Opinion: If I Were A Wealthy White Superhero [@forbes @papadocabraxas @genemarks]

Note: This is a first person editorial.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would have the mansion and all the cool gadgets and the dark hideout on the outskirts of the city. I would have a rogue's gallery of strange foes, menaces who looked and acted like walking neuroses and nightmares and circus freaks. I would have allies with powers and abilities greater than gods as well as those who, like me, would use their wealth to explore exotic weaponry to use against criminals great and small.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would prowl the streets and buildings of the city, looking for crime in all forms. I would beat up and beat down criminals and thugs of all colors, and would in no way spend most of my time in the slums and ghettos and barrios of my city.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would go after the white collar criminal wherever and whenever I would find them. It just might be that I find those lower class, minority criminals more often.

But if that were the case, that most of the young criminals I beat up and put in the hospital as well as the overcrowded city and country jails were young men and women of color, would I be able to hold my cowled head up high against the night sky?

If I was a wealthy white superhero, could I continue to use my billions and billions of dollars to fight a personal vendetta against a criminal class that stole from me, not my wealth but my wealthy parents, knowing I was destroying families on my mission of revenge?

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I could surely find better ways to use my money and power and influence, couldn't I? I could still fight crime at night but there might be more I could do during the daylight hours.

Could I do that?

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I could do anything I wanted to with my money and companies.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would donate money to the beleaguered inner city schools in my city. To cover teacher pay. To buy new books. To fix up old school buildings that need to be places of learning and growing, instead of breeding pens for the henchmen I beat up night after night.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would create an astroturf political group that would go around protesting and lobbying for me to pay more taxes. To force my accounts to stop looking and using and abusing loopholes in the tax code to allow me to keep more of my money. Besides, I am already wasting it on those crazy gadgets and those throwing darts that I leave all over town in walls and bodies.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would buy up all the projects and slums in my city and rebuilding them. I would make these places decent homes for those who find themselves having to live there. I would fund job placement and job training facilities, instead of for profit schools that seek to take every last dime, whether from the students or from government and private loans, in exchange to a set of skills that could be obtained for far less at the local junior college.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would invest in local businesses and banks, giving them the means to lift themselves. I would bring healthier food sources into the food deserts.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would create scholarships and internship programs for my vast array of companies for minority students.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would spend every day appreciating all that I have in terms of money and power. I would learn to be understanding that even the misfortune that befell me is nothing compared to the struggles of those who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths or, as Paul Mooney puts it, the complexion for the protection.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I would do all of these things and more.

If I was a wealthy white superhero, I could do none of these things.

Because, if I was a wealthy white superhero, I would be merely a wish fulfillment power fantasy character. I would be a figment of a society's imagination and a company's property.

Still, if I was a wealthy white superhero, I would be smart enough to know I am neither badass enough nor arrogant enough nor dumb enough to write a piece entitled If I Were A Poor Black Kid. I would be too busy sleeping during the day and fighting crime at night to stick my privileged nose into issues that do not concern me, and definitely not in such a condescending manner.

But what do I know?

After all, I'm too busy wishing I was a wealthy white superhero.

[Source: Vincent S. Moore]