Part of the present-day brouhaha in the US over immigration (etc) seems to stem from fears held by whites, especially white males, over losing majority as non-white immigrants enter the country, and/or non-white birth rates exceed those of whites. This is apparently a very real existential and/or cultural threat to a certain swath of this group, and has of course been credited with driving some of the current populist enthusiasm, not just in the US but abroad as well. I’ve wondered at the perceived consequences from this “threat.” For instance, what kind of “white male culture” is really under threat of being diminished? For some reason, I have a hard time associating strong fixed traits to whites and/or white males. Correct my ignorance (not trying to be a wise guy–spirit of open inquiry and all that). How would you define “white male culture” in the US (the good, the bad, and the ugly)?
From a brief search on related:
nymag article, on white anxiety–just skimmed this, but it seemed pretty good; on the complexities of such anxiety feeding into (some) white attitudes on race and immigration, and some helpful suggestions on what to do about it, for all concerned (but be warned, for those who prefer info from sources as unbiased as reasonably possible, it’s from nymag, which leans fairly solidly left)
article on a Pew survey–a survey on white attitudes toward population inversion, and some discussion; it’s from USA Today, but has some substance
I used to think “white male culture” was just aversion to affirmative action with a racist undertone, a lesser form of southern privilege, much like the opposite of Black Power. Sort of a “I like white people stuff” thing mixed with the unfortunate idea that cultural tolerance is antithetical to “white people stuff”.
The 2011 Norway attacks gave “white male culture” a more decidedly violent and antisocial theme, and the “white male” voting bloc during the 2016 presidential campaign brought the ideology closer to the doorstep, or rather shined light on it.
31% of white men voted for Clinton, vs 62% for Trump
Among college grad white men it was 53-39 for Trump.
For white men w/o college it was 71-23 for Trump.
So even among white men, about 1/3 are democrats. Among college educated white men almost 4 in 10 are democratic voters. So white men aren’t a monolith. However white culture, especially white male culture, does hold onto its privilege strongly.
Anyway what is ‘white male culture’? WEB DuBois described it as the psychological wage of whiteness.
There is a sense of status and privilege that comes from being a white man. White men are vastly over represented in positions of power and influence. Only about 30% of americans are white men. But the % of judges, police officers, politicians, billionaires, CEOs, etc who are white men are far far higher than 30%. I believe in national politics, around 65% of politicians are white men (I’m sure 20-30 years ago it was closer to 80-90% who were white men). Scrolling through the richest 20 people on the forbes 400 list, 15 are white men. The other 5 are brown or female.
You can even see the sense of status and privilege given to white men in our politics. When white men are left behind by the economy (coal miners for example) its a national emergency. Meanwhile service sector jobs are disappearing even faster than coal miner jobs but nobody cares. One reason nobody cares is those jobs are full of minorities and women.
When the opiate epidemic hits white men, its a national emergency and needs government intervention. When the crack epidemic hit the black neighborhoods it was because the people there were animals and we needed to send in violent cops.
When white men feel unheard in politics, everyone acts like ‘how can we appeal to white men in the rust belt’. However black people have felt ignored in politics for years, and nobody cares.
Stuff like that is a subtle privilege. And since status is finite and relative, a lot of white people want to hang onto that bit of status. The status to have their problems taken a little more seriously. To know that they are over-represented in the public and private sector in positions of power and influence. To know if they have problems, people are a little more likely to care and try to help them. To know that people like them are considered more valid, more authentic, more ‘american’ and just generally better than everyone else. To know that the positions of the highest status and power are held by people who look like them.
And some people will say ‘I’ve never felt any status and privilege by being a white male’.
Maybe so, but it has never counted against you either the way being female or non-white (or muslim) would count against you. You by default are accepted everywhere. You don’t have to try twice as hard to prove yourself to anyone.
When a white man commits terrorism, you don’t have to worry that people will say ‘all white men are dangerous’ the way when a black person commits a crime people say all black people are dangerous, or when a muslim commits a crime people say all muslims are dangerous or when an immigrant commits a crime people say all immigrants are dangerous. Thats white privilege.
If you have a powerful and important job, nobody questions your competence to be there off the bat.
I think a better question would to be ask those who are feeling anxious over changing demographics to describe those cultural elements they are afraid of losing the most.
It’s not about “white male culture” as a specific cultural heritage per se, it’s about a culturally conditioned expectation of white male dominance.
That expectation is not unique to white males themselves, of course. Because of the historical legacy of patriarchy and European colonialism/racism, pretty much everybody who lives in a society with a significant proportion of white males is conditioned on some level to expect that white males will be, as Wesley Clark described, the default and dominant individuals in that society.
That’s why a lot of people—again, not just white males themselves—feel agitated at the prospect of demographic changes that seem to threaten the socially dominant status of white males. Even if they consciously reject overt racist and sexist prejudice against people who are not white males, they are still affected by this culturally conditioned expectation that white males “ought” to be in positions of superior importance and authority relative to the non-white-male people around them.
And when those positions are reversed to any serious extent (exceeding a small proportion of token exceptions as societal lip service to ideals of “equality”), they feel that there is something fundamentally “wrong” with society.
Nearly all (definitely the overwhelming majority) of white people I know all share the same sentiment that I feel about “being white” —
a) In terms of our own identity that we carry around inside our heads, we want nothing whatsoever to do with “being white people”. It’s an ideology, not a heritage. (A heritage or ethnic identity is “Scottish” or “Lithuanian” or “Hungarian” or “Welch” etc etc). We’re not into it.
b) But we acknowledge being viewed as white and being accorded the privileges and advantages thereof. We know racism gives us unfair advantages and we’re not trying to pretend we don’t know about it. We seldom have a clear sense of what we should be doing about it and often feel powerless to have an effect but we feel a sense of responsibility as designated-white people in a racist environment.
Some people accept their preferential treatment without blinking an eye or not even realize they’re getting it. This applies regardless of why they’re getting such treatment, but it tends to correlate to never believing that others experience the opposite, even though sometimes the preferential treatment itself is linked and simultaneous with its opposite: “my being assumed to be the person in charge is perfectly natural and expected, I don’t understand why my shorter and less imposing-looking manager has a problem with it.”
Or maybe it’s because one is legal and the other illegal? The opiate ‘epidemic’ hit all classes, and all races. When you try and frame things the way you do to garner the support you want for the causes you champion, you lose a whole host of people who were otherwise listening.
Great, so more than one reason for all the hub bub for the opioid ‘crisis’ and not just because it hurts the white folk as opposed to the illegal crack epidemic which resulted in police crackdowns.
That was the point I was trying to get Wesley to see. When bias gets in the way of research and argumentation, you assign causal relationships to things that make no sense (when looked at closer)
If the cited study shows anything it’s that there was an opiate abuse problem across all populations. The prevailing course of treatment (reflected disproportionately in the black population) has traditionally been incarceration. Given the cited study, it’s at least interesting to observe that while illegal opiate abuse rose dramatically in the white population, the reaction was to declare a ‘national crisis’ with funding for treatment. I’d like to think that this was because of the lessons learned from previous mistakes. I really would like to think that and there may well be something in it. But I’m afraid rose colored glasses are not my style.
