{"id":858,"date":"2019-12-20T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T17:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/?p=858"},"modified":"2019-12-20T09:47:08","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T17:47:08","slug":"wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.<\/p><p>\u2014Justice Felix Frankfurter<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I read this quote recently and it struck a nerve. Over the last few months my eyes have been opened to what it means to be a white man in America. Having been a white man in America for decades now, this seems like an odd realization. I am a natural navel-gazer, and I\u2019ve spent a lot of time mining the depths of my own mind and psyche. I haven\u2019t spent a lot of time understanding where I fit in society. I read widely, so I certainly had heard of \u201cwhite privilege\u201d prior to doing the deep work with diversity, equity, and inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like many white guys, the first time I heard the phrase I mentally recoiled. Who was telling me I had privilege? How dare they paint me with such a broad brush! What did they know about my life, my troubles, my struggles? And besides, how could someone be anti-racist while racializing something like privilege? Wasn\u2019t that hypocrisy? WTF!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over time I learned the true meaning of white privilege, but it remained an abstract intellectual concept. It wasn\u2019t until I was able to see and internalize the ways in which society blocks progress for people of color, and for black men in particular, that I began to understand what it means to be a white man in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I suppose once white people begin to have a recognition of their privilege, they have some choices about what to do with that knowledge: engage with it and try to reshape spheres of influence; shove it way down deep and pretend you still don\u2019t know any better; embrace the privilege and the inherent racism that accompanies it. And it is important to note here that only white people get these choices\u2014another privilege.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back to the original quote because I don\u2019t want to make this post too long. DEI wisdom is arriving late for me, and I do not reject it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late. \u2014Justice Felix Frankfurter I read this quote recently and it struck a nerve. Over the last few months my eyes have been opened to what it means to be a white man in America. Having been a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[45],"tags":[46,47,48,68],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dei","tag-diversity","tag-equity","tag-inclusion","tag-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8ckgU-wisdom","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions\/859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}