A new term is now being introduced and it continues to make it difficult to have a real conversation about race. It’s called “white shaming“:
“The phenomenon of white liberal guilt has long been understood and discussed — we are now moving to the next inevitable phase of the discussion: white shaming. The shamelessness with which white shaming is engaged in by many of these liberals telegraphs the extent to which they actually have absolutely no interest in fixing the problems that exist in modern American race relations.”
It is also ridiculous, as explained by Pia Glenn:
Nope. No reasonable, intelligent, “potentially receptive” liberal black people I know of are solely looking for white people to apologize for being white. That’s ridiculous, and, in fact, when it has happened, I say as much. I’m often met with a well-intentioned white person replying to something I’ve said or written by offering a humble “I’m sorry I’m white,” steeped in the tears of white guilt like so much Earl Grey. You and I can agree on the inappropriateness of such an apology, so why would any reasonable liberal desire that?
But hey folks, the #racewar is coming so we should all get ready, right?
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Woodrowfan
“white shaming”?? wearing white after Labor Day?? wearing shorts when your legs are still pale from winter???
Betty Cracker
No, it really doesn’t. No one at Townhall is or ever has been interested in having “a real conversation about race.” There are certainly barriers to having that conversation among people who might genuinely be interested in such a discussion, but this ain’t one of them. Bug, feature, etc.
jl
@Woodrowfan: Maybe it’s for white crew socks with dark shoes and pants. That stuff needs to be shamed.
Except today, since I did that this morning. Not sure how that happened. Was in a hurry.
Woodrowfan
@jl: I told my wife that if I ever start to think that dark dress shoes, white socks and shorts are a good combination to please smother me in my sleep with a pillow..
Citizen_X
“It’s because my hood and robe are white, right?”
jl
We need a term for intentionally dense conservative white bigot misunderstandings of obvious stuff.
Hell, I am a white guy, and the white guyness of Hollywood and US corporate media drives me nuts. I look at it and I say to myself “Hey, why are all these doofus white guys hogging all the air time saying stupid stuff all the time?’.
Any dolt can figure out that the supposed anti-white talk about the Oscars is not about certain people being white, it’s about doofus white guys running the place and not allowing representation of diversity appropriate for this country, except as subordinate stereotypes.
I still see white bigots running around with ‘white power’ signs. I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone waving a ‘black power’ sign. Some movements grow and mature and learn, others don’t.
Patricia Kayden
The concept of “White guilt” is old. I assume “white shaming” is the same thing — just updated for the new century. It’s not about making people feel guilty for what happened in the past but about making people acknowledge what’s happening now so that we can do something about it.
wasabi gasp
Townhall dot com? Teary Earl “I’m sorry I’m white” Grey? WTF?
BTW: your week in blackness hit Patricia Arquette pretty hard for her whiteness. You made it about race, while she was speaking about movements. Your conversion skills suck, ma’am.
daveNYC
I for one am truly excited to hear what Townhall thinks should be done to fix the problems that exist in modern American race relations.
alternatively
I think Elon should check his privilege and stop trying to blacksplain when we talk about “white shaming”.
Obligatory [snark] tags in case people’s snark-o-meters are off.
John Cole +0
The VENN diagram of people who think they are victims of white shaming and members of the MRA is probably a single circle.
John Cole +0
Why only one post, Elon?
The Moar You Know
Oh, it exists. White people shaming other white people for their common experience of being white and privileged. Happens in colleges and other places where wealthy white kids hang out and pretend that they’re doing something important.
But non-whites shaming white people for being white? It is to laugh. That’s a good way to get killed.
And Elon, really, you had to go so far as to take a trip to Townhall and dig up this stinking pile of shit from Leon to prove the point? Let us know when someone of any importance whatsoever is willing to flog this idiocy. Leon doesn’t count.
jl
The sad thing is that mass of white bigots are true losers and dupes. They are duped by cynical manipulators who pander to their racial fears and that they elect, who then betray them.
