(by Benjamin Sutton for Hyperallergic)
In an effort to better reflect the changing demographics of its borough, the Brooklyn Museum is launching White Male History Month, a press release announced this morning. The new endeavor will begin today and take place throughout the month of April, following on the heels of Black History Month in February and Women’s History Month in March.
“We’ve always made it a priority to mirror the community around us, and it’s time to accept that that community has changed,” outgoing museum director Arnold Lehman said in a statement. “The Brooklyn Museum has long been a leader when it comes to inclusion and diversity, and we intend to stay at the forefront.”
The complete list of White Male History Month programs is still in the works, but highlights announced so far include a special Target First Saturday devoted exclusively to white male performers and presenters that will feature a panel discussion entitled, “Mansplaining and Manspreading: How to Cope with the Backlash.” The museum also plans to hire special docents for the month, who will be on hand to answer any questions visitors might have about what it’s like to be a white male, and launch an Airbnb-type service that will allow white males to get in touch with their roots by reserving short-term stays in the museum’s famous Schenck Houses, 17th- and 18th-century structures built by early male Dutch settlers in New York.
Perhaps most controversially, the White Male History Month program will require deinstalling the museum’s popular current Kehinde Wiley exhibition more than a month early and replace it instead with something called a “rebrospective” — an expansive survey of artwork by white males over the centuries. “We believe this will be the first museum exhibition of its kind in the world,” Managing Curator of Exhibitions Sharon Matt Atkins told Hyperallergic.
“We thought it would be difficult to come up with enough work from our various collections to pull off the show in such a short time,” she added, “but it was remarkably easy.”
There’s no word yet on whether the museum’s upcoming exhibition devoted to FAILE, the white male street art duo, will be moved up to coincide with the rebrospective.
In the wake of this morning’s announcement, Hyperallergic was able to connect with a Brooklyn Museum trustee, himself a white male, who spoke about the new initiative anonymously. He intimated that White Male History Month is not only an attempt to reflect the rapidly shifting demographics of the borough, but also to tap into a potential new donor base. “Like it or not, gentrification is real, and we need to make the best of it,” he said. “The hope is that White Male History Month appeals to the bearded artisanal mayo makers and the cocktail-pounding steak eaters, both of whom seem to be just about everywhere these days. We want to make them feel connected to a place where they may have felt ostracized in the past — let them know we’re more than just our African art collection and our feminist art center.”
The trustee added that the museum has already begun looking ahead to White Male History Month 2016, when it will attempt to pull off a feat similar to the Whitney Museum’s Jeff Koons retrospective, for which the entire building was given over to the work of the white male artist. He wouldn’t say who was being considered, but rumors among staff suggest that Paul McCarthy and Matthew Barney are the frontrunners.
“If we don’t adapt soon,” the trustee concluded, “we’re going to get priced out of Brooklyn.”
nice one
A-holes. Jokes like this that continue to bash white males are the reason WHY white males feel more attacked and alienated as the most hated race and sex combination on the planet. But sure, haha, April Fools. *eye roll*
It must be so hard to “feel more attacked” as opposed to those who literally are attacked, marginalized, dismissed, etc.
You mean the people who make your clothes, coffee, chocolate, and the computer you’re using to make that statement? Yes, you hate to see people being oppressed, so much so that you’ve voted for their oppression with your wallet.
I guess Orwell was right, “A humanitarian is always a hypocrite,” but don’t worry I’m sure you can blame your participation in the oppression of others on big bad evil whitey.
I’m sorry. You were referring to the clothes that were made by factory
workers in Asian countries like Vietnam, China, India, Sri Lanka, the
coffee that was farmed in Colombia, the chocolate that was made from
cacao grown in Sri Lanka, and the computers that were built in factories
in China, all of which were probably made by companies with a white
male CEO who is actually making the profit off of these products
(Karl-Johan Persson-CEO of H&M, Howard Shultz-CEO of Starbucks, John
P. Bilbrey-CEO of Hershey, Tim Cook-CEO of Apple), yes?
Maybe
you don’t understand just how large the issue is when huge corporations
monopolize the market making it very difficult for newer businesses to
create a foundation to compete with these monster companies.
The
system is much larger than the narrow confines you’ve presented it it
and more complex than what you’ve presented. So have a seat and take it
all in.
Didn’t take long for someone to displace their own responsibility in participating in an oppressive system on the big bad evil white male. Yes, it’s not your fault you’ve decided to purchase these products to enjoy a relatively comfortable and privileged lifestyle, the evil white male made you do it.
