Latest / World Ablaze with George Fontes / 9 - WHITE AND NOT PRIVILEGED

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9 - WHITE AND NOT PRIVILEGED · World Ablaze with George Fontes

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Hello, hello, hello, World of Blaze listeners.
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A little housekeeping before we start the day's episode.
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Firstly, thank you. Thank everybody across the United States.
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Just within a few episodes back on the mic here, we're already gaining traction once again.
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We kind of fell off back around October.
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I had to step away from the show for a bit, but yeah, just within a short period,
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we've seen a lot of support across the U.S.
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I do want to give notable mentions to the state of Virginia, Texas, and Oregon.
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Not sure what's going on there, but we're glad you're listening.
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And furthermore, I would like to say for everybody who does listen to the show,
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enjoy what we have to say, or whether you, you know,
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maybe you don't enjoy what I have to say, but you're listening anyway.
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go ahead and recommend us to your friends
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co-workers, whoever
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we would really appreciate that in helping grow this podcast
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also, if you have any comments, suggestions
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or you just want to contact us in general
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or even just namely me
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you can go ahead and send us a message
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at worldablaze
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at fontsmedia.com
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that's worldablaze at f-o-n-t-e-s media.com um also you can reach us there if you would like to
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be a guest on the show i have i have some shows lined up um where we will start to have guests
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it may not be a consistent every show scenario but uh stay tuned as they say uh for for those
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episodes coming up and with everything going on positively with our listenership and the um
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the uptick and support across the U.S.
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We hope we don't lose any listeners after this show
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because I got to address something.
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And this is going to be a straightforward podcast.
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I'm not going to have too many transitions,
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too many different stories.
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But I have to say something based on my experiences
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as of late and maybe even from my past.
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But something that's come up quite a bit.
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And I thought we're done with this, America.
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What are we doing?
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What the fuck are we doing?
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why are we still trying to drum beat that old drum anyway and tune it as tight as we can
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that old song of racism why are why are we still doing this it's 2024
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and the idea of white privilege i thought i thought this whole thing was over but no
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apparently not apparently some people can't let go um and i don't mean that to offend anybody that
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literally has experienced racism because it's a real thing. Unfortunately, it's still prevalent
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in this world, not just in America, by the way, but across the world. But America has its own
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unique history regarding racism that is pretty ugly, and we can't deny that. It did happen.
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But the idea of white privilege or treating people who are white a certain way just because
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you're white, I got to say, is pretty fucking ridiculous. And that in itself is racist.
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look, here's the deal. I'm white.
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Yeah, I figured it out. Can't tell by my voice. I got no real
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base here. You know, you can tell. Listen,
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I'm a white guy. And on top of that, I'm freaking bald. So I got two strikes against
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me. I'm white and I'm bald. Alright?
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And I'm a business owner who's white. Another strike
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against me. So here's the deal.
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I've had some experiences recently that
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I've been kind of holding in and I haven't talked about
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I've been kind of saving it for the show, just wasn't sure when I was going to get around to it because I didn't know if it would be
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appropriate to talk about, I didn't want to upset any of our usual listeners
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but I think we should talk about it because everyone's experiences
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are valid and
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I've experienced racism in more than one way
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my whole life. And I thought that that was something that, you know, as you become an adult
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and you become more educated, that even, you know, let's say for myself, you start to realize
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that certain stereotypes shouldn't exist and are absolutely ridiculous. As we've become adults and
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we were able to, you know, make a life for ourselves, you would hope that racism isn't
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still prominent in your life and for some it unfortunately is and i'm not i'm not i'm not
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again discrediting that it doesn't exist because because we know it does we know it does you could
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turn on the news and you could still see it but the idea of white privilege just throwing that
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blanket or net across america and acting as if that applies to everybody because they're white
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is an extremely ridiculous notion.
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Just as me throwing the blanket of every black person's a gang member
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or casting the net that every person from Mexico
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is a low-life street vendor looking to rob me
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is also ridiculous.
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Those are ridiculous claims. Period.
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As a business owner, I've experienced a few things here.
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I've always been surrounded by, especially in my industry, it just kind of happens,
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or at least in my area anyway, most everyone around me is of Mexican descent,
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or for actually literally from Mexico. And I've noticed that over the years, I've always
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worked with people who were Mexican, or from Mexico, or even black people.