One feature of recent economic history is that white males have lost ground at a faster pace than other groups. They are still better off in terms of level, but they have lost ground faster.
They blame their losses on those bad other people supposedly taking their things. Many of these white males are ignorant and deluded and bitter people. They have cause for discontent, but they really have no idea what is going on.
The true evil lies in those who lie to them and manipulate them, feeding them lies that reinforce racial and ethnic stereotypes and bigotry.
SteveM
Whites Off Earth Now!!!
Mike E
Because, being called ‘racist’ is a far worse atrocity than actual racism, clearly.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole +0: What’s up with the double post shaming?
Chris
As a white (and male and straight and from WASP background) person, I’m just going to say that the whole “white guilt” thing is and always has been conservative bullshit from start to finish. Neither I nor any of the white liberals I know, no matter how bleeding heart, have ever felt “guilty” about being white. They/we are aware that American society has very heavily stacked the deck in favor of whites, which is entirely different, and think that should be remedied. If America had stacked the deck in favor of a tribe that wasn’t mine, I’d be saying the same thing, and for the same reasons. (When I see societies like Iran that do stack the deck in favor of another tribe, I do say the same thing. And for the same reasons).
“White guilt” is entirely a conservative projection of their own worldview onto other white people. There is no reason to feel “guilty” because of the way other people set up an unjust society just because you happen to share their skin color, any more than there is reason to feel “pride” about the accomplishments of other white people – “tribes” aren’t hive minds and what one person or group of persons do doesn’t accrue to other people just because they’re in the same “tribe.” But of course, conservatives DO take pride in the accomplishments of other white people, and demand credit for them. And they assume everyone else shares that worldview, so of course, if you have any problems with society and white people’s favored status in it, you must be feeling “guilty.”
Geeno
Oh please. Who didn’t know some right wing shill was going to write about how the left silences those who misspeak after the Arquette feeding frenzy started? That’s the problem with these circular firing squads.
“White-shaming” is just the latest re-purposing of ideas from the left (terms like “slut-shaming”, etc.) to apply to some right wing fascination.
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead: Make that a triple. @John Cole +0: I feel marginalized because there are no threads on cricket. Elebenty threads on football and soccer but no love for cricket, should I complain to Steve or Rosy?
ETA: Do you guys even know, that there is a World Cup going on in Australia, right now?
Geeno
Oh, and Elon, repost this like five times because of what Cole said up there.
SatanicPanic
What they really mean is asshole shaming, which I support.
SatanicPanic
@Betty Cracker: They want a real conversation, they just define “real conversation” as hectoring people of color about their failings.
Linnaeus
@jl:
It’s not always just white conservatives who can be dense about such things, although their density is more often than not willful.
Belafon
If these white people could feel shame I wouldn’t have to be ashamed to be white.
Chris
@jl:
What’s wrong with “racist?”
S.A.
Hello Mr. Elon James White,
I want to thank you and ABL for continuing to wade through the muck of misrepresentation and falsehood and racial barbs this week. In listening to NS’s radio (and reading the early twitter and recent blogs) my mind has been blown over and over and over by the dishonesty and diversion and poorly disguised attacks, and by so much more. Including today’s misinformation about history. Regret that so much of your and Imani’s intelligence and time and integrity must be taken up by this ugliness, Greatly impressed at how you keep showing how important it is to expose. (And on top of all that, the potato salad jokes.) Thanks.
jl
@Chris: ‘Racist’ does not mean the same thing as ‘cynical manipulator’. There is more than one thing going on here.
@Chris: I have to agree. I have never been ‘white shammed’ by any white liberal, or any racial or ethnic minority person. And weirdly, i exist in liberal academia (OK, once, I was called a Nazi, but I use my white male privilege and I refused to be afraid or skeered or all feelings hurted about it). I have been subjected to whining about it by white bigots and reactionaries. I have been asked about am I not skeered by the coming oppression of the white man, by the same.