“all of which were probably made by companies with a white
male CEO”
I love how you wrote “probably”, you just went right into default “blame whitey for everything” mode ignoring the fact that it’s not just the companies that benefit from slave labor, entitled twats like you also benefit from it. Funny how you mentioned Apple, since it was mostly prosperous under Steve Jobs who was also half Arab, but yeah it’s Tim Cook’s fault cause he’s white. Yes, if only these companies were run but non-whites, then there would truly be high moral standards. Keep believing this racist mantra to block out all personal responsibility and blame it all on one particular ethnicity.
What about Kazuo Hirai of Sony? What about Daewoo? What about Vicoria’s Secret CEO Sharen Jester Turney? Forever 21’s Do Won Chang? What about Tate & Lyle’s Javed Ahmed? Etc.
But yeah, it’s all just white males. They’re to blame, no one else, especially not you. How convenient.
Terry Gou CEO Foxcon, who makes all Apple products.
In other words…
CHECK YO PRIVILEGE CRACKERSNATCH!
Don’t forget how good those countries are to their own people and their leaders who collude with the companies who operate there.
Oh please, take your privilege B.S. elsewhere. I’m sure that white woman who was walking the park with her son/brother who were attacked by a group of black teenagers was totally not attacked because she was white.
White people are attacked, marginalized, and dismissed just as much as any other group. We just don’t go starting riots over it.
Good point. Whitey usually riots over the important stuff like winning a hokey game or black friday sales. That feeling of being attacked or alienated is just the feeling of having some of that power and control taken from you but it’s cool brother. When you relinquish that bit of control and start to listen and understand as opposed to focusing your energy on that bullshit negativity you begin to learn and see things more fully. When you get your hackles up…more conflict. Tired of people complaining about asshole white dudes? Don’t be one.
Because I’m tired of the constant negativity thrown around at patriarchy cis white heterosexual males and constantly poking fun at them is going to totally help everyone else achieve their equality. The funny thing is that I’m none of the above listed except being male, but the constant amount of bullshit I keep seeing thrown at white males is ridiculous. Also, riots at black friday sales are just the same as riots done when a new pair of Jordans are sold, so don’t go there.
And those last two sentences. Not sure if you’re directing the fact that I’m an asshole for complaining about the unfair double standards thrown at males. If that makes me an asshole, then feminists and black rights activists are assholes for complaining about unfair double standards that are also thrown at them.
I don’t know if your an asshole or not. I sure hope not but I don’t know anything about you. There is a double standard with regards to white males it’s true but it isn’t how you’re seeing it. White males by and far get the better deal just about every time. There’s a lot of bullshit out there and false rage. Especially in comment sections.
Yes, it’s true that being a white male is advantageous, however this doesn’t capture the full nature of what it means to be a privileged individual. Rich people have it easier, attractive people have it easier too, along with people born into the first world, people who speak English, intelligent people, people who were born healthy, etc.
There’s a lot to consider when talking about which group has it easier, does a midget with fetal alcohol syndrome born into poverty in the Ukraine have it easier as a white male over, say, an Asian female born in the United States with rich parents and natural cognitive gifts?
I’m not dismissing that white men have it easier generally, I’m only suggesting that the situation of ‘privilege’ is more complicated than simply “fuck whitey”. Mostly whenever this topic comes up over the internet all I see is “Yes, I’m a relatively privileged individual living in an abundantly rich country with every opportunity present at my feet, however, I’m not the most privileged group of person on the planet and that’s simply unfair.”
I am an asshole, but that is only due to the fact that due to my light skin color and the fact that I am male, society assumes that I am the evil one due to assumed ancestry with the most privilege and that my life is significantly easier than anyone else’s even though they don’t know shit about me or my life. And that white males deserve no recognition and deserve nothing that they get because it is all achieved through cultural bias in favor of me – which is total bullshit.
Yes, the poor oppressed and marginalized white male. I think we ought to start a charity to help this downtrodden class of people. Oh, yeah, it’s called the World Bank, the United Nations, every Fortune 1000 company you can think of, Wall Street, the NFL, the NBA, CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, DeBeers and the list goes on and on and on and on and on…
If you can contribute its because you’ve been lifted out of third world existence into the first world and tearing down the ones who made it possible despite some being wrong does not negate all who helped blacks.
