Dear Michael,

I never write to Forge, in fact I don’t even have a subscription (I read someone else’s). What prompted me to write was the Forge issue addressing diversity. It is a very interesting topic, and much more complicated than most people realize. Race is an issue, but so is ethnicity, culture, and socioeconomic background/history. I can pass beautifully as a white middleclass professional. But my ethnic heritage also includes Irish, German, Jewish, Native American (Blackfoot), and African American (Geechi). I grew up in numerous foster care placements, some official, some not, in very indigent urban areas (Chicago). So I grew up around very poor other than white, as well as poor white, cultures.

I can clearly remember the day when I suddenly realized that not everyone in the world paid for part of their groceries and stole the rest. I had never conceptualized the idea before that there were people in the world who never stole anything, ever. What a revelation.

A few thoughts on privilege, what it means, and what to do with it: When I was a child I went with the other neighborhood kids who were African American, Native American, Hispanic and Mexican into the various business establishments in the adjacent while middleclass suburb. While store personnel followed them around, fearful they would steal, I used my white privilege and stole everything I could get my hands on (clothes, food, toys, you name it). We then got together and divided it all up. So we all came out ahead. We would have come out even further ahead if there had been more white kids to do the stealing. Not using the white privilege would have just meant that we all would have had less, or none. Over the years a few times I expressed hesitancy or questioned whether or not I should be using white privilege that way. My friends said "What are you, nuts? That’s just great. We can’t get it, you won’t use yourself to get something for all of us, so I guess all the worst asshole white people just get to keep it all for themselves. Great." Years later during a discussion I had with a biracial woman friend in her 70s, she made the following comment which has always stuck with me: "Just take the damn white privilege and run with it as far and as fast as you can- just remember where and who you came from." And I do.

As a homeless adolescent I became involved in prostitution. My girlfriend, who was Native American, could only get $3 for a blowjob on the streets. I could get $20. The police, and probably everyone else, were more likely to beat her up. In terms of economic and safety, I was the logical choice to hit the streets night after night