I truly enjoyed reading this excerpt from Johnson book and I completely agree with everything he had to say.  I agree with him that we don't have a a complete understanding of the problems we are facing regarding gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity and social class.  As Johnson states we are ll stuck in out social class mindset but unfortunately it is not something we have created but rather has been passed down to us from generation to generation.  The author also states that " as a species we are creative, generous, loving, helpful, and adaptable".  Yet we are still unable to provide an answer to Rodney King's exasperated question of " Can't we all just get along"?  The author admits that he himself has fallen into the trap of being able to openly discuss these social issues while working with an African American woman with whom he was teaching a class on with regarding this very subject.  SO if he is having a hard time how are we, the average person supposed to step up and start making changes.  How do we go about not pitting people against each other, especially when competitiveness is humanly ingrained in each of us.  How do we get these conversations started without putting people on the defense or offending others?  How do we open up "privilege to everyone so that there is no more privilege just humans?  These are some of the questions that came to mind while I was reading.  Just a few sidebars.  Johnson talks about how blacks have to learn how white males live and respond so that they can please them, especially the cops.  My son has a friend who is multiracial and there was an incident at school.  Long story short, his fathers response was "I was about his age when my father had the talk with me about being a black man and how we need to work harder to stay out of trouble".  When the mom of this boy, who I might add is one of the most amazing, well behaved and caring boys I have ever met, told me this it broke my heart.  But unfortunately it just goes to show that the world, as much as we want it to, is not changing.  Our children are continuing with these same stigmas and it needs to stop.  The author argues that its easy for the white privileged heterosexual male to take a back seat and not work on solving these problems, when in reality they are the ones with the power to do so.  I am including a short excerpt from a stand up that Chris Rock did on being black,  Please note that there is strong language and if you will be offended than please don't watch it.  But as I was reading this article, this popped into my mind and I had to share it  .

 I also am including the wiki site for the plot of Watermelon man, which a movie mentioned by the author that I haven't seen so I looked it up to read what it was about Watermelon Man.   I am looking forward to discussing this in class!!!  I believe that the author is arguing the point that it is easy for the white heterosexual privileged male to take a backseat and not work on solving the problems, but they are the also the ones who have the power to solve the problems.