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and I say even just because there's not as much of
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you know as big of a black population
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or it's actually not as prevalent in my particular industry
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for some reason at least in my area so that's what I mean by that
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don't twist my words here don't take me out of context
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like you guys do with everything else in the media
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so that being said I do have a
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I do have a lot of experience here
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in interacting with other races
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and honestly most of my interactions have always been
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growing up have been with other races
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They haven't necessarily been with my own race or people of my own skin color.
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It just hasn't happened.
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And it's a few experiences recently.
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I don't know if it's just the change of tide, the vibe, whatever's going on in America.
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But I've seen and experienced a much bolder outburst of racism from people in general towards whites.
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in my business i i send a lot of business to other um what you would i guess consider
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minority-owned businesses um i think that's a little bit debatable that that whole notion
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or the whole term minority-owned in general is a bit ridiculous because
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it really depends on the area you live in and what what the population is you know the percentages
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but I always worked with minority businesses In my particular line of work and what I do I have always always hired people based on their skills
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based on their abilities,
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and their intellect,
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and how they would represent my company on the job,
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whether they were a subcontractor or directly employed
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by me through a W-2 type of job.
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So, never had a problem, ever.
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Always ask their expert opinions on things.
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But I have noticed that over the years with most, actually pretty much all of them,
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that I send so much work their way.
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I mean, there isn't a job I can even remember to where I'm not working with another company,
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another one of these companies that are minority owned, for example.
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and i've also been tracking that that hasn't um throughout the years that they really haven't
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been sending anything my way it's it's always holding their hand out for what do you got for me
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uh we're available whatever work and then i've noticed and tracked that every time they have
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something that comes up i'm never contacted i'm never extended the opportunity never even
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they never even rent from me
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you know in terms of equipment that they would need
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but on the other side I am always supporting their businesses
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and I've been bringing it up lately
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and I literally came to a conversation where I was kind of told
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well you know in the end
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we take care of our own
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now tell me how that is not
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a racist statement in and of itself
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you know it's okay for for for you as a minority business owner to be supported
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to take every every bit of business i can throw at you but when it comes to maintaining those
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business relations and partnerships because i'm white i'm not supported i'm not your own all of a
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sudden i also have another vendor that i work with that builds um road cases for me i'm not
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going to call this person out and their intention may not have been how i heard it but it kind of
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felt that way to where because i i live in a certain area that they were talking well he was
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talking to me with another friend of mine and the conversation automatically goes to spanish and then
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he looks at me what do you think like i don't know i didn't understand you anything you said
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and he said well what's your problem i was like what do you mean he goes well how long you lived
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here and i told him he goes so why don't you know spanish he goes well i mean why don't you learn it
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like well he's literally telling me you know what's your problem and that you don't even speak
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spanish don't you want to understand what i'm saying as if it's my priority to learn a language
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that isn't a primary language that I've ever spoken growing up in the household.
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We didn't speak Spanish in the house.
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And aside from my interactions outside the house,
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you know, I've heard Spanish, I can understand some words,
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but for me to learn it, I was never able to take it home
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to where I would continue to speak and practice it.
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Okay, so it's just not something that I've ever really absorbed fully.
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now do I disagree that I should learn Spanish no I've always wanted to learn Spanish because
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it's very prominent you know out here in California I mean to me learning how to
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communicate with others is huge and it has nothing to do with being racist or non-racist
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it's just a fact the more languages you know the better you can communicate with the world
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I just never absorbed it I just never took the time to study it because I've always had other
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things going on. Even when I was a kid, there were just other things I had to be
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concerned with. I know the language was one thing that just wasn't
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supported.
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And when I was growing up, my father is Portuguese descent and actually
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from the Azores, the island of the Azores of Portugal.
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And as immigrants, when they came over,
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the thing that they needed to do in their minds was,
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well our kids need to only know English because this is the country we're in this is the language
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spoken if they're going to succeed they have to speak English so they didn't really speak Portuguese
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when my grandmother was alive yes and that is an unfortunately for me another language that I
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didn't really fully absorb and understand because it wasn't something that was consistently spoken
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in the household everyone has their reasons but for this individual to put me on the spot and
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question me. Not in a joking way, but very serious as if
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what the fuck is your problem? Why don't you speak this language?
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It was extremely racist.
