Lou Plummer recently wrote about his experiences with being a white man in progressive spaces in "Let's Talk About White People" and it got me thinking about my own experiences.
The following is strictly my own opinion, and not representative of my employers' views or those of their partners or clients. This should be obvious, but some people need to be reminded.
We Hate Everyone
I don't participate much in progressive spaces, especially online leftist spaces. In fact, my political involvement is limited to occasionally writing to my representatives in Congress and the state legislature about particular issues, voting a straight Democratic ticket in every election, and trash-talking the Republicans, conservatives, and the assholes they court on my website and on parasocial media.
I am not an activist. I am not interested in being an activist. I am not sufficiently patriotic, nor do I feel a sense of community or a sense of duty to my society or country that would compel me toward further political involvement. I won't claim to be apolitical, but I'm a founding member of the "Both Parties Annoy Me But One Party Really Pisses Me Off" caucus.
There is no such thing as an actual left wing in the US, for starters. There are people role-playing as leftists on the Internet (and I might be one of them despite myself) but in real life all of the leftists are in the Democratic Party's tent because we're stuck with a two party system. The Democratic Party itself is a fundamentally conservative and neoliberal party. They are only as liberal as corporate America permits and only as progressive as they are forced to be.
And then there is the Republican Party. Before Nixon, they could have credibly claimed to be principled conservatives if not for inconvenient details like Joe McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Business Plot of 1933, and J. Edgar Hoover's shenanigans as head of the FBI. (Remember COINTELPRO?) It's not that they became a coalition of fundies, fascists, and white supremacists after Lee Atwater came up with the Southern Strategy. They've been like that ever since Herbert Hoover. Nowadays, they're basically neo-Nazis. I could never in good conscience vote for them, no matter how much the Democrats annoy me. One Holocaust is one too many, fuck you very much, and a vote for the GOP is a vote for the KKK.
Perhaps my disdain for the status quo and my pervasive drive for autonomy makes some kind of half-assed anarchist, but if I am an anarchist I lean more toward individualist anarchism and libertarian socialism than anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism. My ideology is more Satanic than anything else; no matter who you are or what you demand of me, my response is likely to be "non serviam".
And if you asked me to summarize my politics with a song, I'd probably go with "We Hate Everyone" by Type O Negative.
Is This Even My Problem?
While I'm not above playing stupid games to win stupid prizes, some games are too stupid even for me. If progressives want to waste time and effort fighting fire with empty words while the banks get fat, the poor stay poor, the rich get richer, and the cops get paid to bust heads as the one percent rules America that's their business. It ain't my circus, and those sure as hell aren't my monkeys, though maybe — just maybe — what passes for the left in the US is finally getting their shit together now that Joe Biden finally got the fuck out of the way.
Nonetheless, if you want to talk about white men being a pain the ass in progressive spaces, I'm content to let you have at it, secure in the knowledge that this particular shoe doesn't fit me. After all, what I've been hearing from progressives is that white dudes to step back and let people whose identities face greater oppression speak first.
I understand the rationale behind the demand and don't find it particularly objectionable. I'm happy to step back. In fact, I'll go one better and step out. I might be autistic, but I can take a hint: my involvement is neither necessary nor welcome.
It's not like I'm so fond of my fellow Americans that I'd risk my life and liberty for them if electoral politics prove insufficient and direct action becomes necessary. Even if you're a white man the due process of law and the presumption of innocence aren't what they used to be. This is especially so if I make the mistake of listening to people who think I should be out front shielding others from police because I'm a white man.
You see, Johnny Law doesn't give a shit what color you are if your color isn't blue. He'll crack a white man's skull as willingly as a black woman's because if you're not on his side of the thin blue line, you're the enemy.
So, why should I risk myself for a society that basically told me I was on my own when I was young, marginalized, desperate, and needed help? I could lose my job, and end up homeless and destitute, if I so much as get arrested, let alone charged with a crime or convicted.
And for what? So I can be seen as one of the "good" white guys? I was never that desperate for acceptance and I don't need to be anybody's hero but my wife's. Besides, martyrdom for somebody else's idea of a good cause was never my idea of a good time.
Not Merely White
So, let's talk about whiteness, not just white people. To begin, I don't think of myself as white. I know that other people look at me and see whiteness, but I am no more my color than you are yours. My understanding is that we call the descendants of enslaved people taken from their various tribes and nations in Africa "Black" because their history was willfully and systematically erased by their captors. But my national identities were not forcibly erased.
As far as I'm concerned, to accept being "white" is to do to yourself what slave-holders forcibly did to the people they took from their homes across Africa. It is a willful self-erasure of one's own history. It is not OK to be white, regardless of what alt-reich chuds might suggest.
