This might be the most insightful article I’ve ever read. I also grew up in a small Wisconsin suburb, one that could pass as inspiration for every Norman Rockwell painting, the world seemed so safe and secure and I never thought about privilege

as it would affect my future, I felt the normal pressures of youth, including the expectation to study hard and get good grades to get into college (although our schools did not shy from teaching real history, I understood the injustices of colonization and slavery on a surface level, but the flip I was also taught to celebrate our progress beyond to the point I believed the world was always going to get better, always a new Renaissance) but somehow I never grasped the privilege I was being afforded just by being born white and male for the sheer fact of having been so insulated I didn’t see beyond my own bubble. And then the world was a shock. And all these issues are intertwined and the points you make concerning how people react when their programming is challenged could not be more accurate. If we want to move forward, we have to understand where we are. If we understand the problem, we can develop a plan of action. This is some of the best, most thoughtful writing I’ve ever come across. Bravo, sir.