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So within a few weeks or at least a couple of months
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I've been told that by this other person
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who I've thrown hints at, actually more than one company
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I have a handful that I'm involved with that have all basically
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said to me that they take care of their own
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but have no problem calling me and bugging me for whatever work I could throw their way
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but it's okay for them to discriminate against my business basically as a white business owner
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and not throw any work my way whatsoever not even not even not even rent a piece of equipment for
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example they're allowed to be racist in that regard and make that judgment as in I'm not
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going to support you because you're white. They even made other comments to where
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I forgot where we were at. I don't know if it was a dinner or what we were doing.
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And this one individual basically
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said something about, oh, that's because George is
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rich. And I looked at him and said,
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why do you think I'm rich? Come on, bro. He goes,
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you have money because blah, blah, blah.
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Why? Because I'm white? I'm rich?
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I grew up poor for one.
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And this is going to lead me to this.
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I mean,
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there's so much more I can say about,
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about this,
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you know,
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to where I'm going to come back to the poor thing to where it's,
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it's okay for a minority owned business to be discriminatory and support their
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own and disregard a white owned business and,
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and not be reprimanded for it.
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But if I was to blatantly say the same thing,
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as in, how come we don't speak English?
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How long have you lived here?
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What's your problem?
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Or if I told them,
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oh, I don't work with minority-owned businesses.
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I just support white-owned businesses.
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What kind of shitstorm do you think that would bring down on me?
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For one, for me to say that is absolutely racist.
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But it would definitely not be okay for me to do so.
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but it's okay for the minority owned business owners to do this or people of another color as
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they say to do these things i don't know what do you think i you know audience if you have a if you
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have your own opinion please you know send us a message on this one i i really want to hear what
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you have to say um as far as this goes but let's let's fast forward a bit to where um i'm going to
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circle back to where I was saying about the poor thing. So we're out and about again.
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Fast forward, we're out, friends, whatever.
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And it comes up, a conversation
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to where suddenly the white privilege card is
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thrown at me. Or thrown at me and my wife.
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But basically, we're supposedly
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privileged because our skin is white.
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My wife and I both have not the exact same upbringing, but none of us were from families of privilege.
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We didn't experience anything that resembled white privilege whatsoever.
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And I can tell you for a fact I mean from my perspective our family wasn rich We were in middle class We pretty poor
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We're on assistance and food stamps and all of that, just like everyone else.
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And we lived in neighborhoods that were pretty much not necessarily the best.
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I would say a lot of fights, gunshots.
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there were definitely heavy gang presence around the area.
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When I went to school, where I went to school,
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I was personally, well, I was a minority
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because the schools I went to were primarily mostly,
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and I do mean this as a fact, this is not me making it up,
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but it was primarily, well, predominantly all
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all Mexican people you know from Mexican descent or from families that have come here from Mexico
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and being part of the minority as a white person in that situation I was the one who was always
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literally getting into fights uh getting jumped getting getting taunted I mean you name it
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I went through it but on the in the same token you know my best friends were always
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either Mexican descent or black.
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You know, I didn't have that many white friends.
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And as I went through the school system
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in this particular area,
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I remember that, you know,
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there were heavy gang presence.
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There was a heavy gang presence of Mexican gangs,
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you know, Norteños and Sorrenos.
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And Norteños and Sorrenos,
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Sorrenos, I guess I'm pronouncing it incorrectly.
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I don't remember how to say it,
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but basically it's like the Crips and Bloods
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of the mexican gangs you know they had the red and the blue uh nortenos were the represent
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themselves with the red and the serenials would represent themselves with you know the blue
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blue rags etc uh and they were selling drugs you know right there on street corners right by the
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schools through the fences over the fences you know things like that uh i've witnessed many many
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people being jumped uh chased down the streets being with two by fours uh i mean literally you
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There was always something going on.
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Knives, knife threats on school.
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There was a gun threat a few times.
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So I never saw the white privilege or experienced it growing up.
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Now, this isn't to say that white privilege doesn't exist for some people,
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but I'm going back to what I said earlier.
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You can't cast that net.
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You just can't.
