Ah yes. The one instance in which racial and gender scapegoating is not only permissible... it is encouraged. Bigotry is bigotry regardless of melanin or sex.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
4
Who runs the country? Old rich white men, that's who, to stop racism...it would be up to these mostly old white men, being voted out of office. Mr. Blow, keep telling it like it is.....
22
Kavanaugh, and Congress, have demonstrated that white male privilege is not just alive and well, but flourishing. You can be a proven liar, a drunk, an an all-around nasty pig—on national television!—and still be appointed to the Supreme Court. If that isn’t a demonstration of the power of white male privilege, how much more does it take?
16
Imagine a white male writing an op-ed on black males in the United States. Not sure that would go over well.
23
If you read J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy you will hardly come away with the impression that poor rural white males are a privileged people. There's a white rural flip-side to the black urban ghetto. Many white males are isolated, disadvantaged, under-educated, raised with a self-defeating cultural history and the losers in a global market that has removed industrial jobs from small towns forever. Cheap shoes, twang to your voice.....doors of prejudice close in your face. Too many give in to self-defeating habits and cultural mentalities, but to do better a person first has to imagine oneself worthy. Vance became a Marine and gained the self-respect, discipline and temerity to overcome his background. But far too many poor rural white males cave to shame, despair and hopelessness, and the suicides, drug abuse, alcoholism, gun violence, etc. they engender. Of course they like Trump. Trump tells them they matter. Most commenters here, affixed to the idea of "white male privilege", forget they exist or don't care.
27
"43 percent of young white men say discrimination against whites is as serious a problem as discrimination against other groups..." Young white men, when police officers start shooting you because you're so scary-looking, you'll know discrimination against you is as bad as it is against "other groups". Let's please not be preposterous!
23
The dilemma:
She wore revealing clothing and drank too much = Slut shaming.
He drank too much and liked revealing clothing = rapist
She got drunk and had sex = She is not possible to give consent
He got drunk and had sex = He needs to take responsibility for his own actions.
9
Mr. Blow is doing his part to demonstrate the intolerance, victim culture, and presumed moral superiority that much of America fears will overtake us if the Democrats take power. His continued bigotry is no different and more overt than what is allegedly coming from POTUS . Plus, after a year the perseveration is pretty boring.
14
As far as I can tell, it isn't just white male privilege but white Republican male privilege. shortly after Republicans impeached Billl Clinton over perjury (in an actual witch hunt funded and orchestrated by right wing groups), Republicans expressed outrage over Scoot Libby's conviction on perjury in a case involving actual national security. Last week, we saw a Republican majority ram onto the Supreme Court, the second Republican nominee to commit perjury, on national television for all to see. Meanwhile, these same people continue to declare Clinton guilty of perjury, despite his having been acquitted. The privilege continues with their complete turning of their heads to Donald Trump's lifelong moral transgressions and even crimes. Could anything less than this, though, be expected from a party full of people who have the arrogance to declare themselves the only "Real Americans"?
14
What concerns me is that some very bright, intelligent and powerful people are claiming that oppression and victimization are underpinned mostly by a set of values/ethics/principles unique to and siloed within gender and race such as the oppression and victimization allegedly being served up by men who are white. I do not agree with this. To me, oppression and victimization are, mostly, color- culture- society- and gender-blind.
As examples, if you look at Africa and the genocide taking place, today, nearly entirely initiated by a few powerful black men, oppression and victimization does not appear to be a white-man-only value/ethic/principle.
If you look at how just a few powerful Indians - both men and women of color- rule, by class, to oppress and victimize a humanity of billions of people, whose values/ethics/principles are underpinned by an iron-fisted caste of a Hindu society, oppression and victimization does not appear to be a white-man-only value/ethic/principle.
If you look at the few brilliant and powerful women around the world, today, who, now, think the public outing of any man of color, with no due process, is truth before justice, oppression and victimization does not appear to be a white-man-only value/ethic/principle.
Instead, I believe, the oppression and victimization of our humanity is underpinned by the imposed values/ethics/principles of very few people who find, first and foremost, it a necessity to exercise their power over the rest of us.
