White Men Deserve a Break

Happy Fourth of July. During lunch at work, I came across Roland Merullo’s “In Defense of The White Male”, published in the Boston Globe yesterday. It’s reproduced below in normal font, commentary on italics.

EVERYWHERE I TURN these days I encounter the term “white male,” almost always used in a pejorative way.

Everywhere I go I see teachers in Ferraris. Research scientists drinking champagne. I try to drink a Coke on the bus, and they took away my pass!

I understand the reasons for this.

Expansion and domination by Europeans and their descendants—a patently heterogeneous set, although having in common being of light skin. Pretty obvious, no need for…   

There are abundant examples — both in history and current events — of boorish and evil white men. Hitler comes to mind. Stalin. Mussolini. On a much lesser scale, certain unmentionables in present-day D.C.

Oh, you’re going by examples and foisting that simplistic thinking onto straw White HataZ.

For one example, it’s not difficult to look at the assembled power brokers of the Republican congress, smiling as they eliminate funds for the health care of women, and see them as part of an evil empire of powerful, pale-skinned, masculine creatures.

Well, women AND men—white AND non-white—stand to be affected. But why ruin the “poor white males” thesis with obvious facts?

And I’ve met enough obnoxious white men in my own life to understand the contemptuous tone in which “white male” is so often used.

Yeah, “obnoxiousness”, not “usual ruling class” is what brings out a “contemptuous tone”.

But these blanket condemnations are part of a very narrow and skewed reading of both history and current events. While it’s certainly true that white men have started wars, participated in torture, and committed rape, they/we have not cornered the market on evil behavior. Idi Amin comes to mind. Pol Pot. Baby Doc Duvalier. Hirohito.

Somewhere, a fourth grade student instantly developed a solid plagiarism lawsuit.

Not to mention certain notorious female camp guards and serial killers.

I stand corrected: third-grader.

It’s not hard to argue that white men have done more harm in history — from the keeping of slaves to the genocide of Native Americans, and a thousand other examples — than any other single group. But it can also be argued that they have done more good — in combatting evil regimes, in developing medicines, in inventing everything from the automobile to the cellphone to various methods of birth control. White men discovered penicillin, Novocain, the drug regimen used to treat people afflicted with AIDS.

Well, slavery, colonialism, and racist social mores do put a hamper on non-whites’ autodidactism and procurement of lab space.

In many places the chances are good that if your home is on fire, it will be a white man who comes to put it out.

Kowtow to him for meeting his job description! Wait, not yet. Is his last name González?   

And, if it were not for the millions of white men who gave their lives in World War II, we might all be starting the work day with the Nazi salute.

You mean, start the day with the White Power salute? Oh my, it’s like males that have light skin do NOT share a single ideology. Who knew!

Associating us only with evil deeds, selfishness, and violence is as misguided as making general disparaging statements about any other group: women, blacks, Muslims, homosexuals.

Yes, that’s the essence of repugnant discrimination: bad stuff = skin W / religion X / gender Y / orientation Z. Though I’d take exception to the “as misguided” thing because, in this continent (from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego), “discrimination” against women, homosexuals, and varied races has historically been known as “everyday life”.  

Yet, in certain circles, it has become acceptable — even laudable — to do just that.

Why of why must these historically disenfranchised groups bellyache among themselves! Can’t people see that it’s happenstance when a white cop kills a black man and a white jury absolves him? If only routinely stop-and-frisked, non-shot black and brown folk could look inward and realize their anti-white attitude is racist. Surely if suffragettes had been nicer, women would be earning $0.90 of the male dollar–instead of merely $0.78.

Not long ago I had an exchange with a former student of mine — we were discussing women’s rights and abusive men — and she told me I had no right to speak on the subject. “We were made to be silent for millennia,” she said, “now it’s your turn.” That kind of revenge must be satisfying, and particularly soothing to those who’ve been hurt by men — no small number. Ultimately, though, understandable as it may be, the impulse toward revenge leads nowhere except to a seesaw of oppression and fury.

Right, because only “revenge” is behind claiming a voice suppressed for millennia, concerning only women’s rights and vicissitudes. Fuck. You; that is condescending and hysteric shaming. 

I thought of arguing with her that my right to speak on those issues derives from the fact that I have two daughters and have been married for 38 years to the same good woman.

“Relax doll face; my home is Poon Central.” 

But those aren’t the true reasons. The true reason is that I am a human being, and the welfare of all human beings concerns me.

As long as they know their place.

At the root of the oppression of women, an oppression which denied and continues to deny them equal status and opportunity, was what Hemingway — a quintessential white male, much in disfavor in certain circles now — called “those dirty, easy labels.”

The quote’s about labeling 1920s U.S. expat authors, of which Hemingway was one. The quote: “Staring at a statute of [a general]…, with a cold beer in his hand, [Hemingway] declared: ‘the hell with [Gertrude Stein’s] lost-generation talk and all the dirty, easy labels’”. For actual Hemingway nobility, “A Moveable Feast” is recommended, especially the part about Hemingway’s ingratitude toward Stein and blaming her lack of taste on menopause. Truly, the snowflake Pharisees do not deserve Papa.

For centuries, females were considered less intelligent, less dependable, fickle, flighty, hysterical [Like telling men to shut up about women’s stuff?]. That was the rap [not “rap”, because this white male’s “with it”], and it infiltrated the culture in everything from hiring practices to the naming of hurricanes.

AAAAND? Should that recognition not move towards some sort of reparative stance instead of “Past is past; we all enlightened. Let’s move on”?  

From Jews to African-Americans to homosexuals to Irish, Italian, and now Middle Eastern immigrants, hatred began by tossing all of them into a group, and attributing to that group the most unattractive characteristics imaginable. What is being done to “white males” now, it should go without saying, is not on a par with what was done to those people.

BUT?

But the instinct to label and blame is born of the same kind of group-think.

Historical injustices, borne out of fact and customs, are not group think.

Maybe one fine day we’ll learn to eschew labels, or at least see beyond them, and focus on the humanity we share.

As long as those that are not white het males ain’t uppity.

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