Tag: White privilege

The Continuing Saga of the Angry White Man

The debacle this nation and the world saw last week in the special-called session of confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh was troubling on many levels, not least of which was the once-again uncovering of the deep anger of white men.

 

Those we saw last week were privileged – meaning, men of some financial worth – but the ever-reappearance of white male anger is puzzling to me. White men rule the world. What, then, are they so angry about?

They are members of the White Supremacy Club – a moniker I’ve given them – which includes not only racism but deeply virulent sexism as well. The Founding Fathers of this nation were all privileged white men who intended this country to be created by white people – or more specifically, by white men – for white people, with white men in control. They have taught their brand of sexism to men of all races in this country, but their racism is uniquely their own.

When these men do not get their way, they lose perspective and the ability to contain their anger. I imagine that they grow up being taught that they are better than anyone else and that they are entitled to more than anyone else. I would assume that they are taught that others do not have what they have because others are inferior to them. That being said, I am assuming that they are taught to not be concerned or to feel bad about how they may be perceived. This world is theirs and they are charged to keep it that way.

I make those stark assumptions because all parents teach their children that they have worth. African American parents teach their children that in spite of what the world – defined by white supremacist ideology – that they are just as worthy and intelligent and beautiful and capable as anyone else – meaning the white society which will tell them differently. It’s not surprising that privileged white parents would teach their children to live into that privilege and to realize their unique value as white people – and specifically as white men.

Whenever we think we are “somebody,” and someone else does not treat us in the manner to which we have grown accustomed, we tend to become a bit surly. We are insulted that the person in front of us “does not know who we are.” People who are “somebody,” and/or who believe they are “somebody” become used to being treated differently than the commoners, for lack of a better term. They expect others to know who they are and to treat them accordingly.

So…privileged white men have been having their way for a long time and they are worried, say some, that with all of the undesirables coming into the country, effectively “browning” America, their status as “privileged” is threatened. They are fighting back with everything they’ve got – from passing laws that make life miserable for black, brown and poor people, to working the suppress the vote for black, brown and poor people, to gerrymandering voting districts so that they can remain in power, to separating immigrant parents from their children and throwing those children in what only be called detention camps.

The administration is working to get federal judges on benches all over the country who will preserve the “white way of life,” which is what “Make America Great Again” is really all about. As laws and policies have passed which have made the lives of black, brown and poor people easier, the privileged have become petulant and pissed off.

The white supremacist way of thinking has cooked their brains and foiled their capacity to feel compassion for anyone other than themselves and their interests. They are acting like spoiled children, pouting and having temper tantrums when the world dares to challenge them on things they want to do and which they think they are entitled to do.

When Judge Brett Kavanaugh lost his cool during the hearing on Thursday where he had to answer to charges of sexual impropriety brought by Dr. Christine Ford, I was disappointed but not surprised. It seemed that he had been well-coached by the pouter-in-chief, but his outburst to me seemed to be one of indignation, not that he was being asked certain questions, but that certain people felt they had the right to challenge and question him. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) seemed to fit that description as well. These were grown men, spoiled by a society which supports and practices white supremacy – and they were insulted that anyone had the gall to challenge them on how they chose to live their lives.

The South has been the bane of everything “socially just” concerning race since it lost the Civil War.; its position on the place of the woman hasn’t been much better. Someone said that after the war ended, it would go on without a weapon being fired and we have seen that reality played out for years. The South has resented black people making gains – at, they believe, their expense. They have worked and are still working to make things “right” again. Their “good ol’ boy” mentality has never been so challenged and they are fit to be tied. But they are determined to hold onto their power and their privilege. They will continue to pout …but also to plot how they can keep what they believe is their divine right to have – superior treatment and opportunity based on their race and their gender. They are determined to correct what they believe was a travesty of justice when the South lost the war. They are determined to retrieve the “Lost Cause” and put this country on what they believe is its intended course again.

A candid observation …

American Democracy has not been Democratic

Is there anything that will make the masses of white people own up to the fact that there is such a thing as white supremacy in these United States, that it has existed for years, and that it has produced “side effects” which continue to affect African-Americans today?

I listened to Bill O’Reilly go toe to toe with Dr. Cornel West, and in their discussion, O’Reilly said he did not believe there is such a thing as white privilege. (http://newsone.com/3168784/cornel-west-schools-bill-oreilly-on-white-supremacy-trickle-down-economics/) O’Reilly is an historian of sorts. He knows what the history of this nation has been as concerns black people. So when he said that, I just sat back, frustrated.

Nowhere do we hear from this nation’s white “leaders” except, maybe, from former President Jimmy Carter, that America has a sordid past as concerns its treatment of black people for which there needs to be atonement. While America blasts ISIS for brutal behavior, her leaders keep her brutality under wraps. The lynching of black people, a huge reality, is something we just don’t talk about. We, Americans, burned black people for being accused, not necessarily convicted of, crimes. We denied people “fair” trials by juries “of their peers.” White people, claiming to be Christian, led by their pastors, treated black people like rabid animals, not human beings with needs, feelings and emotions. White slave traders broke up black families as they looked for the best “deals” to wield the greatest profits for America’s growing economy, and now they complain about the broken black family which too often has no father figure present. White politicians ignored the right of all children to get a good education, denying funds to schools in black rural and urban areas for those schools to provide solid educations for black children. White systems made it impossible for black people who fought in America’s wars to get loans for homes and for education, once they returned home from serving their country. White law enforcement officers often participated in violence against black people; white presidents turned deaf ears and blind eyes to the needs of black people.

I read about the lynching of Sam Hose (http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/502), accused of killing his boss, and I wept. The going reason for lynching black people was that black men were raping white women. Facts show, however, that it was white men who were raping black women – without ever having to pay for it. Black women were pieces of meat, owned by white men. They were desecrated and humiliated, and were impregnated at the same time. I am sure some black men raped white women, but in many cases, the sex between black men and white women was consensual. White women would lie and say they were raped in order not to be killed by their husbands. Why won’t white people talk about how they are not so “holy,” not so “blameless?”

White people have no idea about how their racism has impacted black people, making masses of black people live in fear. The Great Migration, brilliantly written about in The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, happened in large part because white people terrorized black people in the South, behavior sanctioned by and participated in by politicians and law enforcement officers.

Surely, Mr. O’Reilly knows this and more, and surely, he recognizes that emotional trauma like this – which has not stopped – yields side-effects. Surely too he knows that mass incarceration, on top of black people having limited access to employment, has resulted in disintegration of the African-American community. Surely …

White people seem oblivious to their history. They seem, for the most part, to want to keep their heads in the sand; many refuse to admit that the Civil War was about slavery (states’ rights meant states wanted the right to own slaves). They refuse to admit that Jim Crow worked to dehumanize black people, even as it worked to undo the freedoms black people enjoyed for a short time. They will not own that their participation in job and housing discrimination was something they could do because they were and are white – that their whiteness gave them the privilege of participating in a system which was bullying black people further and further into second class status.

All this happened as white Christians abdicated the dictates of Christianity to live in and with agape love for all people.

America’s democracy has not been democratic, not for black people, and white people will not own it.

A candid observation