I’m not aware of “all” those who have helped blacks unless you mean slave owners, overseers, banks and insurance companies that helped to fund slavery, the British, Spanish, Dutch and French monarchies, ship builders, the Confederacy, segregationists, the KKK, Southern politicians, the old Dixiecrats and the new Republicans, the Catholic church, Christianity, lynch mobs responsible for more than 10,000 deaths of blacks and don’t leave out where it started with the Middle Passage and the loss of millions of lives forcefully taken from their home in Africa and when you look at history one might wonder being “lifted” from a Third World existence was really, really worth it. We can only speculate what kind of world we all would be in had it not been for slavery but I would submit that the world would’ve been a better place had it never had happened and the continent of Africa would have been better off had Western Africa had not been deprived of some of its strongest people (they had to be just to survive the Middle Passage). I doubt if you have ever been to places like Accra, Ghana or Lagos, Nigeria or certain cities in Cote D’ Voure but you should visit one day and you will find that these are advanced cities and cultures and not the images of emaciated and starving children we see on television. If there is a distinction between First and Third Worlds its because America prospered as a result of slavery and would not be the nation it is today without it. So no thanks
You are writing this care of the first world privilege that you are now experiencing care of mixing with white culture. However, even with that privilege of advancement thanks to white culture blacks are still unable to get it together and destroying major cities as we speak. Everywhere black leadership goes in general its the same with the destruction and entitlement game and getting suckered by professional negros as booker t. washington called them. Kevin jackson has it down as well. So does Jack Kunkeland and Colin Flaherty. The secrets are out and the internet has exposed the liberal media hiding the gang war on whites. You can keep going on and on but blacks commit more crime and are more violent as a race and many well-referenced books document it. It must hurt your victimness to face up to it but you can overcome if you try. Don’t forget either how so many whites helped blacks in this country for example with emancipation and the underground railroad and civil rights. You blanket most whites as racists but you and others doing so are now alienating them. Good luck with help in the future. Whites are wising up. We owe you nothing! Blacks committing crimes only further their failure with police records and dysfunctional lives.
Here’s a few links to counter you obviously one sided view:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/41431
https://www.stormfront.org/crusader/texts/bt/bt07.html
I’m an attorney and I do very well in my own practice. I don’t need your help, thank you.
You should read Malcolm Speaks to counter your obviously one sided view but it’s obvious that you get all of your information off the Internet. Read a book my friend.
Biggest demographic in the U.S.A living beneath the poverty line?: white. 4/10 people in the UK now living assisted by food banks: white. Multiple European states in financial crisis, mass poverty, unemployment: 90% white. It’s easy to ignore we as humans are all in the same leaky boat, which will eventually take us all down with it. Until then, I guess you’ll continue with your dismissive, racist bullshit where all white people are a bunch of hockey rioting, privileged racist idiotic bros who can’t dance- but don’t complain if equally stupid people pigeonhole you as a lazy stupid bag snatching negro who sucks off welfare. Hate breeds hate, separation breeds segregation, mistrust breeds violence. You are a fool.
Uhhh that was in response to the guy who pulled the tired old “black people do bad stuff too” and the thinly veiled whites don’t riot bullshit out of his ass when responding to an april fools joke. Is the hockey rioting white guy a stereotype? I hadn’t heard. I also love how your penultimate sentence, which is a great sentiment, is negated by the vitriol in the previous one.
i was responding specifically to your racist statement about ‘Whitey’ rioting at hockey games, as if the only worries white people have are sports results. Let’s ignore the rallies of desperate thousands in Greece, battling armoured cops spraying tear gas. Let’s pretend that all white people live in suburban paradise, and ignore the vast swathes of Russia- an area larger than the whole of North America doubled- where countless millions of white people live in squalor.
And if you think there was any vitriol in the sentence you refer to? Then you have totally missed my point. I merely refer to standard, stupid, bigoted stereotypes I constantly encounter online.
Seems it often touches a nerve when someone tries to point out that suffering is universal. Every demographic likes to bitch and whine that they have it the worst, pick another group to blame it on…. and so it goes on, and on, everyone standing in a circle blaming each other, battling over the scraps- whilst our real enemies- the 1%- sit and laugh at how blind we are.
Suffering is universal no doubt. In the states this burden/shit sandwich seems to be exponentially worse for minorities. When someone smugly says white people don’t riot or they bring up some random crime a black guy did as proof that white people get picked on too I’m going to call out that bullshit. I see it all the time whenever a police brutality story or something like that there is always somebody who has to dig up some terrible crime a black guy did in order to say “See, these guys do super bad stuff”. Because if we’re keeping score we got about a 400 year head start in that game.
It’s also not about you (or me) personally it’s about recognizing power structures that need to change and doing what you can within your means to effect that change. It’s a joke about Brooklyn not Greece or Russia. I agree though that if we could somehow get through all the bullshit designed to keep us distracted from the actual target than maybe we could make some progress. Hopefully one day.
Yes indeed. Check it out:http://www.infowars.com/black-crime-facts-that-the-white-liberal-media-darent-talk-about/
liberal fascism.
You win the rocket scientist award. Congratulations!
no, jokes like that are not the reason.
omg it must be soooooo hard to be a white man, please continue to shed your tears into my white man tears mug.
