People who think they espy irony in @baldricman tweeting about the privilege of white men while being a very privileged white man in a company of privileged white men, are missing the point. It's not irony. It is in fact the very reason he is expressing this sentiment.

It is precisely because he realises his own privilege that he is racked with guilt. His achievements - he feels - are undeserved. The challenges he faced on the way to where he is today are insignificant, because being white meant that he didn't have to overcome them personally.

The "system" was always rigged in his favour by virtue of being white. Now, I'm no Freudian psychoanalyst, but do I also detect some resentment towards his parents and familial support structure for over-encouragement and disproportionate praise for meagre achievements?

Or perhaps he was an overachiever who realises that he wouldn't have been one without the privilege his whiteness afforded him. See, I am only speculating. I can't know for sure because I don't know the guy or his history. Best not to generalise in such cases. The irony is this:

Generalisation (perhaps projection, extrapolation) lies at the very heart of Kevin's notion as articulated in his tweet about white men, their privilege and fragility. I have, as have many others, acknowledged many times before how Apartheid tipped the scales in our favour.

Let's not mystify that. Some among us enjoyed tremendous opportunities. But some also did not. We should be able to be honest about that. But there also needs to be a "now what?" aspect to this conversation. For those who acknowledge their privilege, what should be the next step?

Superficially Kevin and his fellow white male colleagues could simply step down and make way for people who did not benefit from white privilege. It would make sense not to preach from such a compromised position. Would this solve anything? I am doubtful.

What needs to be done is placing the focus on the obverse of this issue. For privilege, there therefore exists un-privilege (or underprivilege). This is where the focus should be. An orgiastic pity party of self-flagellation is self-indulgence of the highest order.

It achieves nothing, and it does NOT ameliorate the reality of the underprivileged one iota. The idea of male white privilege is not the magic key that unlocks the problem of why 26 years into democracy black youth unemployment is still on a meteoric rise. It is retrospective.

It doesn't address anything in the present - which is what matters. The glaring lack of opportunities for young black kids is a much more pressing issue than this navel-gazing - which is a nice-to-have luxurious pastime of the white economic upper class - but achieves nothing.