Thursday, November 08, 2012

In some postelection commentaries I have noted something approaching elation at the apparent discomfiture of white people, more specifically white heterosexual males. Ostensibly, demographic shifts will further foster this disadvantaging.
This form of schadenfreude, pitting the majority against the rest (recall that white people still constitute at least 60 percent of the US population), strikes me as dangerous and divisive, especially when added to the now-entrenched dogma of the absolute distinction between the blue states and the red states.  In this way one unfortunate binarism joins another.
This almost gleeful antiwhite sentiment--let us call it what it is (though it is mainly some PC white ideologues who are promoting it)--goes completely against Obama's own approach as I understand it. Already in his 2004 speech, which first brought him to national attention, Obama eloquently rejected such divisiveness, emphasizing national unity. I would hope that he could now step up to the plate and denounce the pernicious notion that his election represents a well-deserved defeat for white people. It does not.

Some background may be helpful  In 1930 the German writer Theodor Lessing published an influential study of a phenomenon he termed "Jewish Self-hattred."  A little later some social psychologists extended the analysis to other ethnic groups in the US, such as Italian Americans.  Moreover, it is a well-known fact that until recently some gay men and lesbians internalized stereotypes that the host society had projected on them.

Now this phenomenon has extended to some sectors of the white population, especially as seen in the effort by PC whites to guilt-trip other whites into voting a certain way.  To do otherwise would be "racist."  I did not vote for Mitt Romney.  Yet I confess that aggressive cajolery of this type made me think of doing so.  It is counterproductive. 
UPDATE (November 13). For those who doubt the existence of this strand of thought, I reproduce the credo of a publication called "Race Traitor":  

"The white race is a historically constructed social formation. It consists of all those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from it, in return for which they give support to a system that degrades them.
 

"The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in U.S. society.

"The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to its collapse.
 
"Race Traitor aims to serve as an intellectual center for those seeking to abolish the white race. It will encourage dissent from the conformity that maintains it and popularize examples of defection from its ranks, analyze the forces that hold it together and those that promise to tear it apart. Part of its task will be to promote debate among abolitionists. When possible, it will support practical measures, guided by the principle Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity."

4 Comments:

Blogger Stephen said...

The base Republican voters are OLD, straight white males who attend church at least once a week and don't have a college degree. The "Obama coalition" includes young white males, white gay males, and those with higher education. Pointing out this disparity is not self-hatred.

Some liberal guilt about the genocides of industrialized slavery and extermination of native peoples might blend in, but I think there is more gay self-hatred (crossing racial categories) than white self-hatred around.

Even Romney expressed a wish to be Mexican (in which case he could not be president; had his father gotten further in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, the question of his eligibility might have arisen...)

9:25 AM  
Blogger Dyneslines said...

These comments miss the point. The issue is not one of statistics but of perception, especially in the light of the gloating in some quarters that whites will "soon" be a minority in this country. Thus there is a longitudinal aspect to the sentiment. It is closely linked to the froth over "diversity." The other day Nancy Pelosi touted the diversity of the new Congressional caucus, which grew to nearly 200 Democrats after last Tuesday's election, boasting that it was the first caucus "in the history of civilized government to have a majority of women and minorities." The party caucus in 2013, she said, would have 61 women, 26 Hispanics, 11 Asians, and five gay, one bisexual and 43 black members. Behind this jubilation lies a hope, probably false, that all these outgroups can unite in a permanent coalition to keep the ignorant old crackers down forever, as they ostensibly deserve. That is the essence of the anti-white white hoopla.

1:09 PM  
Blogger Stephen said...

Pelosi is white. One can welcome diversity without being diagnosed with racial self-hatred. Obama would not have won without educated non-evangelical white voters. Probably, he would not have won without white gay voters.

9:31 AM  
Blogger Dyneslines said...

Obviously Pelosi is white. Duh. My comment does not address such truisms, but draws attention to the inferences that some are deriving from the election, especially as a purported harbinger of our national future. If you have missed the evidences of this gleeful triumphalism in the media, Stephen, you are not paying close attention.

9:39 AM  

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