They’re coffee colored and please call it a cracker cup.
Excellent! I’ve always liked this guy!
That must be the progressive eye roll.
..
p.s dont reply with comments about my “grammer” you know what the fuck i mean.
Hey, Gregory, Ummm, today is April Fools Day. So…
I would have so much respect for this art exhibit if it was real. But then again I see white males as human.
Given that being a white male now carries with it the “Mark of Cain”, you probably COULD set up an exhibit to those hunted to extinction in this era of political correctness.
here we go with the humouless commenters
April Fools!
If anything, people of color, woman – should not be amused by making fun of something that is all too true . Unfortunate reality for us. However, I can laugh about it. Of course those with privilege are the most vocal about how oppressed they are.
I’m gullible ;(
Very funny. I liked this one.
I am so tired of White Male Bashing! I don’t go around bashing women, sexual orientation, religion, and other ethnicities different from my own – because it is wrong and presumptuous. People should be judged by the “content of their character.” Sound familiar? That is because it is a quote from Martin Luther King. Wake up and listen to his words! Why is it okay and socially acceptable in the art world and other bastions of liberalism to bash on white males? And Christianity, too? There is an extreme double standard going on among some liberal elite. I am VERY much a liberal – a HUMANIST (as opposed to limiting my vision to feminist or race concerns), so this is doubly disappointing. We want the same things – to end all kinds of discrimination and injustices wherever they may arise – but making such sweeping generalizations on race and gender is sabotage. We should be attacking specific assholes in power – not taking swipes based on assumptions of race and gender. Every time I hear attacks like this on my race and gender – it hurts me! What have I done wrong? Respect is a two way street. More people should talk about this. Unfortunately, it seems those who do speak up in defense of being white and male, do so at the risk of being labeled racist misogynist. Sad. A real dialogue should be opened about this. White Male Bashing in the art world is tiresome bullshit, and smug hypocrisy.
I totally get how you feel about this as I would just love more than anything to see a world where the color of someone’s skin or the biological sex/orientation had NOTHING to do with their personality and character and that we could all understand how gender roles are socially fabricated and dangerous, however we still have a long ways to go. As a white male myself and a very liberal-minded artist I have run across a very alienating sort of feeling where I feel as though I am supposed to play second fiddle to all female and particularly women of color’s art and perspectives. I feel as though the art world has already done so much to abolish patriarchy that the idea of a white male history month actually doesn’t sound that ridiculous considering the average art school in this country has roughly only 25% male and 75% females?? It’s in the business world and the STEM programs that feminism is needed more!! We need to work on getting more women into science and business fields so that there isn’t a disproportionate number of white male CEOs, but in the art world it’s already tipped the scale. I feel you man.
If the art world has already done enough to abolish patriarchy, then why is there still a gender imbalance of artists shown in galleries?
http://hyperallergic.com/117065/tallying-art-world-inequality-one-gallery-at-a-time/
If the average art school is 25% men and 75% women, that only makes it worse!
Where exactly is the article bashing anyone? It’s satirizing the art world and its institutions.
I cannot believe that these this is a real post. Is this also an April fools day joke?
Watching white males get upset and self-righteous about the satire of their white male privilege is hilarious.
on an art and museum/gallery site, no less. This would cause a political site to explode. Humorless people just must not have much fun.
Oh, you like racial humour do you? Well, I’ve got a great one about arabs that’ll knock your socks off. You in?
my son is a white male. and you are a rude Guest.
That’s cool, my best friend is an arab.
You assume much.
That’s because it takes the attention off your progressive game.
SO MANY WHITE MALE TEARS ON THIS THREAD, CRY ME A RIVER!
Its more like don’t tread on me. Maybe that could be hummed along with the “white cracker blues” or “somewhere down below the dixon line”.
Oh my god, white dudes, you are terrible. Just terrible.
???
Reading so many hurtful and hateful comments on here based on groundless assumptions of “privilege” is really sad. One Size Never Fits All! You know nothing about me, nor do I know anything about you. To assume that I am privileged just because I am a white male is asinine. I shouldn’t have to show you my medical/mental health records, my employment history (or lack of it), or my bank statement in order to prove otherwise. My bio should not be assumed, nor should yours. I suppose it is the anonymity of the internet that makes people feel as though they can be more smug when presenting their opinions, and more rude, as face to face, people generally have more tact, and are more forgiving. For most of you, I hope that is the case. Art doesn’t need, nor does the world need, any more shallow, black-hearted people in it.
The problem for white males is that, in stories about them, it’s so hard to tell the difference between satire and breaking news. Just read the article “Once More, Britain Refuses to Return the Elgin Marbles,” also posted here on April 1. Is it real, or is it April Fool’s? Impossible to tell. Oh… wait a minute. It’s signed, and not just posted by “The Editors.” That must mean it’s news.
