3.21

There are times when it's not easy being a straight, white, middle class male. Believe it or not, it's not all sunshine and roses. Occasionally there are tulips. And clouds (but only cumulus; cumulonimbus is for minorities and Pooh Bears only, yo). And, once, I even saw a mosquito. But I think it was dead, so it was more of a “what if” kind of thing than an “oh noes” moment. Crisis averted, ya know? 

Specifically, though, normal fluctuations of basic human life aside, demographically speaking, I have it pretty good. And, to varying extents, I'd like to think most other folks (in America) do too, to varying extents. Those extents, no matter how explosively tempting, are not what I'm writing about today. Instead I'd like to get all meta up in this grill and talk about talking about them. In other words, what's a moderately well off white boy to do when people are getting all diverse up in his discourse? 

It's a question that's come up a bit recently, in my education travels, and it's something that's followed me throughout my “Adventures in Women's Studies.” It's not exactly a secret that I'm of the somewhat liberal persuasion. I'm no pinko, but I've been known to look sympathetically at poor people a few times and, if the rumors have it right, I question the notion that gay people, categorically, have cooties. Be that as it may, I'm still a bit of a Negative Nelly, so I tend to rain on all kinds of rhetorical parades, with various hilarious consequences. 

In the past, during eras of enforced “political correctness,” it was generally seen as taboo for a white male, such as myself, to criticize ideas and notions about gender, race, and class. That time, in many respects, seems to have passed, but you can still see remnants. There are still questions about, to what extent, someone like me can be involved in race and gender discussions (not that that stops me). Am I a feminist, a feminist ally, or just an egalitarian? Can someone like Representative Steve Cohen of Memphis, who represents a 60% black district, be allowed in the Congressional Black Caucus (as of now, no)? Should I feel bad about not really knowing who “50 Cent” is or why I have to pronounce his name with the letters “dd” instead of “ft,” the way God obviously intended? 

These are the questions of our day. But, by and large, the “PC Police” are a significantly lessened force. Barack Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope, stated that “rightly or wrongly, white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America.” Indeed, the discourse of race and sex have changed and, for better or worse, there's no going back. 

My generation, in my experience, doesn't feel guilty about possibly exploiting black people. It doesn't feel guilty of sexism. It doesn't feel like it's particularly privileged and resents the implication that its accomplishments are the results of birth instead of diligence and hard work. If anything, it's much more sensitive to “reverse racism” than many minorities are to “forward drive racism.” 

It's a frame of mind I may not fully embrace but that I certainly have sympathies towards. And, more importantly, it seems to be a fact of modern life. The days of lecturing about privilege, with an intent to elicit change, seem numbered. So what are we left with? 

Attorney General Eric Holder recently made the statement that “in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” Word choice aside, his point seemed to be that we (including racial minorities) simply do not honestly talk about race enough. Obviously many don't; they spent decades getting chastised and/or guilt-tripped (justifiably or not) whenever race and gender came up in a critical fashion. 

But that's a mentality that I think is changing. Gender and race are still topics that are divisive and significant; just look at the furor surrounding the last presidential election, particularly the Democratic primary. But that same primary and the general election are both strong indications that race and gender are not nearly as socially debilitating as they once were. 

Just as our society has progressed, so must our discourse. The culture war, I hope, is ending. White males are no longer “the enemy,” and minorities and women are no longer “the victims.” Instead, we're in a period (in America) where, increasingly, it seems almost all people have agency, have choices to make, have voices to be heard. We have problems to fix, not battles to win. Culture warriors, check your guns at the door.