Free Advice From Me to Steve Vogelsang
He said he has had all this time to think but he has no answers.
He is also writing a memoir to be released soon after he is released. Apparently, it will go through all the high-lights of his life and then briefly talk about his life as a bank robber and what went wrong but it will offer no insights into why.
I will provide the answers for him so that he might produce a book worth reading. The easy question is where he went wrong. The answer is that he started robbing banks.
The bigger question is why and the answer is obvious to me. White male privilege. White males are the only demographic that has never faced systemic discrimination. (I should acknowledge that white males who belong to the LGBTQA community also know discrimination.) But, for the most part, because they have never been judged based on gender or skin colour or something else in their dna that they had no control over, they think differently.
Steve was loud, brash, and decisive. He felt his opinion was more important than others. All good qualities to have in a sportscaster in the 80s and 90s. He did well. His male white privilege helped to feed his arrogance. Then, the world started to change. Like most men who feel privileged just because they are white and male, he couldn't adapt. Respectful workplaces happened. Political correctness happened. It wasn't a big evolution for those who already had values but it did stunt growth of those living with male white privilege.
He became an instructor at RRCC in Creative Communications. I suspect his classes were really him reliving his golden days as a reporter and anchor and then sports director and news director. Some of his former students feel betrayed as he was always so encouraging of them. Well, that is actually what a good instructor does. One female reporter moved to BC and couldn't get a job and they kept in touch and he was always encouraging her and she eventually achieved success. Hmmm. He kept in touch with female students after they were no longer students. Yeah, that doesn't sound creepy at all.
He moved to BC with his wife to semi-retire. His wife flourished and he floundered. He floundered because people didn't like him and his style. Male white privilege. He couldn't adapt to his environment and expected his environment to adapt to him.
He divorced and moved back to Winnipeg where he got a really good job. The job only lasted a short time. The interview doesn't say why. Maybe this is another one that he has no answers for. I can take a wild guess.
At that point, he was drowning in debt and saw no way out. I can tell you what other people do when faced with that dilemma. They cut their spending. They negotiate with their creditors. They work more than one job. They liquidate what assets they have. They take a room-mate. They go to credit-counselling. I know a woman of colour who has two full-time jobs and one part-time job in order to make ends meet. But, for Steve Vogelsang, a man living with white privilege, none of those were options for him. He wouldn't even get a job that he felt was "beneath" him. So, he decided to turn to crime.
He actually gave this a lot of thought and wanted to pick a "victimless" crime so decided on robbing banks. Only someone living with male white privilege would think that there was such a thing as a victimless crime.
So, now he is serving his time and he has opinions on prison. He says prison is not bad and there are no horror stories in prison. I wonder if an Indigenous man serving a term at Stony Mountain would say the same. He says he is quite popular in prison and he is proud of that. Really. No one other than a white male would be proud of being popular in jail. And, is he popular or do people just tolerate him?
So, when you are writing your book, Steve, you might want to check your male white privilege in the first chapter and come to terms with your morals and ethics. I am giving you this advice because you need it. Also, you need a little common sense.
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