{"id":38807,"date":"2013-09-24T21:11:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T03:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/24\/the-blindness-of-privilege.html"},"modified":"2013-09-28T13:54:20","modified_gmt":"2013-09-28T19:54:20","slug":"the-blindness-of-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/24\/the-blindness-of-privilege.html","title":{"rendered":"The blindness of privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"
Let us assume, for sake of argument,<\/i> that the controversy over giving bonuses to folks involved in the financial melt-down \u00a0that led to the Great Recession that led to untold misery for much of the American public and an up-ending of expections and politics in this country — that the controversy was overblown. That the bonuses involved were, in fact, justified in some fashion.<\/p>\n

(Without going into details, I'll note that some financial bonus deals that seem, on the face of it, to be unfair, are actually justified and worthwhile from a corporate standpoint, and that they really are far less evil than they seem.)<\/p>\n

Let us assume that.<\/p>\n

Even so — even so<\/i> — it is both historically bizarre and rhetorically idiotic (if not simply evil) to assert, even through metaphor, that they were the equivalent of lynching parties in the South. \u00a0No, sirs, your argument is disqualified.<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Les Jenkins<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The uproar over bonuses \u201cwas intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that\u2013 sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]<\/b>. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.<\/i><\/p>\n

Yes, that's right. AIG's\u00a0Chief Executive Robert Benmosche just claimed the outcry over his company handing out bonuses after they helped to destroy the economy to lynchings of African-Americans in the deep south. Seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here's a tip: Nothing you're saying is helping to improve your image or that of your company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

AIG’s Benmosche and Miller on the Bonus Controversy and the Insurer’s Turnaround – MoneyBeat – WSJ<\/a>
\n In an interview, American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Robert Benmosche explains why he thought the treatment of some AIG employees was akin to abuses from the civil-rights era, and its nonexecutive chairman, Robert S. \u201cSteve\u201d Miller, confesses he initially didn\u2019t think the company could survive.\n <\/p>\n


This post has been reshared 1 times on Google+<\/a>
<\/span> View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let us assume, for sake of argument, that the controversy over giving bonuses to folks involved in the financial melt-down \u00a0that led to the Great Recession that led to untold misery for much of the American public and an up-ending of expections and politics in this country — that the controversy was overblown. That the … Continue reading “The blindness of privilege”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_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}},"categories":[106,35,77,108,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-big-business","category-economy","category-history","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31546,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/29\/evil-hostess-bonuses.html","url_meta":{"origin":38807,"position":0},"title":"Evil Hostess Bonuses!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 29-Nov-12 9:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Or ... not. Or ... not necessarily.Seen a lot of anger over this particular request (and, later, the judge approving it). It seems paradigmatic of the \"rich get richer while the workers get unemployment checks\" problems that are so prevalent.Except -- fundamentally -- it's not.Now, this doesn't have anything to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13263,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/04\/best_and_brightest.html","url_meta":{"origin":38807,"position":1},"title":"Best and Brightest?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Feb-09 3:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Les passes on some of the\u00a0pissing and moaning from executives\u00a0about the Obama-proposed $500,000\/yr cap on executive salaries for companies that accept TARP money. As news of the plan leaked...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14235,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/17\/its-getting-to-be-torches-and-pitchforks-time.html","url_meta":{"origin":38807,"position":2},"title":"It’s getting to be torches and pitchforks time …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Mar-09 3:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The finance industry really seems to have no idea of the level of animus being generated by their own actions amongst the general taxpaying citizenry. The biggy over the past few\u00a0days has been, of course, AIG, into which the taxpayers have plowed $80B, turning around and giving out $165M of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9427,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/08\/bully.html","url_meta":{"origin":38807,"position":3},"title":"Bully!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 8-Jul-06 7:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Church of England has admitted that female bishops are actually \"theologically justified.\" Just to show that all we Anglican-types debate about isn't just gay rights. Fourteen of the provinces...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":655,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/05\/big_huge_honkin.html","url_meta":{"origin":38807,"position":4},"title":"Big, huge, honking ones","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Sep-01 1:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"With occasional bonuses of additional ones, too....","rel":"","context":"In "Job Jollies"","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7467,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/02\/28\/it_must_be_very.html","url_meta":{"origin":38807,"position":5},"title":"It must be very sad to be so humor-impaired","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 28-Feb-05 7:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's one thing to not get a joke (God knows I don't get enough of them). It's another thing to assume that, if you don't get the joke, the joker...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/gummi-roadkill.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38854,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38807\/revisions\/38854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}