An Open Letter to Every Privileged Male

My inspiration derived from a male student, who believed that his privilege didn’t affect those around him after he made derogotary comments about women and black people.

I wanted to give him this letter, however, I knew he wouldn’t read this and that our peers wouldn’t be so pleased. Therefore I’ve shared this on here, for anyone who deals with privileged men.

Dear Privileged Male,

I would just like to say thank you for being the overly privileged male that you are. In fact, you’ve inspired me to realise that your personality is the exact opposite of who I want to be. You’ve also made it very abundantly clear the difference between a toxic and privileged male against someone who is actually human and is trying their hardest not to be offensive towards Indigenous/Black people, people with mental health issues, transgender men and women, rape and domestic violence victims, women, disabled people, our defence force and Muslims.

I would also like to congratulate you and your friends for never being told what is ‘wrong’ and what is ‘right’ as well as never being told ‘no’ in your entire lives. I would also like to say your sense of humour is very spot on, especially the jokes you make about women deserving to be in the kitchen and how ‘rape’ is just a ‘feminist way to bring down successful men’. But most importantly, I would like to say that you are quite remarkable with your ‘creative’ and ‘somewhat original’ memes that you always make because quite frankly, they’re so creative that you had to be removed from the undeserving student leadership position you were given.

Most importantly I would like to say that the way you speak about the girls in our grade and the bodies they have as well as their personality makes you the most outstanding male student in our school. Especially when you’ve called most the girls in our grade ‘shallow bitches’ because none of them wants to hear your opinions on them. I admire the fact that your ‘popularity’ gives you some validation, after all, you are known as the ‘sexist overly privileged male’ in our school who simply ‘doesn’t know when to shut up’. Especially in English and Media. In fact, when no one argues against you it’s because you display your opinion so well that simply no one tends to care, as you see, the only way you built yourself up was by bringing others down based on their appearance, hobbies, religions, sexualities, mental health, personalities and ethnicities. Including your very own friends.

So why should we say something against you, your insecurities are pretty apparent? But what insecurities do you have other than parents who must love your behaviour and sense of humour, to be one of the only guys that I know who have always gotten away unpunished?

If you find yourself offended by this, trust me, you make the feeling so mutual within our entire grade. And quite personally you make it so mutual I bring you up at home to my police mother and ex-defence and police stepfather.

If it brings you some clarity, I’m sure the defence would love you have you since you believe it is ‘easy’ to get accepted into the institution that you, say ‘is the best way to blow up rag heads, Asians and blacks’. And I’m sure my mother loves the fact that ‘police do have an excuse to shoot aboriginals’, especially after the Yuendumu shooting. Even though she has an Indigenous child. I would also like to say, on behalf of the indigenous students at our school, that your opinion on us is so valid and important.

According to you, we are nothing but ‘bludgers’ and ‘uneducated’ people. You also love the fact that ‘we take every opportunity to be lazy and privileged’ by simply applying for school and government scholarships. I love the passion that you have for our rights, especially when you believe that NAIDOC Week, National Apology Day and ‘Invasion Day’ is ‘stupid’ and ‘unworthy of our attention’. You even calling us ‘niggers’ and trying to justify yourself for using this offensive word is fantastic. I’m sure all your black friends adore you and any future aboriginal friend you have will surely pat you on the back.

I would love to invite you to any Indigenous community. I’m sure you and your family have never slept in a rundown two-bedroom home in the middle of nowhere, unable to speak English, read, write or count and have barely access to medical and educational resources. It must be a change in scenery since you and your family are very used to your fancy Switzerland skiing trips.

I’m sure you’ve never been told that you ‘bludge off the system’ and that ‘you’re going nowhere’ in your entire life. I’m sure that you’ve never had to be told that ‘racism is never real’ especially after being systematically oppressed by the system since day one. I’m deeply sorry that you have to apologise to native people, it must be hard for you to know that most of our parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and friends were removed from family, abused, have education gaps and face a daily struggle that you never will have to endure.

Sorry to keep mentioning ‘race’. Afterall you say that ‘aboriginals are way too recognised’ and that ‘racism is far too argumentative’.

But seriously, lets circle back to the fact that when you are told off or even called out on, you have the nerve to say that you’re ‘bullied’, ‘misunderstood’ and quite frankly ‘a victim of feminism’. All because you shared a meme about ‘inbred’ children, I’m sure one of our disabled middle schoolers would have found that meme quite ‘relatable’. He possibly finds you so humorous.

I’m sure that girls and female teachers in our school would love to know that ‘we don’t have a place’ in the world other than the kitchen and that ‘MeToo was simply a way to destroy men’ and a ‘trend’ for ‘attention seekers’. Not only this but you even made fun of LGBTQI+ people calling them victims of ‘multiple personality disorder’ and have even mocked them calling them ‘attention-seeking faggots’. You even made fun of a past student who had a mental illness and acted upon that calling her ‘attention-seeking’ and her illness ‘unjustified’. On top of that, you also use ‘nigger’ multiple times and even tried justifying yourself by trying to insinuate that ‘you have the right to use that word’. You even use your social media to get your message across.

It must take great strength and some courage for you to be this way, I would love to have that confidence and have the ability to get away with everything. It must be so rewarding to be you for simply one day. In fact, the fact you cannot see the harm you do to people in our school and how it affects people really makes me jealous. It must be so rewarding and such an ego-boost for you to not understand the consequences to your actions and never have to face them.