# What the hell ever happened to the white American man? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 19, 2011, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551 "2011-07-19T06:20:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/41 "2011-07-19T20:16:31Z")
> [@Death\_of\_Rats](#): > > How often people forget the he is as much White as he is Black. And yet he does not look 100% white, and therefore his experiences in America are significantly more likely to fit with the black experience than the white experience. How often people want to deny this reality. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/42 "2011-07-19T20:23:46Z")
> [@Death\_of\_Rats](#): > > How often people forget the he is as much White as he is Black. One drop rule. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/43 "2011-07-19T20:30:17Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I can’t help but wonder where the OP and many of this thread’s posters are getting their notions of how “white American men” behave these days. I live in a large midwestern city, and approximately 80% of it is made up of neighborhoods in which white American men are living perfectly nice lives, working at their jobs, providing for and enjoying their families (and dealing with the periodic stuggles that family life always creates), living in comforable homes, driving nice cars, drinking beer and watching sports and movies on big-screen TV’s. I go to one of our nearby lakes and I see white American men and their bikini-clad wives and girlfriends zipping around in the water on their Sea-Doo’s and Jet-Ski’s. I see white guys riding bicycles on the roads around the lake and on bike paths all around town. I go to restaurants and sports bars and everywhere I look are white guys enjoying themselves and having a good time. And I’d wager the same is going on in the vast majority of cities and towns all across the country. > > People on this board need to get out more. I also have lots of happy white men friends who love their lifestyles. Their political attitudes are primarily conservative, as are mine. The problem I have is with the people they choose to represent them as reflection of their attitudes are moral and ethical pygmies pandering to the worst biases and most irrational fears of the polity. Some people are expressing roll eyes and indignation that there would be an expectation for the white American man and his chosen leaders to be upstanding and caretaking, but there is. For all our faults we were supposed to be better than this. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/44 "2011-07-19T20:37:50Z")
_“Give any one species too much rope and they’ll fuck it up.”_ Roger Waters. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/45 "2011-07-19T20:38:34Z")
Astro, Why are you upset that white men, in particular, are not living up to some fantasy that’s as hyperbolic as the abysmal picture you paint of white men today? Why believe archetypes\* of any gender or race? What is this about? \*Is “archetype” what you mean to use? I thought I had a good grasp of that word’s meaning and I looked it up to make sure but I don’t see how the concept of archetype fits here. Reading your reply to SA, you seem to just have a problem with the GOP and conservative democrats. Pit them then. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/46 "2011-07-19T20:50:17Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I can’t help but wonder where the OP and many of this thread’s posters are getting their notions of how “white American men” behave these days. I live in a large midwestern city, and approximately 80% of it is made up of neighborhoods in which white American men are living perfectly nice lives, working at their jobs, providing for and enjoying their families (and dealing with the periodic stuggles that family life always creates), living in comforable homes, driving nice cars, drinking beer and watching sports and movies on big-screen TV’s. You live in the midwest, your opinion doesn’t count. You’re just a politically conservative boring white man on the verge of hickdom. * * * When I read the OP I kinda picture **astro** imagining Atticus Finch as the white American man. Now, instead of defending an oppressed minority, a lawyer takes ridiculous civil suits over spilled coffee at McDonalds. Instead of having the courage to shoot the rabid dog, a pot-bellied white man jumps out of his lawn chair, spilling his beer and goes to hide in his garage. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/47 "2011-07-19T21:03:01Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I don’t think it’s that he thinks white men are expected to have higher standards because they are white, but because they are his peers and they are letting him down personally. Asian men may well be disappointing, too, but he doesn’t have a personal stake in it. > > These are the people he is associated with, that he was raised to want to grow up to resemble, that represented his own ideas of adult mahood. This is his myth, his narrative, his set of achetypes. But why think of them in terms of white men? I just think that race is a little too broad. I find it a little hard to believe that this problem is just plaguing white men. > [@kushiel](#): > > When I read the OP I kinda picture **astro** imagining Atticus Finch as the white American man. Now, instead of defending an oppressed minority, a lawyer takes ridiculous civil suits over spilled coffee at McDonalds. Instead of having the courage to shoot the rabid dog, a pot-bellied white man jumps out of his lawn chair, spilling his beer and goes to hide in his garage. Did the archetypal white guy ever do great things like this, though? The average white male was more probably more likely to oppress Tom Robinson than defend him. All things considered, white men have improved a great deal. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/48 "2011-07-19T21:20:18Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > All things considered, white men have improved a great deal. Thank you. We try. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/49 "2011-07-19T21:22:54Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Some people are expressing roll eyes and indignation that there would be an expectation for the white American man and his chosen leaders to be upstanding and caretaking… Black people historically haven’t had that expectation. Neither have any other non-white people, that I’m aware of. I’d say their expectations have been the exact opposite. And history would support their perspective. So who had the expectations that you’re talking about? Other than a bunch of white men enamoured with their own white male status, that is? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/50 "2011-07-19T21:33:10Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Did the archetypal white guy ever do great things like this, though? The average white male was more probably more likely to oppress Tom Robinson than defend him. All things considered, white men have improved a great deal. Exactly. It’s only unless you erase from history Jim Crow, lynching, slavery, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Trail of Tears, the Tuskegee Experiment, and all the thousand of other atrocities concocted and perpetrated by white men, that you could even remotely come to the conclusion that this white male archetype presented by **astro** is anything but a comical fiction. But then to act like white men as a group are _more_ embarrassing than they were in the past? Just because we have some whiny Republicans in office? There’s a lot that is wrong with this analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/51 "2011-07-19T21:33:13Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Thank you. We try. Heh. Sorry, that didn’t _quite_ come out as I’d hoped. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Black people historically haven’t had that expectation. Neither have any other non-white people, that I’m aware of. I’d say their expectations have been the exact opposite. And history would support their perspective. > > So who had the expectations that you’re talking about? Other than a bunch of white men enamoured with their own white male status, that is? Yeah, I think this is my problem with the OP. By blaming white people, it suggests the OP thinks they should be better. It just feels very White Man’s Burden to me. People as a whole should always strive to improve themselves, but why single out white men? ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/52 "2011-07-19T21:41:08Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Some people are expressing roll eyes and indignation that there would be an expectation for the white American man and his chosen leaders to be upstanding and caretaking, but there is. For all our faults we were supposed to be better than this. When? When were our chosen leaders anything but deeply flawed political douchebags? A generation ago we had Nixon. A generation before that we had McCarthy. Before that we had Warren G Harding and the fucking teapot dome. It’s an unbroken line of douchebagery and we were never better than this. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/53 "2011-07-19T21:42:04Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Exactly. It’s only unless you erase from history Jim Crow, lynching, slavery, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Trail of Tears, the Tuskegee Experiment, and all the thousand of other atrocities concocted and perpetrated by white men We did give you the aqueduct. ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/54 "2011-07-19T21:49:37Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > We did give you the aqueduct. [Yes we did.](http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/things-to-see-and-do/aquaduck-safaris/index.cfm) You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/55 "2011-07-19T22:26:12Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > We did give you the aqueduct. Well I know what _I’m_ watching tonight. I’ve been meaning to _brush up_ on my Latin. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/56 "2011-07-19T23:07:46Z")