Yes, it is a satire, but by definition a satire must satirize (or even mock) something . . . meaning there must be an intended victim. What and who is being satirized here? This article is but a thin veil. Hyperallergic may know it, too, else they would not have penned the article anonymously. No, humor and satire is not an carte blanche excuse to get away with “border-line” prejudice. I’m not saying all satire is bad. It can be quite useful when the focus is aimed. But in this case, it is a sweeping generalization.
I enjoyed the jabs on Koons and McCarthy, two of the white male giants of millionaire contemporary art. And of course the joke is that white males need their own window of opportunity for a show like Big Oil needs a break from suffocating environmental regulation.
However, the easy vilifying of while males based on essentialist conclusions about skin color and gender is decades old. When I was in graduate school white teachers were being laid off and white artists need not apply.
[Note: It is a scientific fact that there is only one race of people, homo sapiens. If you want to discriminate against another race, we will have to bring back Neanderthals…]
By 2015 it might be a lot more funny, hip, up-to-date, and controversial to lampoon simplistic anti-white-male rhetoric, rather than white males. For example, how about an “Anti-White Male Privilege” show. Often the anti-white male diatribes of decades ago culminated with, “and that’s why there will never be a black president in America”. Nowadays things have shifted a bit, and most white males are in the 99%, looking at never owning a home and never retiring, in which case their privilege is NOTHING compared to the power and privilege of the 1%. But, sure, lets go find that white guy in apartment 6B with the dented 80’s pickup truck and no health insurance, who works two shitty jobs to attempt to slow down the accruing interest on his
students loans, and lets beat the crap out of him with baseball bats in order to
teach him a lesson about the Koch brothers and his own inherent, institutionalized, white male privilege. Then lets congratulate ourselves for being progressive warriors against racism and essentialism in all its manifestations. I know it feels good to find someone to scapegoat, but at least wait until the person in question puts up his white picket fence before extracting his teeth for what it represents.
C’mon folks, POWER is the problem, whether the reigns are in the hands of white males, black Trojan Horse presidents, Hilary Clinton, the president of China,
the leader of ISIS, Ghengis Khan, or the Koch brothers. White males MAY still
retain a 15-20 percent advantage over others in work environments, but the bosses
and oligarchic class have a 3,000 percent advantage. There’s nothing the 1%
would like better than for their very real privilege to be disseminated among
all white people, and not just themselves. They thank you.
AMEN!!! POWER is the problem, NOT RACE nor GENDER!!! I’m with you on 100% of what you write. THANK YOU!!! Refocus your efforts, everyone!!!
Oh, please. And in a perfect world, Appalachian and other poor white males will stop getting their sense of self from identification with the whiteness of the 1% and instead identify themselves with the poor blacks and Latinos with whom they have most in common. True “brothers” will then make common cause and wrest back the “power” from those who have it now — because race will not be a problem. Right.
There is only one race, Alscace.
Appalachians aren’t the only poor light-skinned homo sapiens, and nobody identifies with the 1% because their extraordinary wealth and lifestyle are unimaginable to us. It’s well known that people rarely identify outside of their own class.
Time to stop attacking poor and working class light-skinned males for the sins of their own oppressors.
Perhaps you are right for your realism to suspect that there will always be racial differences, and that perfect harmony will not in the end prevail. However, I do not agree with your assessment that “Appalachian and other poor white folk” all (or even most) get their sense of identity with the “whiteness of the 1%.” Take me for an example . . . poverty (and not proud of it) and of Scots-Irish decent (as are most Appalachians). Actually, I’m rather bitter and resentful of the 1% (Nor do I assume the 1% is all white). Generalized blanket statements can only get in the way of progress.
all living humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens, and subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens. There is only one race.
Coming up next: “Cry Baby History Month” celebrating white male victimhood. This exhibit will explore the burdens of a suburban upbringing with adequate resources, a lack of being targeted by police for your race, few to no parents deported or incarcerated and the horrible stigma of not being stigmatized. The interactive exhibit “Wah, wah, wah” features the “how dare you criticize me” comments board and a locally-made, artisanal fountain filled with white male tears. —signed, a white guy who can take a joke.
Not sure why you’re assuming that everyone here in the comment section who’s not into this article is a white male. Edwin A doesn’t look particularly white, Gertie OK isn’t a white male either, and I’ve posted several times in this thread vocally distraught about it as well and I’m not white. You don’t need to be of a particular ethnicity to get offended by these things.
