White Privilege In A Rolls Royce Wraith

The March 2016 issue of Car and Driver has a story that highlights the white privilege that Caucasians take for granted. It involves two of their staff writers as they travel through the Southeast U.S. in a $390,000 Rolls Royce Wraith. The prank is that they were going to pretend they lost their wallets and ID's and would use only the Rolls Royce as evidence of their good names in order to get free stuff.

As they drove through the country, they discovered that people did in fact trust the car to vouch for their characters. They wrote that, "Perfect strangers were invariably kind and charitable." The writers were able to receive free meals at restaurants, free gas, free coffee at Starbucks, and even a free hotel room in New Orleans. Some people said they would have offered their services free anyway since that was the hospitable thing to do.

Somehow I'm skeptical that people are that generous just because somebody drives up to their place of business in an expensive car. As I read this story, I kept thinking that they are getting away with this because the writers are white. Imagine if two black men were driving around in a Rolls Royce and tried to scam restaurants and hotels for free services pretending they had lost their wallets and ID's. You know what would have happened? Instead of being offered things gratis, I suspect people would probably have called the police first. How else would two black guys be driving around in a Rolls without any ID? But if two white people do it, it's just a harmless prank.

I have similar experience with what Car and Driver pulled off but from a minority's point of view. But the results were entirely different. I experienced the racism that can still be so prevalent around the country. This is not the burning cross racism as Chris Rock would say, but sorority racism. In other words, there is no "Whites Only" sign being displayed anywhere but the effects were there.

After high school, a good buddy of mine, who is white, and I took a summer road trip together. We traveled all over the Ozark mountains, enjoying the splendid views and lakes. At the end of the first day, we needed to stop to get a motel room. Since he was driving, I was the one who got out of the car to see if we could get a room. Each time I went inside, I was told that there were no more vacancies available even though there was no signs that said so. After about three tries, I told my friend that I was feeling tired and if he could go in to get a room. After five minutes he came out and tossed me the room key.

I never mentioned how much this hurt me. He seemed too oblivious to notice the ease in which he got a room and I couldn't. To him, it was probably just a coincidence. But that is just part of the white privilege that Caucasians assume is granted to everybody else. I don't know if people in that part of the country still act that way thirty years later, but it would be interesting if Car and Driver would do the same prank with two minority drivers instead. Let's see how many free Starbucks they can get before being thrown in the slammer by some present day Roscoe P. Coltrane.

Domestic Car Companies Aren't Even Trying In California

Driving home every day I'm constantly reminded by how little American car companies are trying to sell their products here in California. On the radio I constantly here commercials for the imports. Names like Longo Lexus and Toyota, Fletcher Jones Mercedes, Norm Reeves Honda, Beverly Hills BMW are ubiquitous on the airwaves. The American companies? Nada. Other than Galpin Ford and Worthington Ford, I don't ever recall hearing advertisements for the domestics. I can't tell you the names of any GM or Chrysler dealers without having to take ten minutes to really think about it.

If their publicity is bad, the dealerships are worse. In my neighborhood in the South Bay region of Los Angeles, the American dealers look utterly antiquated compared to the imports. Scott Robinson Honda just built a brand new building that takes up half a city block. It is full of light and glass, giving a sense of airiness to the whole facility. Audi also recently opened the largest Audi dealer in the country with a showroom that is easily seen from the busy main street.

What have the American companies done? Here in Torrance, Martin Chevrolet recently upgraded their facade. Whoop dee do. The interior looks exactly as it did thirty years ago. Their new car inventory sits in a tiny corner of the lot that maybe holds twenty cars. About two thirds of their lot are for the used car inventory and service area. Not exactly inviting for anybody seeking a new Chevy.

Penske Cadillac looks like it's trying to hide itself from customers. Its building features glass so dark you can't even see their cars inside. Worse, they have a low wall separating their lot from the public sidewalk. When their cars are parked behind the wall, the fronts of the cars are obscured and you can only see the vehicles from the windshield up. By comparison the South Bay BMW next door is a huge open lot with seemingly acres of BMWs easily seen and envied from every direction.

If the Cadillac dealership design is bad, the Buick/GMC dealership next to it is even worse. Squeezed between the Cadillac and BMW dealers, it is a tiny hangar of a building that is easily missed if you blink on the busy drive up Hawthorne Blvd. I rarely even see any new Buicks on display. Occasionally there are one or two GMC's that are parked up front. I can't think of a worse way to sell a car, especially in a competitive environment like Southern California.

And Chrysler? Is there even a Chrysler dealer in the South Bay? Oh yes. Scott Robinson recently took over the old Chrysler dealer. But as far as I can tell the building is still the same old staid facility and I have heard zero advertising promoting its presence. You would have to search really hard to even know that it exists.

Don't get me wrong. I'm really rooting for the domestics to do a better job here in this state. Strong domestic car companies will produce a stronger national economy. They also have some very compelling new vehicles that are worthy of consideration by anybody, including some of my favorites like the Cadillac CTS Vsport, the Chevy Corvette, the Chevy SS, and GMC Denali. But the car companies can only do so much with product development. Unless their dealers do a better job of making their presence known through better advertisements and they upgrade their dealerships, it is unlikely they will win much marketshare from the imports. They will in essence lose the battle without ever putting up much of a fight.