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, I’d have to say that the yoots on campus are the only ones I’ve ever seen indulging in this. Sort of. But, seriously, Townhall? It is to laugh.
geg6
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Well, in John’s defense, it’s sometimes triple, quadruple and, one memorable time when reading on my phone, quintuple posting.
lethargytartare
this is what happens when Frank Luntz gets a hold of the sentence “Obama is the real racist”
JustRuss
As a person of non-color, I am deeply offended by this stereotypical reference to my people’s beverage preferences.
Quaker in a Basement
It’s Leon Wolf. His pottery has been cracked for years.
Paul in KY
@John Cole +0: He must have done it wrong.
ET
People get very defensive when they feel like they are being wronged in some way and no group feels quite so wronged as a dominant group (i.e. whites particularly white males) being confronted with the fact that they aren’t so fabulous (or going to continue be) as their ancestors made them themselves out to be. I think this is what is going on. That and they don’t want to admit they really are bigots.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Hear, hear. I see so many smug white people who should be ashamed. But these POSes aren’t.
Paul in KY
@JustRuss: My mother is English (from Warrington) and she absolutely despises Earl Grey tea & gives any server hell that suggests it as a beverage of choice. She is 89 years young.
NCSteve
Ashamed? No. But I’m increasingly finding myself embarrassed.
SRW1
Is ‘white shaming’ in any way related to ‘self-hating’ among Jews?
jake the antisoshul soshulist
Sometimes I am ashamed of “white people”.
Woodrowfan
@Paul in KY: but just think how old she’d be today if she did like it!!!!! ;)
Another Holocene Human
@wasabi gasp: Oh please explain what she “really meant” because this old queer couldn’t make sense of it. It sounded more like Arquette was charmingly ignorant of the history of the movement, why would she be so ignorant? Could that be that white privilege knapsack?
Another Holocene Human
@John Cole +0:
He managed to single post last week too. So until yesterday’s triple play I thought that it was a FYWP issue that had finally been resolved.
jl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Post-shaming and post-splaining are both fine old BJ traditions.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: To be honest I was raised in a majority white suburb (thanks to the wonders of urban renewal … oh yeah) and a very liberal and kind of white guilt environment … also feeling guilty for being German because Holocaust. But I got the Holocaust demystified for me, Black people not so much. Had to have different life experiences. So I was definitely that really awkward white person–despite having some Black friends. How many times have we seen that movie? I think it was just being a teenager, history seemed to be cast as villains and victims. Maybe I was just confusing history with my life (abusive household, and no assistance up to that point, state did intervene later). I felt sort of like a thief for being a white gentile because I did nothing to earn that, plus you add the old Catholic guilt (now, don’t infer here that they ever discussed racial liberation on the Catholic side, not just no but hell no, so when you run into racist Catholics, is that un-Catholic? absolutely. did anyone ever teach them better? well, no.).
When conservatives talk about “white guilt,” though, I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. It’s some shit they project on liberals, a buzz word that they reach for when they’re pissed about any effort to treat Black people like equals. These are the same people who think Malcolm X was a racist just like them. Note they are usually too stupid to even cogitate on Malcolm’s level, although some of them are intelligent enough, they’re just lazy and/or vicious.
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: Assam tea is the best, Earl Grey is for wimps.
celticdragonchick
@Geeno:
This is why the Arquette fiasco and other assorted circular firing squads always hurt us.
We keep giving talking points to the right (and assholes like Rod Dreher) on ‘microagressions’ and “liberal thought policing’ ad infinitim…
And we never seem to fucking learn.
Southern power brokers used to use the concept of intersectionalty to their advantage as a wedge issue in order to keep their wealth and privilege and maintain policies of authoritarian exploitation:
“You know, you may be a poor white cracker…but at least you’re better then that black guy in the shack”
Now, we do it to ourselves. Factional insanity while the exploitive class laughs at us.
(referring to Elon’s post in an aside…I haven’t a clue what white shame is supposed to be, but I’m of Scottish heritage and we are usually busy mocking any and all things English)
Another Holocene Human
@Geeno: I hadn’t noticed anyone being silenced except maybe Nicole Sandler and nobody forced her to pick a fight, lose it emotionally, and delete her twitter account and comments.