9
During Kavanaugh’s hearings, Lindsey Graham had the temerity to say, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.”"
So, identity politics, focus on race above all else and the 'As a black/Asian/Hispanic man/woman' one has to declare is mentally tiring.
If the election of 2016 taught Democrats anything, it's incessantly beating the identity drum isn't working, but they keep doing it.
Blow's columns always reminds me: it is a tough decision in November, a party with good ideas but still hasn't figured out White Men vote and openly insults them, or a party that will lower my tax rate but are morally reprehensible. So far, it's looking like an R vote, until the democrats get off their identity politics binge. If you want to go into the back room and beat yourself up for being white, go ahead. I'm not.
10
It's not that Mr. Blow's article isn't right, but we should think critically as to whether it's advancing anything (education, understanding, social gains, political gains etc.).
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-disli...
2
@Andrew How about enlightenment....so that another Trump is never elected to even dog catcher in this country again.
5
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/18/1718155115
This study supports Blows contention.
3
White males make up only 31% of the electorate and so if you pander only to them and women who feel tied to their husband's POV, that seems like you have already lost elections.
Women cannot be gerrymandered either.
No male bashing, but it is OK to bash the Make American White Males Feel Special Again movement ..
And improving women's earnings will directly benefit all the men whose wives, even mothers and daughters work. Women have invested years and tens of thousands of dollars in education .. and they will want and get equal treatment. Being underpaid is sort of a mutual agreement, and I don't think younger women or professional women will really continue to agree. You can only really be a bargain employer until someone hires you at a higher salary because of your higher worth .. and your resume, experience, etc just get better and better ...
Also the male breadwinner fantasy only works if men actually support their wives through their lifetime, certainly not in a 50% divorce society ...
3
Mr. Blow, I have two questions for you: 1) is there some reason why white men shouldn't feel great? That is, those among us who haven't raped, killed or enslaved anyone? 2) Can the Democratic Party win elections in the next 2-4 years without the votes of white men? The reason I ask is that every time a white male in this country is told he is to blame for things that he did not do, he starts feeling that he isn't really welcome in the Democratic Party. Demographic changes may make it possible for Democrats to win elections with few male votes, but we aren't even close to that yet. I don't know about you, but I'd rather defeat Donald Trump than insult white males into voting for him.
12
Actually white men have a lot to be anxious about. The 'browning of America is real. The fact that they are demeaning themselves to try and prevent it will only add to their apprehension when they fail. Instead of realizing that the American idea is desirable for all races and creeds, the think that it works only for Whites.
3
All men are being told to sit down and shut up. They are being told this by people who refuse to rely on verifiable facts or corroborating testimony, and instead rely on emotions and feelings for their beliefs.
Here's another realm in which feelings and emotions dictate your beliefs instead of objective facts or logic or reason: Religion.
5
I have yet to meet a straight white male who has openly said that he wishes he had been born gay, non-white, or female.
Re-read the above sentence.
4
I think you are dead wrong and I'm not alone. Maybe your views will soften a bit during Trump's second term.
6
In my profession jobs are advertised now with "looking for candidates of color," and "looking to empower women."
You can pontificate all you want, but the fact is that white men now have more difficulty getting jobs in my profession.
7
The reason that white identity is even a thing beyond some fringe skin heads is your side. The left pushes this "demographics is destiny" narrative where the other side would be send to the dustbin of history by this new multiple ethnic coalition. And as Admiral Yamamoto commented after Pearl Harbor you woke a sleeping giant in the 2016 election. Identity politics is road to nowhere good but how can anyone be surprised that anti white identity politics would lead to pro white identity politics.
18
@Todd It is not anti-white! Good grief. giving others the same rights and opportunities you have enjoyed for millennia is NOT anti-you. Cripes.
5
This article is just wrong. Wrong.
Nothing more needs to be said (and no, I'm not a Trump supporter).
