Calling Out Google Privilege

-Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay-

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"We want Google to be the third half of your brain." -Sergey Brin


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Recently, I wrote about white privilege. In the course of researching that letter, I learned a lot and now it's time to call out Google privilege. I'm a current events junkie and if what I've been able to surmise is correct...

WARNING! - Your semi-humble correspondent is wrong with disturbing regularity!

Googlers are, for the most part, proudly and overwhelmingly members of the Blue tribe.

Which is fine, it's still a relatively free country. Now...

You know... At this point, a more garrulous and less woke and loving man than myself might digress and point out that in spite of the fact some of our friends on the left predicted that the Orange One was going to dissolve the Republic and declare himself King Donald the first it never happened.

His political opponents haven't been incarcerated in secret FEMA camps and...

No, wait, secret FEMA camps is a conspiracy meme embraced by some of our friends on the right, right? Wait a sec', I...

[Cough, cough. Google privilege?] 

Thanks, Dana.


Google privilege is double privilege. First of all, it's white male privilege.

Despite literally years of wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Blue tribe, and even though the Googlers excommunicated James Damore for the sin of speculating that perhaps many women are too smart and too civilized to want to join Eric Schmidt and the boys on the creepy line...

“The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” -Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO

"Google crosses the creepy line every day." -Dr. Robert Epstein

Google is plagued by white (and to a lesser extent, yellow) male privilege.  

Your semi-humble correspondent dug up and read not one, but two Wired magazine articles chock full of charts and statistics so that my gentlereaders wouldn't have to. 

Both report that Google (and the other techmosters) are overwhelmingly staffed by white and Asian men in spite of literally billions of bucks and billions of words spent on the quest for diversity. 

It makes me wonder if most of the members of the 1,001 officially recognized gender/racial/ethnic/sexual/etceteral identity groups are actually more concerned with the selfish pursuit of happiness than they are with diversity. 

However, given all the folks who make a living, directly or indirectly, from the diversity business:

Writers of magazine articles, the Infotainment industry, HR departments, college administrators, politicians, bureaucrats employed by the gummits and The Fedrl Gummit, consultants, etceterants...

Too much diversity too fast might bring on a recession.        


The Goog also benefits from disruption privilege. The Silicon Valley techies worship at the altar of disruption. Why? because as famous bank robber Willie didn't actually say, "That's where the money is."

For the record, Mr. Sutton, in his autobiography, modestly admits that he never actually said it, that some reporter or other made it up to spice up an article and it caught on.

I dunno though... Hard to imagine that a member of the fourth estate would put their integrity, dignity, and credibility on the line for profit and job security. 

The sort of billionaires that apparently will never have enough money (serial accumulators?) and the wannabe billionaires who are living in the Goog's parking lot dream of "disrupting" (destroying) an established industry via software and/or cutting edge hardware to make a name and a pile.

Another for the record: All I want is six million (with an m, not a b) and you'll never hear from me again (I've got it all planned out). 

If any one of my tens of readers happens to be an absurdly rich tech lord (I'm talkin' to you Ev Williams) and would like me to shut up and/or suspend my campaign to be the first king of the United States, please email me at: 
theflyoverlandcrank@gmail.com.


Anyways, for a group of people, the majority of whom I'll wager consider themselves to be members of the Social Justice Warrior National Guard or Reserve, they don't seem overly concerned with the fate of the disruptees.

They don't discriminate though. This applies equally to their fellow Democrats as well as the Deplorables and Bitter Clingers of the Red tribe.

[What about that Universal Basic Income thingy? A lot of 'em support that.]

Yeah — paid for with additional taxes on everybody. As you're well aware, Dana I'd prefer that the Pete's Pals and Bernie-bros that make a living from slicing, dicing, and selling our data cut us in before The Fedrl Gummit steps in and makes everything worse.

Speaking of which, Bernie? Seriously dude? The professional socialist of little accomplishment, net worth $2,500,000, owner of three homes, even older than me who recently had a heart attack? 

And while I'm at it... Pete? Is a 38-year old whose political claim to fame is running a small city with mixed results what we're looking for? I think...

[You're ranting and digressing again and you're nearly out of words... And regardless, Sleepy Joe and Fauxcahauntos are hangin' in. And don't forget Bloomberg, he's got a ton of executive experience and he's so dedicated to public service that he bought a third term as mayor, despite term limits, knowing NYC still needed him.]

The Donald vs. One of the above. Hoo-boy.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Cranky don't tweet. 