Believe it or not there are white men who are disenfranchised in the world, some have been taken into forced labour in places like the Ukraine and Belarus, who are then shipped out to work in foreign countries. There are also white boys who are basically slave labourers in the Uzbekistan cotton fields. These might be statistical minorities but if we’re going to make race jokes based on statistics then this is going to get very ugly, fast.
Oh the poor little baby has to attack working class white people to make himself feel superior. Wah, wah, wah, goo, goo. This isn’t 1950 anymore. Most working class white people today face never being able to own a home; never retiring; being chronically underemployed; not being able to pay off their debts; not being able to put their children through college (if they can afford to have any), That ain’t privilege, wittle cwy baby. You are a tool of the 1%, who want everyone to hate white people because of the privilege of the upper class whites of the 50’s, rather than see the real privileged people as the few percent that have more than all of the rest of us put together. You are just a slave telling other slaves they have everything. Who is a cry baby, now?
Dear Whitey, I’m not sure how you interpret my statement as anti-working class or pro-1%, much less anti-white except perhaps you have a very active imagination. No one is saying that all white men have it good or that we should hate white people. But white men as a group face better prospects than black men as a group. 1 in 106 white men are incarcerated vs 1 in 15 black men. The median worth (in 2013) of white families was $141,900 vs $11,000 for black families. The black poverty rate is 27.2 while the white poverty rate is 12.7. Given the facts of gross racial inequality, white people who claim to be the “real victims” like many here, deserve to be mocked as cry babies. And many whites refuse to accept the documented facts of their privilege relative to people of color. Whatever problems and hardships some white people have, and I agree with you that they are formidable, those problems and hardships are not compounded by racism.
I think you’re missing the point. By using statistics to demonize an entire ethnicity you’re essentially doing exactly what conservatives do when they use stats to make racist jokes and attach unfavorable labels to an entire demographic. The truth is that you cannot simply look at an individual and proceed to make jokes about them just because you’ve got the sources to prove that their lifestyle is of a particular swatch. We can accurately call these things out when conservatives do it and label it as racism, however, when “progressives” use the exact same tactic then it’s basically just called “reality”.
It’s racism, don’t try to clean it up.
Statistics demonize nobody. They show that racism exists and that it’s not directed at white people. You confuse prejudice, which can be directed at anyone, with racism, which is a system of oppression that has placed whites above people of color for 500 years. To equate anything directed against whites as equivalent to slavery, genocide, lynching, and today’s racial profiling, police violence and disproportionate poverty and incarceration is to erase history and reality. To point out that whites benefit from the system of racial equality is not racism; don’t try to place your discomfort on the same footing as real discrimination.
Oh great, you’re using the meme definition of racism. Racism is not simply an oppressive policy based on race, have you ever actually looked up the definition? That’s only one usage of the term.
“hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.”
I never implied that the racist term “white male privilege” was equivalent to slavery, jesus christ what the fuck is wrong with you?
I’m glad you find the dictionary to be the ultimate source of all wisdom. That must make things very easy for you. Certainly draw on whatever resources you need to protect yourself from uncomfortable truths. Peace.
Since you concede that the discrimination faced by people of color is worse than the discrimination faced by whites, you must concede that whites enjoy a level of privilege, of systemic advantage relative to people of color. You therefore concede that white privilege is real.
I never suggested that white people and ‘people of color’ were operating on an equal playing field. This disparity is called white privilege, understandably, but that’s not what makes it racist.
The nature of being ‘privileged’ is complicated, discrimination is multidimensional and borders beyond the classification of race. People who are born rich, born in the first world, attractive, healthy, intelligent, thin, male, tall, heterosexual, etc., enjoy relative privileges respective of those who are without these traits. Even speaking in a specific regional dialect can be grounds for discrimination. This is the problem with the white privilege narrative, it narrowly focuses on only one of these characteristics and allows the public to make negative associations about an individual based on nothing other than their skin.
It’s racist and an intellectually dishonest discussion about privilege.
I agree with what you are saying, except that “white
privilege” is a misnomer that pisses people off, even if they themselves fight for
the rights and freedoms of marginalized or underrepresented people. An absence
of active discrimination does not equal privilege, just as not being poor
doesn’t mean you are a billionaire. If it is a “privilege” to drive
home without fear of being pulled over because of your skin color, than it is
“normal” be subjected to racial profiling. In reality it’s normal to
not have to deal with that kind of discrimination, and is not special
treatment to not be vulnerable to it. When the police start pulling over white people to give them gifts,
and offer them rides, THAT will be “white privilege”. Otherwise it’s just an absence of a
disadvantage, in the same way that one is not “privileged” because
one isn’t blind. Interestingly, the same people who have no problem acknowledging that blacks and other minorities have significant disadvantages in society, take umbrage at being told they themselves are the cause of it, and they get a free ride with cake and icecream thrown in.