My parents and grandparents may have chosen such assimilation, but I choose to remember where they came from. I am English, Irish, French, German, and Polish. I have black ancestors courtesy of an ancestor on my mother's side falling in love with one of the help and eloping with her — assuming my mother wasn't lying. I've got Jewish ancestors on my father's side — assuming he wasn't lying either. I'm not merely white; I'm a mutt from New York and most of my ancestry comes from western Europe. Why should I elide all of that for your convenience, or permit you to do so?
Above all, I'm a native working-class American, and a human being. I might not be First Nations, but I was born in the US and still believe in its nobler ideals. You know, corny stuff like "equal justice under law" and "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" — and you can ram that "under God" bullshit right up Joe McCarthy's fascist ass when you meet him in Hell.
Seeing Color
Of course, there isn't room on a form to put all of that, so I settle for "white" if "other" is not available. And if "other" is available, I tick that box instead and then write "human". Because while racism is still real, race has always been bullshit. I feel no obligation to pretend race exists; I think it's no less a social construct than gender.
While I won't pretend that I don't see color, I resent the necessity of having to see color. When dealing with people who aren't like me, I resent knowing that I may face prejudice from them because of the prejudices of others with ancestries similar to mine who wielded more power than I will ever possess. I'm not Jesus, and I'm not going to atone for anybody's sins but my own.
Listen: I'm human, and you're human. Chances are we're both getting shafted by other human beings who are richer and more powerful than we are, and certainly richer and more powerful than any individual should be allowed to become in a democratic society. That matters more to me than being white, but many progressives are obsessed with identity politics, and right-wingers are right to laugh at them for it. We're all getting screwed with the invisible dick of the market, and while being white or male means society might use lube with me, that minimal courtesy makes it no less a violation.
This is the part where you expect me to trot out that famous line from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech. I won't insult your intelligence by doing that. I will say that the color of my character is eigengrau.
Privilege is a Poor Shield
Plummer writes that white privilege and male privilege just means that I won't be oppressed because of my color or gender. Well, I think that's bullshit. Being told that cops won't hassle me for being white or a man doesn't mean shit if Johnny Law pulls me over and writes me up for a busted taillight if I can't afford to get it fixed right away or I'm too broke to pay the fine.
Nor do these privileges mean much when I face gender-based violence for not performing masculinity just so. It's 2024, for the love of Hell, people still give me shit for being a man with long hair, and I was getting assaulted as late as 1999. I suspect some of these assholes would still attempt to do worse than talk if not the possibility that I might be packing heat.
It's true that white men might not face systemic racism or sexism, but they can still experience bigotry. If some non-white people harbor prejudice against me because of shit other white people did, I can't really blame them for that but I'm not obligated to pretend I don't find that prejudice unjust or oppressive. Likewise if some women harbor prejudice against me because other men have mistreated them or other women.
I don't bother remonstrating with people in the face of such prejudice because there's no point. They have reasons for their prejudices, and whether I like it or not it's on me to prove them wrong about me if I want to deal with such people. Fortunately, I almost never do. I'd rather be left alone to do my own thing.
Nor can I claim to be without prejudice myself. That would be ridiculous, especially if you knew my father, because Archie Bunker was created to parody men like my father. But I know better than to make the prejudices I was taught despite growing up near New York City everybody else's problem.
A Minority of One
I am not afraid that I will become a minority in my own country, as Plummer suggests many white men feel. I already am a minority in my own country, and not merely because I am a white man, or because I'm queer, or because I'm an atheist, or because I'm autistic. I'm a minority because I'm an individual, and in every society every individual is a minority of one.
If the majority decides to scapegoat me, they'll find something that sets me apart from the rest and gives them an excuse. Being while or male won't save me, especially when people use progressive politics to hide the fact that they're more interested in vengeance for a past in which I had no part than they are in creating a better, more equitable future.
There isn't much I can do about that, though. Simply existing in society is drawing a ticket in the Shirley Jackson lottery every day, and sooner or later you're gonna win a stoning. This is why, like the Count of Monte Cristo, I find it preferable to be ignored by society and my neighbor, for when either take notice of me it is generally to do me harm.
Of course, one might argue that if I truly wish to be left alone, I should not be writing on the internet. Well, fuck that and fuck you too if that's what you think. I grew up in hiding. I've as much of a right to be here as anybody else. The world is no less mine than it is yours, and I have as much of a right to take up space and not be punished for existing as anybody else does — color, sex, gender, race, religion, nationality, and other distinguishing characteristics be damned.
You shall deal with me on my terms, or not at all. My identity is not yours to construct. I am not a mere thing to be labeled for convenient consumption. Nor am I the means to anybody else's ends. I am willing to see you as you see yourself, and to acknowledge our common humanity, but I demand the same in return.