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Now, there are instances of white privilege as in, sure,
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you know we can absolutely say that black people are racially profiled by police because
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well it's a fact they have been but um you know you could turn on not so much these days but i
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remember you used to go turn on the news or those who remember newspapers you know turn a turn a page
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and every time there was a black person it was they weren't represented in the best light it
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always had to be tied to crime or some other you know other uh bullshit story and you would see
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more white people represented especially in movies um so i understand what they're saying on that
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on that side you know and there's also the fact that let's be honest in most schools especially
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when i went to school history didn't teach a whole lot about uh black culture um you know
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Latin culture or Mexican culture. And I'm going to continue to say Mexican because my experience
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as far as the Latin community is with people from Mexico. We don't have a lot of people here from
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Puerto Rico or Spain or, you know, anything like that. Cuba, every, you know, where I'm at in
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California, it's mostly people from Mexico. So I'm going to say it. It's not a racist term. It's a,
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it's a term to describe a people Mexican, just like you would call me Portuguese or, you know,
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white or whatever. It doesn't matter. So
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there wasn't a lot of representation of color
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in a good light, but
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that today is not
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predominantly the case.
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There was a time where that was, and we've learned and we moved on and we grew, and
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I think most of America is trying to move forward.
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and it seems like the generations that are older than mine
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the one before mine at least and even some people in my generation
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kind of want to hang on to that old nugget of racism
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it's time to let it go and let's stop casting nets and accusing everybody
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of who are white that they had an amazing life
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because there's definitely instances for example
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when you get into areas like Oklahoma
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you know the term okie referred to
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you know poor white people of Oklahoma
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you know hillbilly was something that was a derogatory
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statement towards poor dirty white people from the Appalachians
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you have the term cracker
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you know guess who that refers to redneck
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hillbilly trailer trash white trash which is
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more on the nose.
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You know, there is a culture of white people that are
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looked down upon and aren't afforded and never were afforded
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any opportunity whatsoever.
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And, you know, you can make the
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case that, well, because they're white, you know, they weren't, you know,
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throw that shit out the window. Yes, there are, there has
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been times in our history where
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white privilege is actually absolutely thing but i gotta ask at what point is it
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really always white privilege versus class privilege as in the upper crust that you know
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the people with money who continue to keep the power and the opportunities within their circle
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of people with money okay because i'm using myself an example only just because i you know i have to
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talk about my experience but you know i didn't have red carpets rolled out for me banks didn't
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just automatically give me a loan because I was white. I was denied for almost every loan I've
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ever applied for. I didn't always get every job. You know, most jobs I try to get, you know,
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when you're starting out, especially back in my time when I was younger, predominantly was always
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about restaurant jobs, right? Restaurant jobs, service jobs. When I went to apply for these,
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I was automatically not selected and the opportunity was always given to, I guessed it,
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a person of color because their friends and families worked at these places and that job
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wasn't for me. Now, granted that person may have needed it better, you know, not better. I mean,
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needed it more than I did and they probably did. Um, so maybe that was the right choice,
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but it doesn't mean there wasn't discrimination going on there because there absolutely was,
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but it wasn't for anything for me to sweat over
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so
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there's a lot of
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I think what's going on is really about
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class privilege
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there's actually a time where white privilege absolutely applied
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and to be white and not even acknowledge that there wasn't any kind of privilege
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afforded to you for being white is extremely ignorant
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But to continue to push that rhetoric and narrative in today's times is it's I'm sorry, but we're just done with it.
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You know, I think what we're facing now is class privilege.
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There's opportunities afforded to every person of color.
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It doesn't matter if you're purple, green, blue.
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Today, you can make something of yourself.
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You know, just as I did, I never had anything handed to me.
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I paid for my own education, even though I never really finished college, unfortunately.
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and I still continue to flirt with going back and forth, uh, to university just because,
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you know I got busy and I I had to make money So I was always entrepreneurial I did what I had to do I hustled And by the way I no I by no no no means a freaking millionaire billionaire but I do well for myself Um I don really want
25:05
for nothing, but everything that I did, anyone else can do. And I've never, ever, ever looked
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down on, on, uh, a Mexican or a black person or, uh, an Indian and said that, oh, you're lesser
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than me or you don't deserve this because of your skin color or your ethnicity or where you came
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from i never have but going back to what i started with and began to show with those experiences with
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those other you know uh peers of my um industry i've experienced it doesn't seem like
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they feel the same way um that people of other ethnic groups and other colors feel the same way
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about us you know why is it why in today's times is it okay to always talk about brown pride black
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pride you know why is it okay to come come to um talk about these things and and and that's okay
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but if i want to have any pride in myself for being white that's all that's considered white
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supremacy and racist okay fine then what if i don't have white pride but is it okay for me to
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say I have Portuguese pride or Scottish pride or German pride or, you know, Swiss pride. Is that
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okay? And if that's okay, then why don't you stop, you know, having black pride and have
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wherever your ancestors are, your family, or you're from, why can't you have, you know, Cuban
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pride or, you know, Caribbean pride or African pride or Egyptian pride or wherever you're from,
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You know, if you're from Spain, Spanish pride, Mexican pride.