The 1963 Jeep Pickup Truck

The Crank's close encounter with a 1963 Jeep pickup truck

-Image by Markus Distelrath from Pixabay- 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"Technology is constantly improving our lives. Look at the cellular telephone. Just ten years ago, virtually nobody was able to get into a car crash caused by trying to steer and dial at the same time; today, people do this all the time." 
                                                                                              -Dave Berry 



Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I, Marcus Mehlmauer, a.k.a. Flyoverland Crank, do hereby certify and affirm that the following account is 91.39% true. I invoked the rights and privileges granted by my poetic license lightly and tastefully.


Recently, I was in the process of returning home after picking up my oldest granddaughter at work. I was driving my daughter's car. The burger distribution point Sticky #2 works at is less than a 10-minute drive away.

I was using my daughter's car instead of mine because it's much newer, has a much better sound system, and primarily because it was parked much closer to the front door than my car, which was parked "out back."

I put my right turn signal on and had made it about a foot into the driveway when someone decided to pass us (my granddaughter's best friend, probationary Sticky #5, and my youngest grandson, Sticky #4, were along for the ride) — on the right.

To accomplish this... let's call him Dick to protect his privacy, Dick had to drive up on the sidewalk of our next-door neighbor's house, squeeze between us and an oak tree in my front yard and skid to stop about a foot short of a telephone pole.

He was now parked on our portion of the sidewalk.


Dick, as you can tell, is one hell of a driver.

Unfortunately, he clipped the door behind which Sticky 2 was sitting and the right front fender of my daughter's formerly pretty and pristine SUV, Ms. Iddybiddy, (her horn sounds like it came out of a toy car) as he went sailing by in a 1963 jeep pickup truck made of cast iron.

We exchanged obligatory you okays? and through gritted teeth, I inquired as to why he had just done what he had just done. He calmly replied that since I had signaled that I was turning left he had decided to pass me on the right.

I pointed out there were three passengers in my car who would beg to disagree as to which turn signal I had employed. This remark provoked a reaction I would describe as air slowly leaving a balloon.

I also pointed out that most folks — even if what he claimed was true — not having his superior driving skills, would have stopped and waited patiently rather than drive through my front yard and that I thought this might have been the more prudent choice on his part.


I initiated a document exchange and dispatched one of the kids to get mom and dad — and call the cops out of earshot of Dick — who was having a spot of trouble trying locating the relevant documentation for what he said was his friend's truck.

Realizing what might have happened to me or my passengers if Dick wasn't such a talented driver and had rear-ended us, or hit the aforementioned door harder, my legs began to tremble as shock and surprise were shoved aside by anger.

I was about to approach Dick (shuffling through the contents of the truck's glove box) and um... express my displeasure when my daughter, son-in-law, and more Stickies appeared and four SUVs of the local constabulary pulled up, one right after the other in front of our house, lights flashing.


I changed my mind and stood off to one side. As I took in deep breaths of the cold, clean night air it occurred to me that if I were driving by I would think there was a significant drug bust in progress or that at least a heinous murderer had been cornered in my house and hostages taken.

I also noticed, that in spite of this festival of emergency lights, many people were driving by way too fast, all things considered. You'd think they would slow down to get a good look at a 1963 Jeep pickup truck that was more primer than paint and parked on the sidewalk.

The gummit of our rusty little town suffers from chronic cash flow problems and has for years. In spite of this, our unionized gummit employees struggle to maintain services at the highest possible level.

For example, they're currently objecting to volunteers from a prison a few rusty towns over going around picking up trash occasionally. Clearly not the way to maintain high standards. 

Forgive the digression but I was thinking of suggesting that a couple of the unionized cops should be handing out tickets and turning this non-crisis into a profitable evening.

But now I was asked to produce relevant documents and to tell my story and I decided they likely field enough helpful suggestions, and take enough crap, so I didn't bring it up.

The fact that the two cops that were processing me repeatedly voiced some version of, "He passed you on the right by driving through your yard?!?" and were struggling to repress grins restored me to my happy place in short order.


Anyways, It took a while but eventually, all the eyes were dotted and all the teas were crossed. Unfortunately for Dick, he was officially cited. It seems that it's against the law to pass by driving through someone's front yard regardless of the extenuating circumstances: real, imagined, or hallucinated.

[Well, all's well that ends well, right?]

Right, Dana.

After being interrogated, at great length, by my daughter's insurance company like a suspected murderer "in the box" of your favorite police drama, "Why were you using your daughter's car and not your car"...

Just like on TV, the same questions were asked six different ways to make sure the perp wasn't lying. I was hoping I wasn't going to be beaten with a phone book.

After spending five days and dealing with four cops to get the screwed up official accident report amended...

After waiting for three weeks (and counting) waiting on my daughter's insurance company to tell us what's what...

A glimmer of light has been spotted at the end of the tunnel.

Also, my faith in my fellow man has been restored. There are all sorts of lawyers and chiropractors sending notes of concern and asking if they can help.

