An Apology and a Plea from a White Satiated Man in a Black Hungry Woman's World

I'm white. I'm a man. I'm male (I definitely cry at sappy and not-so-sappy movies, and can get fairly emotional, so maybe I have some female aspects -- something to blog about later because I'm not sure about 'gender' and how it works). I'd call myself upper middle class because I own my apartment, but I think I have way too much debt to be upper class. Given that I'm incurring more debt and that my career path a public interest attorney does not lead to wealth and luxury, my hold on 'upper middle' may be a tenuous one. Of course, on a global perspective I'm incredibly well off.

On the other hand, I'm Jewish. And I have experience some antisemitism. But at least in America, antisemitism doesn't seem to often manifest itself in professional or economic discrimination.

All of this is to say that I don't have a gut feel for a lot of the implications of racism and sexism and classism. Even though I might be academically attuned to it, and even though I may have some aptitude or instinct for spotting it (perhaps most often after I've committed it), I don't have an inherent or societized sensitivity to it. Of course, I don't think this disqualifies me from theorizing about all sorts of discrimination and the way society works, but I'm curious about how it influences my perspective (I often wish that there was some way we could experiment with humans -- create identical universes, except we'd just change one thing about one person and see what happened).

Also, I'm ignorant of the deep history of a lot of the movements that I support and align myself with. So while I consider myself a feminist, and I oppose racism, and support the GLBT 'agenda', I'm not a scholar of those movements. If I offend, if I use a term of art inaccurately, or if I belabor an issue that's already been addressed, please let me know. I'm want to learn, and I want to help.