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No, it always comes down to the pride of your color.
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We got to stop that.
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It's not going to go away if we don't stop bringing it back up and pushing it in everyone's face.
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We want it to go away.
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We don't want to sweep it on the rug.
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Don't get me wrong.
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I don't think I just want to brush it on the rug because I'm just tired of hearing everyone, you know, bringing race up.
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Because what we need to do is fix it.
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it's not about you know that racism doesn't exist or we're ignoring it no we know it did
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we know there's still instances instances out there of racism sorry
27:20
mouse getting a little dry but the um
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the the fact that it's still trying to be like the narrative still trying to be pushed by the media
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you know for example how is it how is it that after everything that was found out about and
27:41
this is older older news already because you know people's attention spans but claudine
27:45
claudine gaze um resignation they could say forced or whatever uh she was one of the um
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former president of harvard i believe vice president or president harvard okay there's
27:58
pressure put on her, not because she's black, because she could not admit that anti-Semitic
28:05
comments, basically derogatory statements against another ethnic group, even another race,
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that chance of genocide and violence against another race or ethnic group.
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She couldn't say that that was not okay. Wouldn't admit it. She would support, well, you know,
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it's okay until someone acts on it. That's exactly what she said.
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So you have to commit murder and genocide and acts of violence against another race
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or ethnic group before it's not okay. Like, wait a minute, that has to happen
28:38
first? So she was put under
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the gun, so to speak, right?
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You know, the stethoscope got pulled out and now they're looking at her
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like, hold on, hold on, what are you talking about? Then as more
28:53
was done in terms of digging into
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her stance and her history here at Harvard, come to find out later that
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hold on, your dissertations, papers
29:06
different things that she's done were outright plagiarized
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and then they tried to defend her plagiarism
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I thought plagiarism was wrong, I mean
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the fact that you're literally taking someone else's work
29:21
word for word, verbatim, putting it in your own
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papers or your own works and then claiming it as your own,
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that is wrong. It's always been wrong.
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So now that she was forced to resign, they're trying to cry that
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she was a target of racism because she's black.
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No, no, no. We don't need to hear that
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card anymore. Racism isn't going to save you anymore.
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You were forced to resign because you had supported derogatory, violent rhetoric towards another ethnicity or another race, and you outright plagiarized.
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That's why you're no longer the president.
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But Harvard didn't just get rid of her.
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No, no, no, no.
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she stepped down and got to keep her whole salary because they didn't want to be labeled racist
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themselves see that's the world we live in you can't pull the racist card anymore we need to go
30:29
back to just supporting everybody based on their merit their ability okay if if you want it to be
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it's like the golden rule you want to be treated the way you want to be treated
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great you gotta treat others the same way
30:44
you can't treat yourself one way and treat others the other way
30:49
we all need to be treated equally
30:50
and the fact that it seems that these days
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more and more it's okay for a person of color to
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decide to be racist or act racist
31:05
towards a person just because they're white is also wrong
31:08
we should be at a state in America where we are working together
31:12
and judging people by their work ethic
31:15
and their qualifications, period
31:18
and when it comes to business, I'm sorry, minority owned businesses
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I'm just going to put it out there
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if a business that is owned by an ethnic group that is not yours
31:28
is supporting yours
31:31
and you're not supporting them
31:34
and you're blatantly saying this because you only look out for your own
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then you are racist and I'm calling you out
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because racism
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shouldn't exist and unfortunately still does
31:50
in some small instances
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what I meant is in some small circles
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and I do know that racism is still very prevalent around the world but in America we gotta
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to do better. We've got to move on and we've got to start
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judging people for people, as in who they are
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as an individual. Period.
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I think I'm done with that. That was a little heavy. I wanted
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to say a lot more, but I didn't really want to go ahead and
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well, I didn't want to offend too many people, but it still had to be said.
32:26
I can completely expand on a lot of what I talked about, but it would be a very
32:30
long show so again appreciate everybody's support um and please recommend the show like the show
32:38
subscribe the show contact us at world of blaze at fonts media.com have yourself a good day
33:00
Thank you.