Is the affluent man’s victimization a story?

Yes, that too is a story.
When feral boys cross ramparts
and charge across moats,
When feral boys say,
“I suffer, you too will suffer,
I cry, you too will cry,
I’ll find you and I’ll make you cry,
I’ll make sure you realize–
I live and I circle your sphere,
in the periphery I exist
without your mercy and acceptance
I am born and I multiply,
without your benediction,
without your interference in my life,
I, of the lower class,
I, of the ruthless behavior,
I without a conscience
or the self consciousness
and pride that accompany
your wealth and your ability
to amass for generations
the security and the stability I lack–
your upward mobility I envy,
when I am consigned to a downward trajectory,
and I move stumbling over
pits dug for me,
I come for your televisions
and your four too many computers.

How did you get so well off and I not,
Did you steal, plot,
scratch backs and make the connections
that got you ahead?
Did you walk over the bodies of your competitors?
Did you throw your helpers under the bus?

How did you get so well off and I not?
Did you marry right?
Did you carry water for the backstabbers
in your life, did you have parents who pushed you
and knew how to get you over the hurdles–
gave you every advantage in the book
did you live on the right side of the tracks,
for generations,
were you the master of the plantation,
did you have the whips and I the stripes?

How did you get so well off and I not?
Did it start when you were born a precious child,
shielded from the jungles wild,
fed the right foods at the right time,
when I went hungry,
my stomach growling at night?”

So say the feral boys
when they jump over boundaries,
and step over separating walls,
into the smug comfort
of those who talk to themselves
that life is good
in their fortresses impregnable,
with their alarm systems invincible,
behind their iron clad doors
and bolted windows,
life is an oasis.

Is the affluent man noisier when he is victimized?
Sure, he’s noisier, he’s loud,
he shouts and carries on
that he will run with his tax base somewhere else,
he gets the juices flowing in the authorities,
he gets the sluices of action open
and that’s his advantage but not for long…

Of what good is white privilege,
when it has to run from county to county to hide,
when it has to construct barbed wire fences,
steep walls, gated communities,
when it has to divide itself
from the rest of the population,
when it has to act as though flight is might?

Of what good is white privilege
when it has to segregate itself from the turmoil
but the turmoil hunts and mows it down
in malls, schools and movie theaters,
when the turbulence swells and spills
over its self assurance
that a large suburban house,
a white picket fence,
a yard, a garden, two dogs
walked to the rhythm of music pirated
are all part of the packet of bliss,
it deserved and acquired?

Of what good is white privilege
when its children grow up
and go looking in the city for drugs,
for the next best high,
from the fists of the pushers–
to the children of white privilege,
when powders of all and sundry sorts
have more power snorted, sniffed,
burned and injected–
than talent or education or dedication
or success or fame or name,
grams in a balance weighed and distributed
from the children of darkness
to the children of light,
wasn’t Philip Seymour Hoffman white–
of what good such privilege?

Usha Nellore

I refuse to accept that Kimberly Leto enjoyed any advantages of “white privilege” in the last horrible minutes of her life. Ms. Leto was let down by the City, because the teenager who robbed her in August 2013 was free to come back and do it again. The police put no stops on this teenager’s behavior; his family had no control over him. Ms. Leto was left to battle these two young thugs–both most likely physically much bigger than her– all alone. She held no special privileges.

I weep Ms. Leto. I also weep for the widow of Allen Foster, a retired 56 year old roofer who was murdered at the back of his home in Irvington the same week as Ms. Leto’s murder. Mr. Foster was African-American, killed by unnamed African Americans suspects. Mr. Foster held no special privileges either.

The City has a duty to protect its citizens. We failed Ms. Leto and Mr. Foster as a City.