Dear fellow entitled white men: We are living in a time of crisis.
Today we learned the sad (and baffling!) news that fellow entitled white man, Nick Kristof, was denied his inalienable right as a property-owning white guy to run for governor of Oregon—despite his clear lack of experience and aptitude for the job! Perhaps the state Supreme Court has forgotten how the rules work. In the following essay, I will remind everyone how the rules—which, lest we forget, were created by entitled white people like ME—work.
Since the dawn of this great country, entitled white people have created a delicate ecosystem of laws and social decorum that keeps America running smoothly for people like us, while putting wads of money in our pockets—which we earned, because we created the damn ecosystem, okay?!? Unfortunately there is a growing segment of our population that has forgotten which side of their bread is buttered, as well as who produces the bread, the butter, and in many cases, the knife with which the butter is spread. (Oh! And pays the waiter at the Portland City Grill who spreads the butter, as well!)
After hundreds of years of everything running just fine and in our favor, suddenly these… people… expect to be on an equal footing with the rest of us (i.e. white, entitled, and the recipients of generational wealth and privilege)? And they hilariously think the rules, which apply only to them, should also apply to us? Like, WHEN HAS THAT EVER BEEN THE CASE?
Take for example, the criminally mistreated Nick Kristof—a fine, white entitled person (and DEMOCRAT, lest we forget) whose only crime was wanting to serve the state where he was born (and occasionally resided in when it suited his needs), while also skirting past the rules that we, as entitled white people, put in place. Ummmmm… hello? (Tap, tap, tap.) Is this thing on? Then once more for those in the back: Those rules DO NOT APPLY TO US. That was always the idea! And it’s only fair. As a reminder, we created this system—therefore we can profit from it and bend those rules as we see fit. Don’t like it? Wipe out and/or disenfranchise an entire race of people and start your own damn country!
WE put in the work (of keeping ourselves in power), therefore WE reap the benefits. WE’RE the ones who use the hard-earned funds we inherited from our lumber baron family to bankroll dark money billboard campaigns to convince the public that Portland is a shithole and therefore they should vote progressive city council members out of office. WE’RE the ones who pay for slanted polls that scare the public into thinking that having a violent, racially biased police force is actually a pretty fair trade-off for the illusion of public safety. And WE are the ones who do the hard work of spreading the rumor that a wide diversity of homeless people are in fact just ONE homeless person named “Dave” who is a drug addled, lazy sex offender who, along with 1,000 other “Daves,” should be forced into a mass homeless prison camp faaaaaar away from the Multnomah Athletic Club.
Frankly? All this work has been exhausting. But what’s the alternative? Allowing those who are not white, entitled, and privileged to change the rules we so carefully put in place? There’s a word for that, my friend, and it’s called “ANARCHY.” (Scared yet? Because that’s why I chose that word.)
So please join me in a moment of silence for the short-lived, wrongly thwarted gubernatorial campaign of fellow inexperienced, entitled white guy, Nick Kristof—and by extension, all white entitled dudes such as myself. And though this is surely a blow to our righteous cause, we have SO MANY entitled white people standing by to replace those who have fallen. We will keep putting our people in positions of power, while also paying slick lobbying groups, creative agencies, and pollsters to continue influencing a gullible local government and populace. Why? Because we—the Nick Kristofs, the Jordan Schnitzers, the Ted Wheelers, the Portland Business Alliances, and Thad Whitcombs (my squash partner at the MAC)—have worked too hard, and spent too much of our parents’ money, to let our god-given privilege be taken away by people like… like… you know, them!
Next week: That idiot waiter at the Portland City Grill brought me Evian instead of Lauquen Artes. What… the… fuck.