Why bring on somebody as erudite as Imani for another perspective and then talk over her? That’s not very liberal. That sounds more like some Hannity shit.
When I was a kid they had real actual liberals on TV and they used to put you to sleep talking soporifically about serious issues in dulcet tones. I even remember Erma Bombeck talking about affirmative action and engaging in a conversation about white women versus black men in the workplace which is a conversation where a lot of people’s oxen are up for goring and yet nobody had an onscreen meltdown or walked off the set.
Getting angry/afraid/righteous is a good way to shut down a conversation–that’s not silencing, that’s hanging up and calling your friends so you can all nurse your emotional wounds–and frankly something we should leave to the other side since they’re so good at it.
The rage junkie look does not look good on us.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon:
I’m not ashamed to be white any more because I know I can’t help it. But I am disgusted and my capacity to be shocked by my fellow white folks has not yet been exhausted. It’s like this nightmare I can never wake up from. No wonder Americans love fantasy so much.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
Nicole Sanders really did crash and burn.
That being said, it does seem to me that the ‘rage junkie’ thing is alive and well on our side and that Nicole was not the only one to exhibit it in the argument.
When I could still work in aviation and was handed an inspection card on, say, a 757 coming in for a heavy C check (takes 3 to 4 weeks ), I was always told to “expect to find faults, and that way you will be sure to actually find them”.
Aren’t we doing the same thing here? Deliberately reading social media, news pressers and idle comments in the worst possible light because we love the righteous feeling of indignation?
I was part of the twitter mob that descended on some hapless idiot in South Carolina who wanted to poke at Tbogg. (never poke at Tbogg…)
Now, the guy was a legit racist and misogynist jerk who should have kept quiet…but what fucking purpose did it serve for me to add to the bees nest that landed on his head? That I felt smug for being smarter on twitter? That I was being a sjw who could publically excoriate someone I will never actually meet and who will never have any ability to influence anything related to me?
It was hollow, and I later really did feel bad about it.
I have seen Elon and others defend the whole “twiiter mob” meme, but why? What fucking purpose does it serve to get into 140 character arguments which solve nothing, persuade nobody and give ammunition to our ideological foes? Because we get to feel indignant for a day?
Not good enough.
The Moar You Know
Not good in any way, shape or form. You can defend the Twitter mob thing all you want, but it (and this can be proved, with science if necessary) DOES NOTHING AND CAN NEVER RESULT IN ANY MEANINGFUL CHANGE.
We’re no longer at a point in history where liberals can afford to indulge in action with no meaning or effect. That luxury is gone.
salvage
When I say slavery…
Shakti
I can’t roll my eyes hard enough.
It’s a term born out of the bastard union of a circle jerking push poll.
If someone used it as a j’accuse to my face, I’d… snort.
AdamK
@S.A.: Though I rarely comment, I really have to second this. Elon and Imani are completely on the right side of this discussion, and they need to be listened to.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
So white male conservatives are able to speak on behalf of white feminists how, again?
Uncle Ebeneezer
Wow. That Tbogg post…sigh. The cluelessness and dishonest framing. Ugh. I used to really enjoy his snark but it will be hard to take anything he writes seriously after this. Fuck off, indeed.
On the other hand, I would SOOOOOO love to hear him come on TWIB so you all could rip into him in entertaining fashion. Nah, you’ve done enough on this issue and must be exhausted.
Sondra
I tried to understand what this person was saying. I really did. I even clicked on the link (bleh!) to see if these block quotes made sense in the context of the article.
But all could figure out is that this person needs an editor very badly.
Even without the typos and the horrible syntax it made no sense to me – although I admit to a bit of an elitist Liberally educated bias here.
I almost think that it’s a feature rather than a glitch…and I almost think that being garbled by missing punctuation isn’t really the point because even if you could fix it grammatically, it still wouldn’t make sense fo me.
