Today is one of those days where the sky changes on a whim, from gray to blue and back again. I get it, sky.
Me too.
I was well into shaping a post when I realized my premise wasn’t entirely solid. Solidish, but not solid.
And I won’t do that to you.
Which leaves me in a fun position where I’m back at something less than square one. Square negative one, maybe?
We all have to start somewhere, I suppose. Sometimes over and over and over and over again.
Life stuff. We’ve all got it.
Which is what has been in the back of my mind today. You’ve probably also seen reports that if gender is no longer considered in college admissions, the people most likely to see decreased enrollment are white men, as women’s applications far outnumber those of men.
There was a great column about this in our local Chicago Sun-Times by Ben Jealous, which I found measured and thoughtful, and even a bit generous. But it didn’t entirely sit comfortably with me, and it took me a while to figure out why.
It seems like we are in a permanent navel gaze about what can be done about the plight of white men, when, when you think about it, white men have, by and large, caused the plight of others.
And while we’re supposed to believe that the successes of others are due to a largess from white men–one they no longer wish to extend–maybe what we’re really seeing here is the myth of white male supremacy run smack into the reality that excellence is not so limited.
Because here’s the thing about that supremacy. People can believe it, wholeheartedly, completely, about themselves. And that friction between that belief and the hard, cold world are difficult to sort out.
I mean…I can’t be the only person who sees this, right? While we talk about economic factors and cultural factors and opportunities for other groups and all the other myriad of “explanations,” why is this never raised?
If all those excuses are taken away, all the explanations for supremacy not reigning supreme, and white men are still not in the place they think they deserve to be, with the people they think they’re entitled to, that’s going to cause a malaise, I would think.
I don’t know if we need all these tender dissections.
If the remedy is a greater enforcement of white supremacy, I don’t really care what the illness is.
We are supposed to put men’s feelings above our own. I don’t do that, and you’ve seen how that goes for me, rather frequently.
But above that, we are supposed to put specifically white men’s well-being above all else. That is the subtext in most of those articles as well, though not so much the one I linked above.
White male suffering, whatever form that takes, however mild that may look to groups who are generally the target of suffering at their hands, is the most important issue we have.
Is it the most important issue we have?
Or is the belief that it’s the most important issue the most important issue?
I’m going with the last one.
As the white patriarchy crumbles, I don’t see why our tears must be shed for its architects and beneficiaries grappling with the grief of losing their unearned privilege.
Anyway, that’s it for me today, I hope you have a wonderful Thursday.
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