t see the sea of privilege I was swimming in. I thought my breaks were because of me as an outstanding individual not because I am an average White Male.

The opposite of being an average White Male, like me, is being an extraordinary Woman of Color like Rashida Tlaib. Where I can fit in, they always stand out. I have never thought somebody was trying to kill me for what I am. Although, as an aside, I once thought somebody was going to kill me for something I had done. The threat lasted about three days and was very scary. I was distracted from everything else going on in my life. End aside. I can not imagine what it must be like for the women of the Squad who are threatened almost every day. Let me leave you with an example.

“On my very first day of orientation, I got my first death threat.” –@RashidaTlaibhttps://t.co/ScWStkNjYr

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) February 5, 2021