“The shamelessness with which white shaming is engaged in by many of these liberals telegraphs the extent to which they actually have absolutely no interest in fixing the problems that exist in modern American race relations. After all, never has anyone of even moderate intelligence honestly believed that the best way to reach reconciliation with an opposing party is to insult them over a characteristic over which they have absolutely no control. The nearly universal human reaction to this form of “persuasion” is anger and/or bitterness. And its use has become so pervasive on the left that the well may have been irrevocably poisoned for this generation – any discussion at all concerning racial inequality causes the hackles of otherwise potentially receptive people to raise in the anticipation that they are about to be insulted concerning something over which they have no control yet again.”
Monala
@AdamK: Co-sign. This conversation has been so frustrating (not just here at BJ, but in several places), with white liberals doing the following:
1) telling POC and LGBTQ people that their criticisms of Arquette’s words are divisive and “‘the reason we can’t have nice things”
2) while ignoring that they’re doing the exact same thing: criticizing other liberals (namely, the POC and LGBTQ people who were offended by Arquette’s remarks); and
3) ignoring the fact that that a majority of white people (including the majority of white women) continue to vote for conservative politicians that accounts for the lack of progress on so many issues. It is the fact that the vast majority of POC and LGBTQ people vote for Dems and liberals that actually keeps our country from falling into total shit (which is a major reason why Arquette’s comments were hurtful, even if unintended). And then:
4) when you bring that up, they protest that they themselves don’t vote for conservatives, or get butthurt that you are criticizing their progressivism or feminism. So it’s OK for you to feel hurt, or to object to being left out but POCs and LGBTQ folks can’t?
5) And then there are the “Twitter activism” criticisms, basically making the claim that the people making the critiques of Arquette’s comments (and the overall phenomenon of erasure that they represent) are doing something useless and stupid (and making the assumption that they are not therefore involved in actual action in their day to day lives), even though those defending Arquette or criticizing the critics are essentially doing the same thing.
And now this thread, of which some comments have a congratulatory whiff of, “Whew! Now we can get back to criticizing wingnuts about their racism and racial blind spots, and ignore our own!”
Monala
Another interesting link: http://www.thefrisky.com/2015-02-24/the-soapbox-heres-why-closing-the-gender-wage-gap-is-a-white-feminist-issue/
This article makes the case that the wage gender gap is not as much of an issue as the race gender gap for African-Americans and Latinos. Salient points:
– The gender gap in pay is fairly close between AA men and women, and Latino men and women.
– White women out-earn both Latino men and black men.
– The overall race wage gap is larger than the gender gap.
So it’s not just an issue that if everyone just got on board, it would benefit everyone. It’s more complex than that.
Modulo Myself
Pia Glenn says that she does not only want white people to apologize. Then she says that the apologies are ridiculous. I’m guessing that the apologies would not be ridiculous if they were along the lines of “I’m sorry that my mom and dad organized a campaign to keep black kids out of the school district and they didn’t look like monsters because they were white…in fact, they aren’t in jail, dead, or stereotyped as welfare cheats; they’re quite fine in fact.” But no apologies for shit like that. White privilege has become almost as ethereal as black thugness, except it has no consequences.
MomSense
@Monala:
Great comment.
ruemara
@Monala: Mercy, yes. All of this.
AxelFoley
@jl:
I can’t love this post enough.
AxelFoley
@Monala:
I can’t love this post enough, Part II.
C.V. Danes
I’m not sorry in any way for being white. Or male. But I did really enjoy this commentary:
I Don’t Know What to Do With Good White People
Paul in KY
@Woodrowfan: Good point. Will mention it to her next time I want to raise her blood pressure :-)
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: She would like Assam (I think). As long as it is a black tea & not flavored.
Kerry Reid
@Monala: Apparently the Constitution has a provision that says that the legitimate grievances of POC and LGBTQ individuals are worth only 3/5ths the hurt feelings of self-congratulatory white people.