I am a white person of privilege — privileged to be educated when learning was the object, not social experimentation. Privileged to enjoy playing ball and working with young black men and woman who were in tune with Malcolm X’s starting point — “wake up, clean up and stand up,” never once burning or looting a neighborhood despite the racial divide fermented by community activists, many of whom were Caucasian.

Privileged to watch a Democrat mayor destroy a middle-class neighborhood largely populated by Jewish, black and immigrant families — 50 years later the city remains in Democrat control with a square mile of empty land populated by driveways that lead to weeds.

My privilege is not a reflection of skin color, it is one of growing up in the 1960s among individuals black and white who decried group think and never sought victim status or safe spaces.

Sadly, victim status, safe spaces, and the incapacity to hear or discuss conflicting viewpoints are now the norm. My privilege today is having the opportunity to let my grandchildren know there was “once upon a time.”

Bill Perfetto

Gardiner