# What exactly is "white male culture"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475 "2019-07-22T21:17:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Settimo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Settimo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Settimo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/1 "2019-07-22T21:17:35Z")
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](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/andrew-sullivan-the-opportunity-of-white-anxiety.html), 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](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/pew-survey-whites-fearful-minority-country-will-weaken-american-culture/3217218002/)–a survey on white attitudes toward population inversion, and some discussion; it’s from USA Today, but has some substance ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/2 "2019-07-22T21:48:43Z")
While there is probably some validity to such studies, I try to stay away from making stereotypes of classes of people. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/3 "2019-07-22T22:29:36Z")
Never thought I would ever say this, but if you know one white male, you know…one white male. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/4 "2019-07-22T22:40:52Z")
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. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/5 "2019-07-22T22:54:16Z")
I used to think it was, eg: Archie Bunker; now it’s more like Eric Cartman. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/6 "2019-07-22T23:23:45Z")
> **[2016 election results: Exit polls](https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls)** > > Full exit-poll data on how Americans voted, including by race, age, gender and education level. 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. > **[Du Bois and the “Wages of Whiteness”: What He Meant, What He Didn’t, and,...](https://nonsite.org/du-bois-and-the-wages-of-whiteness/)** > > Since the emergence of what has been known as “whiteness studies” in the early 1990s, proponents of the view that the white working class in the United States rejects a class-based politics in favor of commitment to white supremacy have cited W.E.B.... > [@](#): > > It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule. (Black Reconstruction [1935], 700-701) 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. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/7 "2019-07-22T23:32:27Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/8 "2019-07-22T23:50:19Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/9 "2019-07-23T00:38:32Z")
golf [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XTf9Sdrq1zg/maxresdefault.jpg "My road trip through the whitest towns in America | Rich Benjamin") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTf9Sdrq1zg) ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/10 "2019-07-23T03:32:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > … > > 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. > > … Post #4: “The 2011 Norway attacks gave “white male culture” a more decidedly violent and antisocial theme” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/11 "2019-07-23T04:33:53Z")
> [@Settimo](#): > > 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. […] How would you define “white male culture” in the US (the good, the bad, and the ugly)? 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. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/12 "2019-07-23T05:02:11Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/13 "2019-07-23T07:46:25Z")
A benign form of it is to never have experienced fear of sexual assault or mistreatment by law enforcement. More malignant is to deny that women and minorities ever experience such things. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/14 "2019-07-23T07:47:54Z")
White male culture is whatever people who don’t like white men say it is. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/15 "2019-07-23T08:00:45Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > A benign form of it is to never have experienced fear of sexual assault or mistreatment by law enforcement. > > More malignant is to deny that women and minorities ever experience such things. 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.” ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/16 "2019-07-23T10:19:18Z")
So what will replace it? Do you really see some sort of perfectly equal world where everyones views and ways are accepted as equal? ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/17 "2019-07-23T12:39:50Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > [Exit Polls 2016](https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls) > > …When the opiate epidemic hits white men, its a national emergency and needs … 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. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/18 "2019-07-23T13:01:11Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > 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. Here’s a link to an [NIH study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6072374/) that concluded the following: > [@](#): > > Over the period 1979 to 2015, age-standardized opioid mortality rates increased for both the white and the black populations. Although rates of increase were initially similar in the two populations and driven by heroin, the period 1993–2010 saw a rapid increase in opioid mortality for whites, largely due to prescription painkillers. Since 2010, opioid mortality has been increasing rapidly in both groups, largely driven by increases in heroin and synthetic opioids. It’s a pretty thorough study that shows the increase of deaths among whites has increased more dramatically than among blacks over the past 15 years. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/19 "2019-07-23T13:06:19Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Here’s a link to an [NIH study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6072374/) that concluded the following: > > It’s a pretty thorough study that shows the increase of deaths among whites has increased more dramatically than among blacks over the past 15 years. 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) ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475/20 "2019-07-23T15:31:29Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > 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. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-white-male-culture/837475.md?page=2)