Dear Brad. Even if the average white family had $141,900 median worth (and that would mostly be in the top families, and NOT represent working class families), how does that compare to the average worth of the top few percentages? The top 1% has something like 125 times the money of a median household. On top of that, if you dig a little deeper, you will find that African Americans in the top fifth of all households saw their median net worth go up 63 percent
between 2,000 and 2,011. Thus, irrespective of “race”, the ultra rich got richer, and everyone else is nose diving.
There are no white people here claiming to be the “real
victims”. That’s ridiculous. They are claiming to not be the real culprits. Absence of discrimination is not the same thing as privilege. It is not a “privilege” to not be racially profiled by the police. A privilege is something above and beyond normal treatment, and getting something you don’t deserve. When the top few percentages of people have as much as
everyone else combined, you make look to them for REAL power and privilege, against which merely being white is nothing. If you simply say that blacks are more disadvantaged than whites you won’t get any argument. People will agree. See the difference? It’s one thing to acknowledge that blacks have it harder, it’s something else to be told that you have it so easy that you are “privileged”. Go walk into a warehouse where white people are working
and tell them how privileged they are and post about it from the hospital.
No, people here who are complaining about fashionable
anti-white-male racism and sexism don’t deserve to be mocked. The people like yourself, spouting book-learned, decades old marginalization theory and Postmodern mumbo-jumbo deserve to be mocked. Yes, Brad, the lowly proletariat white workers are marginally better off than the black ones, but they are all fucked in comparison to the extraordinarily rich whites and blacks in the oligarchic class. Of course, that is just sticking to a Eurocentric view. The
new billionaires in China aren’t white. Calling white people automatically privileged serves the real masters in sidelining what REAL privilege is, and who really has it. That’s how
you are working hard as a tool for the 1%. You are blaming people who have a few more crumbs for a system that’s breaking them.
Thank you. I honestly would have done a terrible job trying to explain this, and you did it with sober clarity.
Forgive the paragraphs, but I could not make this any shorter. I want someone to tell me about my “White Male Privilege.” I’m 39. I have a master’s degree which means I have a $75,000 debt. I currently work 34 hours a week at $8 dollars an hour, which adds up to not being able to afford a small room of my own. I live out of my car, moving every couple of weeks from one relative to the next. And no, I did not “fall from grace” from any mythical “White Male Privilege Heaven.” I come from a hard working family who still have to work their retail jobs long past their retirement age. As for myself, I’ve never had a full-time job with full-time pay and benefits. No one has ever given me a chance. I’ve never had health insurance, either, until the Affordable Care Act. Do you know what it is like to have a chronic condition and to require surgery when you don’t have health insurance? It sucks. I am celebrating 20 years of breaking my back to barely break even. I welcome any of you to tell me about how I have “White Male Privilege.”
My intention in sharing my story with you is not elicit sympathy, merely to demonstrate that Poverty is Poverty is Poverty. There is no such thing as White Poverty, Female Poverty, or Black Poverty. I grant that there are issues specific to gender and racial identity that need to be addressed, but this does not justify making generalized blanket statements about being white or male. One size fits all does not apply here, and making generalized statements about the white male experience completely misses the mark. The term “White Male Privilege” connotes that all white males are “Living the Life of Riley” in some “Penthouse in the Sky,” and that is simply not true. I would like to say something like, “can’t you see that we’re all in this together,” but I think that would be a generalized assumption of you on my part. The fact is that just because you are of a certain race or gender, that does not mean you get a free pass. Consider Kanye West and the fine example of humanity he is giving us, or how about any of the women broadcasters on the Fox News Channel, who sometimes even sabotage women’s rights issues in order toe the party line. Whether it be praise or condemnation, we should only judge by a person’s words or deeds, not blindly by their skin color or sex.
On this comment page I see a few intelligent arguments that are anti “White Male Privilege” rhetoric, but lots of short, ill-informed, and snarky remarks defending it. Remarks such as “Watching white males get upset and self-righteous about the satire of their white male privilege is hilarious,” “SO MANY WHITE MALE TEARS ON THIS THREAD, CRY ME A RIVER!,” and “Oh my god, white dudes, you are terrible. Just terrible” are not constructive arguments, and if I made them, changing the gender and race, I would be labeled a racist misogynist. Do you not see the hypocrisy in that?
I would welcome constructive dialogue on this. Will anyone oblige me? Using terms such as “White Male Privilege” trivializes and dismisses people such as myself and others in similar situations. It effectively says to us, “your poverty doesn’t matter, because you are white and male.” If anyone here can actually put forth a reasoned, sober, contrary argument as to why my poverty doesn’t matter because I still have “White Male Privilege,” I will be happy to listen to you. I might not agree with you, but I will listen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Horse-shoe Theory. Interesting. The use of North Korea as an example was also enlightening. This argument has some weight, though it is hard to swallow that I may agree with a theory supported by Ayn Rand – that Kitten Eating Lizard Person! But I suppose we should keep an open mind, as even our worst enemies can be right, at least some of the time. Thank you.