9
The very fact that you can publish an article with this title and content in a major publication proves that the men you speak of are seeing things accurately while you, Mr. Blow, are the one that is misguided. There is no demographic, defined by immutable characteristics, other than white men (and occasionally white women), that you can publicly denounce as a group and expect to retain your job. Switch out all references to "whites" in this article with "blacks," and you should see what I mean. It's not socially acceptable to lump black people together, and it shouldn't be socially acceptable to lump white people together either. This article is a perfect example of what's called talking out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand, as white men we're being told to applaud and advocate for the advancement of traditionally marginalized demographics, a cause I think most people would agree with. And yet at the very same time, we're effectively told that our whiteness or our maleness makes it acceptable for people to tells us to "shut up" and to lump us together with other people who share these traits. That's a message that is wholly unpersuasive as well as highly unethical view to possess much less to state out loud. Either it is acceptable to discriminate against people based upon immutable characteristics or it is not acceptable. Mr. Blow thinks it's acceptable. He's wrong.
18
the GOP will make gains in the Senate(NJ, ND, MO, FLA), they will hold the house and Trump will declare a "Red Wave" that was all his doing.
Trump will then start his own "night of the long knives". Sessions and Rosenstein will be axed in favor of sychophant Lindsey Graham, who will show Bob Mueller the door. The Justice Dept will carry out a Georgia style voter purge across the entire US. Kavanaugh will write the majority decision affirming the right of states to gerrymander.
it's not all bad news though. Global warming will bring the Daytona Beach spring break scene to Maine, leaving Rick Scott to crawl back to the ocean.
1
I don't know why I'm so surprised at the amount of comments here that are literally shrieking with denial.
Is it because most Americans have no real sense of their own history? -- or is it because Charles Blow has hit a nerve??
I tend to think it's the latter, since most of the things being written here are accusing him of being the one who is 'racist', without even first taking into account the reason why white men in America have been able to get away with as much as they have, for as long as they have.
Honestly. It's a historical fact, and that shouldn't be surprising when remembering that African-Americans weren't even considered as being human.
Do you think there'd be anything other than a mass Republican uprising, and rampant moral outrage if Barack Obama gloated to have grabbed a woman (other than his wife), by ANY of her parts? -- And it's already a well established fact about what happened to his Supreme Court Justice pick.
And yet, folks still refuse to acknowledge it's exactly those same double standards that have given white men the advantage in almost every aspect of this country's foundation and history.
The only thing evident here, is that we are straying farther from the truth than running toward it.
That's why we're still unable to get beyond a certain point.
This will not make America great again.
And this is not 'winning'.
11
This may seem off topic, but I would ask anyone interested to please take a few minutes to watch "In Conversation: Robert Reich and George Lakoff" (YouTube) regarding how conservatives and liberals think. I think it's relative to why and how both sides choose what their talking points.
1
As a daily reader of the NYT, I acknowledge Trump is evil and the cause of all that is wrong in the world, but I suggest another cause of the "white male victimization anxiety": Mr. Blow's fellow NYT columnists, who have explicitly and shrilly attacked white men, sometimes rich white men (speaking of Bloomberg as I recall), sometimes privileged white men, sometimes Ivy League white men, and they include Krugman, Goldberg, Bruni, a few guests and you, multiple times in the last two weeks. Look who is calling the kettle black.
8
White men who feel victimized or threatened are weak and cowards.
There is an epidemic of cowardice, in both Congress and the White House.
9
Life is not easy for anyone. People who make it seem easy are a problem. Why does this article generalize about white men?
9
@Terry Um, because it is not possible to list every one of the millions with this phenom by name and because it IS what put Trump over the top?
6
As a 59 year white male, I think losing ground in some areas is a desirable outcome.
5
First of all, I don't have anything to do with Trump supporters, only on a cordial basis, as if you live in a small town, they are everywhere, but this town has always gone conservative in the elections. When an issue comes up, I speak the truth about that particular issue whether healthcare, climate, etc. I understand these men, as it really isn't about feeling victimized, as it is that they are charged with blame for things that they have no control over, which is namely, immigration policies, the state of the black community, the drug trade, etc. There are plenty of white males who vote Democrat, and have for decades. If anything, the blame can be laid at the change in the culture from an age of taking pride in one's work, to the idea that everyone is supposed to make lots of money. The political insiders, who have served in Washington D.C for decades, whether elected, or bureaucrats, including the wives, make millions off of being lobbyists, book deals, speeches, etc.. The entertainment industry pushed the culture of sexually explicit content, and how did that go over with the female in the long run? Not well, only a culture of exploitation, assault, and rape. Taxpayers for 5 decades paid for half the costs of all professional sports facilities, and the costs for college facilities. Most males are so over sports, that it would be in the best interest of this country, to let it go by the wayside. We have neglected the average person in favor of the small tribe.