[What's a phone book?]
         
Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.
     

White Privilege

-Image by Barbara Bonanno from Pixabay- 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too." -Voltaire


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Please bear with me while I lay a foundation for some thoughts on White Privilege.

I'm an unattractive, old, white, heterosexual, cisgendered dude.

For a while there I self-identified as a gorgeous, young, black, lesbian dudette by the name of Cocoa (picture Halle Berry) who was trapped in the body of an unattractive, old, white, heterosexual, cisgendered dude — named Mark.

However, in the course of spending nearly two years in a secret monastery in the Wudang Mountains of China in search of enlightenment (so secret there's not even a gift shop or restaurant to serve the tourist trade), Cocoa was reabsorbed into the one soul.

I'm still not enlightened, but I came to realize that Cocoa was a false persona created by my formerly fragile ego to cope with what I used to regard as a veritable blitzkrieg of existential threats.

[Used to regard? How do ya repel a blitzkrieg of...]

Embrace the Way of Ishkabibble.

[Pray tell, Cranky Tzu, what is the Way of Ishkabibble?] 

Well, Dana, the word itself is a faux Yiddish, archaic slang word that's been around for over a hundred years that was originally translated as "I should worry!" with a sarcastic twist that rendered it "Don't worry!" or "Who Cares?".

The definitive, relatively modern translation, in my semi-humble opinion, that captures the full meaning of the concept behind the word is expressed in the motto of the immortal Alfred E. Newman, "What, me worry?".

A more recent translation is the repellent, "What-ever" with the second half of the word accented enough to match an actual or implied eye roll. Yet another indicator of a culture in decline.

[That's a, uh, deep foundation ya got there, not Cocoa, but the title of this missive, if I can remember that far back, is White Privilege, yes?]

Yes, indeed.


Recently, I was thinking about the whole white privilege meme in light of the aforementioned personal existential threats  — past, present, and potential — in the course of a rough day when I wasn't basking in the usual warm glow of my privilege.

Just one example, if you please.

If you're over fifty years old in this country, and certainly no shortage of other countries,

And,

If you don't embody some version of pretty, successful, fit, healthy, and at least locally famous — the order and importance of the adjectives vary  — you are effectively invisible, and scheduled for deletion.

Being blessed, like me, with having actual loved ones mitigates this condition somewhat.

I chose this particular example because regardless of who or what you identify as, or actually are, this applies to everyone, even those of you still young enough to assume you'll live forever. Even those of you playing some version of the __ is the new 40 game.

I'm not going to mention my health problems, my financial problems, my severe case of recurring Been There/Done That/Is That All There Is disease with complications from Glass Half Full syndrome.

I'm not even going to bring up... Well, nevermind.

Ishkabibble.


Intuiting that I might be onto something interesting, I consulted that indispensable and unassailable compendium of knowledge, Wikipedia. 

"White privilege denotes both obvious and less obvious passive advantages that white people may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice." 

This paragraph ends with, "The concept of white privilege also implies the right to assume the universality of one's own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal."

Yes, definitely interesting. 

The next paragraph, from which I will not quote, delves into... Well, while I'm obviously not a highly trained, tenured professor in either the field of whiteness studies or critical race theory...

[There's no such thing as whiteness studies, you're makin' that up! And as far as...] 

Nuh-uh, as Donnie Baker would say, "I swear to God, you can look it up." 

Anyways, I would describe the next paragraph as a summary of the reasons the experts in these cutting edge new fields of study don't agree about exactly what white privilege is. 

The rest of this exhaustive article, that boasts 176 citations confirms this, but obviously, they're working hard on it. I suspect that they will continue, undaunted, till they get to the bottom of things. 



While we wait, I, a humble layperson, can't help but wonder if any of the scholars in these two fields  — both privileged, tenured profs and their personal slaves, grad students and postdocs, have given any thought to the following.

In their fearless pursuit of the truth — even the currently fashionable, untestable, and unverifiable version of truth, the oft-mentioned lived experience — have they considered that this may all be a bunch of crap.  

[Excuse me! You can't just...]

Sure I can. There's a warning label at the beginning of every column and anyone that knows me and/or has read more than a column or two knows, I'm Mark-Mark the cute and cuddly Panda bear. 

Behold the wisdom (and rewrite) of Cranky Tzu: 

"Smart/athletic/funny/perceptual/beautiful/etceteral privilege denotes both obvious and less obvious passive advantages that white people H. sapiens may or may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice."


Most of us have some sort of innate, unearned ability that many of the rest of us don't and that we often as not take for granted. All of us employ bias and prejudice deduced from our lived experience, overtly and otherwise, just to get through the damn day.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.   

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.