Oh, I’ll probably get in trouble for this one. What the hell, here goes.

There’s a lot of talk about systemic racism among the Democratic presidential candidates lately. America is a racist country, etc. I want to agree in part and disagree in part.

First, let’s face it, most of the wealth, power, and cool shit in this country is in the possession and control of white people. That is, I think, not realistically contestable.

But there are a lot of black people and Asian people who have also made a lot of money, wield a lot of power, or have a lot of cool shit. And there are a lot — the vast majority — of white people who don’t have any of it. So it’s clearly not race, or not just race, that determines those outcomes.

I’ve also heard about young black people being excoriated by their friends for “acting white” when they study, speak proper English, or eschew drugs and dressing like a gangbanger.

The confluence of those facts led me to a stunning realization. The people with money and power and cool shit in this country don’t have it because they *are* white, they have it because they *act* white.

So what is “acting white”? How does one do that? I think it’s pretty simple.

– Be well-spoken. Lose the ghetto slang.

– Be well-read, especially about history and economics.

– Don’t commit crime. No shoplifting or theft or breaking into cars or running stop signs or driving like a nut case.

– Don’t do drugs, and use alcohol moderately if at all.

– Don’t get pregnant — or get somebody else pregnant — until you finish school.

– Work at school. Graduate. Go to college. Graduate.

– Don’t hang out with, or dress like, gangbangers.

– Unless you have a carry permit, leave the guns at home.

And realize that people who tell young blacks that they’re acting white don’t want those young blacks to have money, wield power, or have cool shit, because so-called “acting white,” whether you’re white or not, is the way to get them.

There are a ton of examples. Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, Ben Carson, Tim Scott, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Mia Love, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Herman Cain, Robert Johnson, John Johnson, Charles Payne, Bob Woodson — and that’s just off the top of my head as I write this.

It doesn’t depend on your starting circumstances. Ben Carson, for example, was raised in the projects by a single mother who could not read, and he became a brain surgeon and head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins before becoming HUD secretary.

That’s just blacks. Asians are better at “acting white” than white people are. In fact, it might better be called “acting Asian.” And there are a lot of whites who don’t “act white.” They also end up without money, power, or cool shit. Southern cracker culture in particular is antithetical to “acting white.”

I bounced this idea off a black friend the other night. “It’s not because they are white, but because they act white. Wow.” They thought about it, then slowly nodded their head and said it was a powerful insight.

It does explain a lot. And it means that, in this country at least, people’s futures are largely in their own hands.

It also means that no attempts to ‘correct injustice’ that don’t address personal behaviors can ever succeed.