I doubt contemporary advocates for socialism are all that fond of the Nazis but, hey, there it is.
I’ll back you on this.
It sounds like what is bothering you is that the art world, and its cultural authority, feels free to ridicule you because of your skin color and gender, and to tell you that you are a soulless, privileged, inconsequential, superficial, and spoiled entity. If you are an artist, then you are incapable of saying anything meaningful, and anything you say will be in the service of substantiating the status quo, the patriarchy, and a Eurocentric master narrative of imperialism and cultural hegemony.
And it is interesting that people feel not only free to discriminate against people if they have white skin and are male, which is “essentialism” (the foundation of all racism and sexism that asserts that you are your DNA), but they claim righteousness for themselves in doing so. So, someone can ridicule you because of your appearance, and then attack you again if you don’t agree with them.
And then there is the notion that if you are a white male you don’t know what it is like to not belong. What’s odd about that is the confidence that if you ARE a white male than you DO feel like you belong, automatically, and this assumption is made by people who also presume they don’t know what
it’s like to be you.
Racism and sexism against white males is still racism and sexism, and when it is issued by an art institution it is bundled with an abuse of power. If someone tells you that you are inferior because of your skin color and your genitals, you have every right to tell them to shove it up their ass.
Don’t accept someone telling you that you are less real or authentic than they are.
There’s a log of argument in the comments section, and it mostly seems to be a question of vocabulary and definitions. White males who readily admit and themselves argue that blacks and women and all marginalized people have certain disadvantages, balk at being branded themselves as “privileged”. We can say that gays are subjected to a lot of alienation that straights aren’t, but we don’t hear about “heterosexual privilege”. This is because it’s more clear in that example that NOT being targeted for a certain kind of abuse and disenfranchisement is not the same
thing as directly benefiting from it.
The problem is just the term “privilege” which implies you are getting something extra that you don’t deserve, and which probably should be taken away from you. So, white males who absolutely agree that slavery was abominable, that job discrimination based on “race” is a very real problem, that racial profiling and on-the-spot executions are barbaric… get upset when they are told they have it too good; that they have so much that they don’t deserve; that they are themselves the source of
the problem; and they need to pay a debt they owe to society because of the history of slavery, and so on. While the real privileged whites could afford to give back – say some of the fortune their family has made on slave labor – most whites are just trying to get by; their immigrant parents from European countries never had slaves; and they have increasingly diminishing hopes for a prosperous or comfortable future. In reality, the working white man is getting less than he deserves, as the radical inequality between the richest few and everyone else accelerates to preposterous levels. He is falling through the cracks and getting his fingers stomped on. True, others are worse off, but he is not benefiting from their plight, and his forehead has a boot print on it.
The recent plethora of “white privilege” material circulating in social media serves to polarize the majority of working people, when we should be united in fighting against rule by unimaginably wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations which are destroying the environment and taking away our freedom and our financial resources at every turn. The “white privilege” material also serves to solidify boundaries and
difference based on “race”, when, as some have pointed out in the comments, there is only one surviving race of people: homo sapiens sapiens. We are only as different as are differently colored gold fish, and while we should respect other people’s cultures and backgrounds, it is counterproductive to insist that we are essentially different. When people are perceived as inherently different, they become easy to vilify, “other”, and eliminate.
Must of the anti-white male rhetoric depicts white males as if they are Wonder Bread: soulless, sheltered, superficial, flavorless, and hence INFERIOR. If you insist that someone is inferior because of their DNA, that is racism. When you tell working class white people that they are the evil oppressor and vacuous because of their pigmentation, you are bullying them because of their race. Then, when they take umbrage at being lectured about their stupidity and refusal to accept how easy they have it, you call them racists.
If you want to fight privilege, go after those who are really privileged. Go after the person who makes in one day or one hour what the white guy you are attacking makes in a year.
Well put. Thank you.
Its about time! I hear all the white bashing all the time on posts and in the news and i think a white history month is necessary just to let some white people express how, even if we are the majority in America and if for nothing else, how it feels to be targeted by some in groups with all their special month agendas and being scapegoated. If whites carried that kind of weight for everybody we might as well implode! Even though history talks about whites a lot gets trashed these days. I think its just a good thing to remind us and others of just how much we do that is indeed good – without all the diminuation debate! Love a white person!
Here’s a good link of celebrated months though I doubt its all of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commemorative_months