Rachel Dolezal lies about being black. Leads NAACP chapter. Teaches Africana class.

[Aristotle]

When I combine my efforts with the potential race-based quota hiring in my area, I think it would be *easier* to get through my professional life as a black man.

Here's the thing though: People don't get to be white from age 0 to 22 and then switch to black once they've already received an education, skills, family support, etc. and then start competing against white people.

This is going to be a LONG POST. I'm sorry about that. Also, I'm a 43 year old white dude so my experience is from that vantage point. I understand that limits my perspective. But here we go:

1) Give that professional black man's life a little closer look. There's about a 70% chance he was born without a father around and he is most likely poor. That alone is almost an instant ticket to nowhere. He probably lived in a neighborhood of high crime, his mom had to work multiple jobs which meant little parental supervision, and there were constantly influences and inducements to get into trouble.

2) Putting that together, there's a very good chance he ended up in jail at some point, which is yet another instant ticket to nowhere.

3) He probably went to a horrible school where there most likely weren't great mentors to help boost him up, clearly demonstrate some of the positive options he had for his life, and help keep pushing him in that direction when he was tempted to go astray. This means there was a better than average change he dropped out. There's your third instant ticket to nowhere.

4) The first time his race starts to be even the slightest "advantage" is maybe applying to college or for scholarships. But even then, he probably didn't have a lot of people making these options clear/known to him so there is a good chance he missed out on them.

5) Oh, and all throughout this, there is a better than acceptable chance some police officer with a hard-on killed or beat him, or a family member, derailing or ending his life.

6) Also throughout this, there is a far higher chance that he or his mom/parents/family got hit with numerous minor offenses/fines/penalties that a similar white man would have been excused for. This could have resulted in them not being able to make rent, become homeless, and bam, another instant ticket to nowhere.

7) Assuming he somehow navigated that insane minefield, maybe he then made it to college. There he faces the fact that a huge portion of professors and fellow students assume he's a quota-filler and isn't really qualified to be there. Every time he steps into a classroom he has something to prove and an extra barrier to get over. This also affects membership in prestigious clubs and school groups where people make connections and do networking that is valuable for future employment.

8) Now assuming he even gets through all of that, once he gets in the job market he still only has the small, occasional advantage of applying for a job somewhere that has either a legally required or PR induced need to hire minorities. As Kailen mentioned, this can also result in caps which are the flipside of quotas and could prevent him from being hired. But most workplaces have absolutely nothing like this, which means even if he is equally or more qualified than someone, he's dealing with the non-racist but unavoidable psychological fact that people tend to like people that are similar to them. This means the white guy hiring people is going to have a subconscious, unavoidable, unintentional bias towards hiring other white guys.

Then even if he gets the job, yet again superiors and coworkers assume he got it because of a quota or a desire to "increase diversity", and he constantly has to prove himself just to get on even ground with the white dudes that got hired at the same time. He deals with the same problems in the previous paragraph whenever he's up for a promotion, and the same doubts like "why should we promote this diversity hire?"

9) Then there are all the little things throughout your entire life - no matter how successful you become - that sap your energy and keep you down.

• Being trailed by employees at an expensive store.
• Getting hassled by police constantly.
• Being afraid of the police or other authority figures.
• Never getting off with a warning and instead being hit with fines/penalties for hundreds or thousands of dollars each year.
• Being denied for loans or credit and wondering (or knowing) it was your race.
• Getting worse deals on cars or furniture or beds or anything else either because of your race or because nobody in your family ever bought those things to help you know how to buy them.
• Or hell, never having advice from family on things like how to manage (and avoid abusing) credit/debt, how to manage bank accounts or finances, scams to avoid, etc, etc. the list is endless.
• Probably a zillion more things here but I'm a white guy so I can't even imagine.

The depth of white privilege - and especially white male privilege - is vast. It should never be taken for granted.