A commenter left a very long, very angry wall-of-text-style copy-pasta comment on a post of mine that opens with this:
“Just what our community needs. Another hot take from a cishet caucasian male regarding the politics of another cishet caucasian male.”
I keep forgetting. As someone who was born white, born straight and born male—three terminal conditions I have zero control over, having exhibited each since birth—I’m not allowed to talk about . . . anything—including other straight white dudes. In our anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-genderist future, cishet caucasian males will be voiceless, powerless and subservient. Cool future, bro. Can’t wait. Surely nobody will push back on this glimmering utopia.
Naturally I’m being facetious here. I don’t think this is the future we face. I think the current brand of woke-left politics burns too hot to last, though it’ll do plenty of damage before fizzling out.
Still, I find it hilariously stupid and counterproductive. Others might take more offense when they encounter this kind of comment; I just shake my head and roll my eyes and turn it into a blog post.
Of course, others might actually find this kind of mentality so off-putting that they’re easily nudged into the arms of rightwing pundits and provocateur. After all, there aren’t a ton of left-pundits out there willing to speak out against this crap, and those of us who do are often labeled de facto rightwingers anyways. Potential allies could become political opponents (sorry, enemies) and things will almost certainly get worse before they get better.
Weirdly enough, this kind of anti-bigotry bigotry has a way of turning off most average people who are not racist or sexist and don’t particularly like being painted with that brush based merely on their skin color or sex or gender identity or whatever. You may feel justified in your assholery, but a lot of people will just read this garbled bullshit and think “Yeah, nope. I want nothing to do with these lunatics. I’m gonna vote for the guy who’s talking about jobs and standing up to China!”
Imagine speaking this way about literally any other group of people. Just what this community needs. Another trans gay black female blah blah blah. Another non-binary Asian talking about non-binary Asians!
Look, I get it. White people are the majority. There’s baked in privilege when you’re white—though it stops looking like that when you’re a white rural American constantly sneered at by educated coastal elites who use words like “cishet” and ‘intersectional’ with a straight face. Cishet? Is that like…fishnet?
Language is useful because it conveys meaning. When you stop conveying meaning to the vast majority of people you’ve failed at the most basic principles of rhetoric. If your rhetoric sucks good luck with politics. Hey let’s go “defund the police” now, why don’t we? That’s totally going to go over well with American voters!
Granted, I’m neither a rural American (though I don’t live in a big city) nor poor (also not rich though I’m considering a career in either bank robbery or investment banking, which is just bank robbery without the guns) and I’m well aware of my status and social privilege as a cishet caucasian male from educated stock, growing up in the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. But even I’m annoyed by this jargon and the accompanying bad faith bullshit being tossed around by supposed progressives.
Also—and I can’t stress this enough—it’s bad politics.
If the marriage equality movement had been couched in this kind of elitist university-speak, if the debate around equality that took place over the past few decades—culminating in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015—if all that effort was framed in indecipherable, exclusionary language that requires a pocket translation reader, I suspect that gay marriage would still not be the law of the land. This is not how you win hearts and minds, O my brothers and sisters. This is not how you gather allies to your cause—unless the only allies you need are middle class college kids, those fierce radicals who will totally continue to be radicals in their 30s and 40s. Totally.
This is one of my problems with wokeness taking over left causes. It’s very much the result of a narrow-minded, language-focused movement within elitist university gender-and-race-studies programs that place every issue under the sun behind the gender-and-race lens rather than focusing on class and economics. Middle America has, for a long time now, perceived Democrats and liberals as smarmy coastal elites smugly talking down to them from their ivory towers and high rises, but it’s reached a fever pitch now. It’s impossible to ignore. And it’s just fuel for right-wingers who latch on to every stupid word and come back with their own propaganda, which is met with open arms because people are tired of being painted as bigots when they’re not (and the real bigots don’t care).
While I do think it’s important to talk about race and the history of racism in America and, to a lesser extent, gender and gender issues, the framing of these topics in modern political and cultural debate is often incredibly divisive. It’s hilarious to me that well-educated, upper-middle-class people with oodles of privilege still think that rural whites are somehow even more privileged simply because they’re white or straight or cis or whatever. Or that we’ll keep beating Republicans at the polls with this as our rallying cry.
It’s more hilarious to think that we can have a long-term, meaningful political impact that promotes equality and fairness and tolerance when we simply write off huge swaths of the American public as “deplorable” or tell people like me1 that by merely being born white/cis/hetero we’re not welcome. We’re part of the problem and the only way to fix it is to hire Robin DiAngelo to give a talk at our corporate seminar on how fragile whitey really is, stupid Whitey McWhiteface with your white supremacy that you were born with and can only wash away through baptism in our little cult and won’t you buy my book?
I guess you really can become the thing you hate.
Be sure to listen to the latest episode of the diabolical podcast with special guests Alexis Kennedy (developer of Sunless Sea and Fallen London) and his partner Lottie Bevan (who co-created Cultist Simulator with Kennedy). We talk about the sexual misconduct allegations directed at Kennedy and his cancellation from the indie game dev scene. I also have a longer article on the subject for premium subscribers only. Hope you enjoy!
Question: If I come out as “non-binary” am I free to discuss these issues without denunciation?
The thing I tell people when they say I am "passionate" about "protecting whites"... Im NOT worried about 65% of the population being oppressed. I am worried, now more than ever with a bunch of unemployment and underemployment, that poor white men will be easy pickings for hate groups aimed at the other 35%. I told everyone to expect the klan back, we used to laugh at the klan... and now they are a threat again. Sends a msg to disenfranchised whites that theres a group in town that is all TOO willing to listen to their complaints, to tell THEM that "its not THEIR fault"... and, after being blamed for everything and not having a pot to piss in, they might just be willing to hear good things about themselves from anyone willing to take them in. They have nothing to lose, they are already to blame for everything, already racist, already full of white privilege, already guilty of all the crimes the klan, or neo nazis, or what ever other supremacists' group they join... besides hate crimes... then you see actual neutral people getting beat in the streets by certain agitator groups on the left... things like that, just PUSH them right on over. A creeping thought that is more destructive than anything "Maybe they are right about them". Its a great fucking tool for recruitment. Foresight can be 20/20. At best, this will set race relations back decades... which benefits whites as well. (nothings more infuriating to me than avoidable bad things we can all see coming) /endlongrant (also great article again!)
So, if your opinion doesn't matter and you shouldn't even be speaking, why is this person reading your post?