Untitled Slide
The core of his argument is that his success was earned through his hard work as well as his family's hours of labor, which he explains in an extremely sarcastic manner.
Fortgang opens his argument with the statement, "Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded Poland (Fortgang 4). As he continues to explain that his family has suffered through escaping the hands of Hitler and concentration camps, only to face more labor pursuing the American dream, he continues this sharp form of sarcasm (Fortgang 5-6). Harshly, he explains that what others view as "privilege," is actually the exact thing that should be praised because it is not privilege, but rather "self-sacrifice" (Fortgang 12).
He attacks those who have told him to "Check your privilege" directly, expressing, "You don’t know whose father died defending your freedom. You don’t know whose mother escaped oppression (Fortgang 8). Through this statement he is calling his condemners ignorant because no one ever truly knows a person's background, so they should not speak as if they do.