Why does whiteness matter?

shrodingerstherapist · 2014-01-14T02:25:46+00:00

I used to have a friend, a black girl from South Central, who once had me take a photo of her holding up a sign that said "I need feminism because I love listening to a bunch of privileged white women moaning about how oppressed they are." She was a cool chick. Anyway it seems pretty clear to me (a white guy) that black males are on the lowest spot on the totem pole in US society. They are most likely to be incarcerated, they get stiffer sentences than any other group, most likely to be the victims of violence etc. However, even black feminists often refuse to admit this. They just have more chips on their shoulder than white feminists.

2014-01-14T03:04:32+00:00

I've said it before:

We live in a generation of cushy, spoiled, white folk who've never had a real burden placed upon them, or cause to fight for, or great war to protest.

Humans measure their value in conflict and misery, and this generation has little to speak of. As such they have to invent things to be angry about.

First World Problems.

The people that bitch the loudest about ANY cause are always white people. Racism, sexism, gay rights, etc... we have so few problems of our own we have to "borrow" everyone else's causes just to have something to be constantly angry about.

Ted8367 · 2014-01-14T02:18:17+00:00

Does being female absolve them of the benefits of their lack of melanin?

Being female absolves them from everything

oneiorosgrip · 2014-01-14T02:44:23+00:00

The concept "privilege" relies on treating a factor's impact and meaning to the individual differently depending on whether or not victim politics ideologues want to treat the individual as a proxy victim, or a target. It has nothing to do with reality. It's more about shutting down dissent against their ideological push.

2014-01-14T03:23:50+00:00

I really wonder sometimes what women in less savoury parts of the world think when they see white feminists kicking up a stink about things like a mythical "pay gap" and being "stare raped". It must seem like bizzaro world or something.

Nomenimion · 2014-01-14T03:32:10+00:00

Because they need to trick black males into supporting them, and to do that white men must be their Devil. If men ever learn to set their petty differences aside and struggle for their mutual interests, feminism will be over.

2014-01-14T05:59:14+00:00

Play on population. Straight White men make up the bulk of CEO's and politicians. If you paint all straight White men, even the poor ones in New York slums, with a broad brush as CEO's and politicians you can get more people on your side.

dejour · 2014-01-14T02:31:05+00:00

Well, if asked directly I think most feminists would agree that white women have some privilege from being white.

But a lot of internet discussion is based on individuals being treated badly. If the person is female, it will be attributed to sexism. If a person of color, it will be attributed to racism. If the person is gay, it will be attributed to homophobia. If the person is disabled, it will be attributed to ableism.

If someone is a straight, white, able-bodied male, it cannot be attributed to systemic discrimination in the minds of feminists.

So, in practice, complaints about mistreatment are unacceptable for straight, white males. But not straight, white females.

overcontrol · 2014-01-14T05:51:14+00:00

If you want to paint a picture of privilege to me, stick with phrases like "college educated". In the case of a minor "middle class" and "upper class" will do. I find the association of privilege with race as obnoxious as the association of injury with ambulances. The principles behind it lead to all sorts of moral bankruptcy.

G-O · 2014-01-14T04:01:26+00:00

In order to be the best social justice warrior you can be, you have to emphasize the innate qualities that make you a victim, and conveniently ignore those qualities in yourself that one would label others as privileged.

Bodertz · 2014-01-14T05:17:23+00:00

Tumblr feminism encompasses basically all forms of advocacy at this point, so any potential privilege is now a part of it. Most admit they have white privilige, but some (I feel) try to offset it by adding on a bunch of other labels. For instance, asexual.

Nomenimion · 2014-01-14T15:39:38+00:00

Wouldn't it be terrific if all we had to worry about was being called a name, or groped against our wishes, or pulled over by the coppers once a year instead of once a decade? That would be a wonderful trade for being a sitting duck for compulsive liars, or being turned into a child support serf.

I can live with my feelings being hurt; my rights being trampled is another matter.

neightdog · 2014-01-14T16:17:06+00:00

because feminists are racist and sexist bigots

rightsbot · 2014-01-14T02:00:17+00:00

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TheGDBatman · 2014-01-14T18:57:53+00:00

Whiteness matters because every religion needs a devil figure to blame the world's problems on.

Juan_Golt · 2014-01-14T21:17:23+00:00

The root of the issue is that ideologies tend to co-opt all other movements and make all the problems of the world fit under a single umbrella. You see this repeatedly with many successful ideologies.

If it's rainy instead of sunny:

A Marxist says the rich people own all the land in the sunny places.

A Capitalist says that government regulation is preventing them from removing the clouds.

A Feminist complains that gender normative clothing isn't safe to wear in bad weather.

A Christian will say it's because you didn't pray for sun hard enough. Etc... People see the world through the perspective of their ideology.

Feminism adding race to the gender debate is just a means of claiming all oppression as evidence of sexism and handled under their banner. It also conveniently absolves women of any responsibility. The small number of people at the top weren't just white, they were white males ergo gender is the heart of any issue. Therefore their ideology is paramount.

kragshot · 2014-01-17T07:28:43+00:00

Despite the fact that most of these feminists are white women themselves, they use the racism card as a means to legitimize their claims of righteous anger against you "evil white men."

One of the things that the MRM has to do to combat this is to illustrate the similarities between how all men are suffering; white men and men of color.

LieBaron · 2014-01-14T08:49:37+00:00

Full disclaimer, this is going to be a rather long post. I'm a white, male feminist, and I'm going to try to answer your as earnestly as possible. To the rest of you, that also means that I don't plan to engage with any comments you might have - I really am just here to talk to OP.