White men taste like chalk. Oops. Wrong thread. I don’t even know what the “archetypal white man” is. I’m picturing Hank from “King of the Hill.” But we’re supposed to laugh at him, even if he does have a good heart, so that can’t be who the OP is talking about. White people are always pointing out good role models for black people to aspire to. So I guess, as a black person, I should point out a good role model for white guys? What about Dennis Kucinich. Or Jimmy Carter. Or Drew Carey (he’s kinda conservative, right? I like him anyway.) Or Bill Gates! Man, he’s a groovy guy. Even I want to be like Bill Gates. What the hell kind of thread is this? I feel like if we were in real life, this thread would be smelling like some serious weed. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/57 "2011-07-19T23:21:42Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > What the hell kind of thread is this? I feel like if we were in real life, this thread would be smelling like some serious weed. Also something whitey like: [http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/27/33-marijuana/](http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/27/33-marijuana/) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/58 "2011-07-20T01:33:26Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > ``` > he bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki > > ``` Say what you will about the decision to actually use the bombs, but the Manhattan Project was a fucking ACHIEVEMENT. The vast majority of what we know about nuclear physics was either validated or discovered as a result of it. I think that’s a big piece of the modern-day white man angst- there’s a feeling that despite having devised and set up a stable and enduring democratic system of governance, defeated its enemies, tamed a large part of a continent, and guided it into one of the largest and most prosperous nations that the world has ever seen, that they’re being shit on because they weren’t more tolerant years and years ago, and/or more accepting of what they see as wrong or immoral. I don’t necessarily agree with all that, but that’s what I hear the middle-aged and older white guys saying, and bitching and moaning about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a perfect example of what pisses them off- we organized and executed a staggering science and engineering feat, and ended the war with it, and all people do is bitch about it nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Cyclone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/db5fbb/32.png) [@Cyclone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyclone)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/59 "2011-07-20T01:45:15Z")
Right after college this white guy was turned down for a job I really wanted and was qualified for at NBC. A friend had an inside track, and told me I was turned down because ‘my skin was the wrong color.’ Ok, I support affirmative action, but I was disappointed. Somehow I think we white males have gotten lost in the last 50 years. We are conflicted. The comfort level for white guys is deteriorating. That is just the way of it in our changing society. Opportunity must be available to all, and we are getting closer. Hopefully, one day soon the fall-out will end and the most qualified person will be hired for every job regardless of race etc… ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551/60 "2011-07-20T02:01:51Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Say what you will about the decision to actually use the bombs, but the Manhattan Project was a fucking ACHIEVEMENT. > > The vast majority of what we know about nuclear physics was either validated or discovered as a result of it. > > I think that’s a big piece of the modern-day white man angst- there’s a feeling that despite having devised and set up a stable and enduring democratic system of governance, defeated its enemies, tamed a large part of a continent, and guided it into one of the largest and most prosperous nations that the world has ever seen, that they’re being shit on because they weren’t more tolerant years and years ago, and/or more accepting of what they see as wrong or immoral. > > I don’t necessarily agree with all that, but that’s what I hear the middle-aged and older white guys saying. And to that I would say “they” didn’t do any of those things on their own, and in fact were exploiting the hell out of other people while taking all the glory, so “they”–if these jokers are truly serious–should get the fuck over themselves already and only take credit for what “they” as individuals have done. Not some collective “us”. This is not a white man’s country. This thread is reminding me of a painting I saw in an art gallery while I was in San Francisco last year. Don’t know if the artist was a white guy or not. But the painting made me laugh. It was a picture of a bunch of white guys in polo shirts and khaki pants, harvesting money off of a “money tree”, and wearing big corn-fed grins. I laughed in a “That’s so wrong” kind of way. But then when I returned to Richmond and looked around me and observed the suits walking around downtown, the folks running the state government, and even the guy who works in the office across from mine who’s always leaving his Forbes and Money magazines in the breakroom for us proles to read, that painting came back to me. It didn’t seem quite so funny then. White guys have nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about. Ya’ll didn’t ask to be born in your skins anymore than I was asked to be in mine. But quit yer whining already. It’s going to be a long time before white guys are at the bottom of ANYTHING. You have plenty of fantastic folks amongst your numbers, you enjoy wonderful health and prosperity, and people will continue to listen to you more than anyone else. What more do ya’ll want? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-ever-happened-to-the-white-american-man/589551.md?page=4)