In one of your posts, you write that white people have been blessed with not having to pay attention to the colour of their skin - and you're right, we don't. And people treat us better for it, especially in the US, where race relations remain tense - we're far less likely to be pulled over by the police, to be stopped and frisked, etc. Add to that the historical oppression of African-Americans, and you can add to that a whole host of other issues and problems relating to poverty, marginalisation and oppression, and it is clear that as a class, white Americans as lead immensely easier lives than their African-American peers, even if individuals are fall outside of this picture - Obama leads a better life than John Doe, for instance. This doesn't mean that Obama doesn't suffer the effects of racism, both from individual racists (stereotypical racist grandmas, for instance) and from the unacknowledged and pervasive biases that people (of all races) in the US have against black people. But that goes both ways - I can't 'put away' my white privilege, it is something that society (IE everyone) extends to me on a regular basis - if I go in a store, the odds are simply not that good that I'll be followed around by security. This is what white privilege, and the lack thereof, is, and I assume you are on board with that description to some extent or another.

Similarly, there is male privilege. Men in general, as a class, are privileged. Like white privilege, this privilege is not always obvious to us, and it is largely a product of the way society treats us, and we can't do much about it. We don't have to worry about getting raped or roofied, and if we get in a fight with our partner, we usually do not have to worry about going to the hospital (A very common part of female-on-male partner abuse is that the men submit to the physical abuse, in spite of the fact that they know that they can stop her - 'but you don't hit women'. But that's another discussion entirely.) Men are also consistently seen as more rational, logical and stoic, to the extent that if the exact same text is given to a group of test-subjects, they will find it more persuasive if they're told that a man wrote it. In general, I think sexism and male privilege are more subtle than racism, even if they're no less real.

Now, you can have either, none, or both of these, in addition to a whole host of privileges on other axes that society uses - some fairly commonly used examples are 'thin/fat', 'poor/wealthy' and 'able/disabled' and 'cis/trans'. White feminists still have white privilege, for instance, and they are not necessarily more conscious of their privilege just because they are women. Let's just stick to sexism and racism for now, though.

White privilege and male privilege are fairly analogous to each other, and there is a good reason why anti-racists and feminists have banded together in recent years to become 'social justice warriors'. There are many of the same arguments to be made for and against the existence of white privilege and male privilege, which is why you will usually, but not always, see the two being accepted or rejected at the same time - 'privilege' as a concept is what's usually rejected.

So, why does race matter in a discussion of sexism?

Two reasons.

One, if you're a white male, you're potentially doubly blind to your own privileges, and it is harder for you to find experiences that are relatable when someone describes what racism or sexism feels like in practice, or why, for instance, the n-word is 'worse' than 'cracker', or why 'c*nt' is worse than me being called a dick. I'm a white male, and I know I've referred to both MRAs and Libertarians as a bunch of white males - namely, the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they are blind to their own privileges, and really defensive about it. Incidentally, 'checking your privilege' simply means considering whether or not your are blind to it, especially in a context of actually listening to those who do not have your privilege. Being told that you are privileged can sting, because it's not a far cry from being told that you're racist or sexist, or perhaps clueless. It is easy to make excuses for racism or sexism from a position of power and dominance, especially when you yourself have had no experience of either. This is also why there is a huge overlap between both feminism and anti-racism, and mensrights and whiterights, and why those groups are also divided on left/right lines.

Secondly, racism and sexism are connected, especially in the US. Racism in the US has a long history of either emasculating black men (Lazy, watermelon-eating 'boys') or portraying them as hyper-masculine threats to white hegemony and especially white women. In fact, a lot of African-American culture is about reclaiming and defining a specifically black masculinity, from the innuendo-laden lyrics of the blues to the violent images of the blacksploitation genre - and of course in hip-hop as well. And black women are similarly often portrayed as either particularly masculine or particularly slutty.

In this sense, a discussion of racism in America has to include a discussion of gender relations. You can't have a discussion of the portrayal of black men as emasculated or hyper-masculine, without also discussing why those portrayals are negative. This is what feminists call intersectionality - the idea that racism, sexism, classism etc are all interconnected, that they all influence one another.

Now, finally, aren't all the feminist leaders white?

Yeah, mostly. White women still have white privilege. I don't think that white feminists in general would deny that they have white privilege, or that it can lead to problematic behaviour - especially since this is actually an ongoing discussion in feminist circles, which have only strived for inclusivity since the 1990's and Third Wave Feminism. Many of the white feminist leaders do try to be more inclusive, for instance when they have cons, organize discussions, etc. It's far from perfect though, and there's still some tension (as well as lots of cooperation) between European/American feminists and feminists from other parts of the world - recently, there was a lot of debate regarding FEMEN, for instance, and how white feminists could best show support for their Muslim allies without simultaneously besmirching their culture as backwards, etc. There was also a bit of a kerfuffle when Miley Cyrus was declared empowering by some feminists, while others saw her act at the VMAs as essentially racist and appropriative. Feminism as an inclusive movement is a work in progress, but feminism is definitely moving forward on this issue, and lots of feminist organisations are taking some very real steps towards a more inclusive feminism. That doesn't mean there aren't problems, but it's still leaps and bounds better than anti-feminism or the MR'M' in terms of not being racist.

Anyway, that was a pretty long reply.

Title	Why does whiteness matter?
Author	buffnola
Upvotes	18
Comments	40
Date	January 14, 2014 1:58 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/1v5not/why-does-whiteness-matter/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-does-whiteness-matter.1613775 https://theredarchive.com/post/1613775

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