2
So is your theory that Trumpists disapprove of porn’s exploitation of women, or that they are helpless slaves before it?
Either way, darn strange.
1
Dear Mr. Blow,
I have a few problems with your POV.
1. As a white feminist (since 1970), I admit I have sometimes felt varying levels of antipathy toward ALL men, but (hello?) not just white ones. That said, all I have to do is think about the nobility of my poor Irish immigrant grandfather - with help only from his parish priest, trying to hold together his family of three young sons as a (intermittently) working-class widower during the Great Depression. And my father's noble efforts to keep his handicapped brother out of an institution in this era. This chapter of family history vividly reminds me that some men are, if not angels, certainly not devils.
2. But Trump with his back against a wall, licking wounds with the likes of Kanye? In the aftermath of SCOTUS coup, methinks not! No, this bully is gloating and most tweets/decisions are fully calibrated for political effect. I wish people would stop believing (or reporters writing as if they believe) that politicians or celebrities act upon their beliefs as much as their interests. If they did, they might be forced to stop lying and thus would have to choose another occupation.
Trump's primary identity is not with white men; it's with rich/powerful people, regardless of sex, race or nationality. And it's all about what can you do for me, my bank account, and my bottomless ego. Clearly, Kanye is merely another loose cannon in his currently effective and deadly arsenal. I ignore them both and think about my grandpa.
2
I am really concerned with Blow's thesis here. I am also really concerned with privilege, and yes, specifically white male privilege. Here is what is happening, though, on the ground among those who are making less than six figures per year. Good white men, many of whom even acknowledge white privilege and are very open to figuring all this out, keep hearing this kind of criticism from Blow and others and think, "What are my options in today's political climate? ...the Charles Blow candidate or Donald Trump?" Many are dismayed with both. The democrats need to put forth a candidate that speaks to everyone. Obama had some great appeal in this respect. I am holding my breath for 2020.
3
In the time of Obama I had a white male partner in a firm tell me that he felt discriminated against. I asked him what was the basis for this? There were no partners of color and one or two women partners out of 100. He was highly paid at the top echelon of his profession and held a Ph.D from a prestigious university. He said he just felt no longer in the mainstream and others women and people of color were getting all the attention.
If he felt put down so to speak, what hope is there to gain understanding from those even less well situated?
7
Charles M. Blow has correctly identified the sense of historic privilege enjoyed by white men in America, which conservatives strive to protect at all costs, and the current anxiety those same men feel about performance inferiority, when measured against black males in our country.
Let’s give Donald Trump credit. This is one area where Trump can appeal to his base without lying.
The president of the most powerful country in the world genuinely feels inferior to and threatened by black American males.
2
I love Obama. Perhaps most for mocking of Trump during the correspondence dinner. There is a price to be paid. Trump exists purely to defend his fragile ego and Obama really damaged it. And it is payback time.
But the time was due. People like Trump have operated in the shadows for far too long and now they are out and we can see clearly what damaged humans are and the damage that they cause.
We are bigger than this and we will survive. Part of Trumps pain is the knowledge of how small he is and how he occupies an evolutionary dead end.
3
Mr. Blow, it’s no more useful to think of white males as a monolithic entity than it is to think of black males as such. I’m a white male and do not feel threatened at all - except by this president and his regime.
Also, 15- to 24-year-olds aren’t adults, and discrimination against whites - where it exists - is as serious a problem as discrimination against other groups. Did you mean that they believe the discrimination against whites is as equally spread as that of other people? If so, then that’s their parents talking.
2
Mr. Blow seems to miss the big picture with regards to identity politics. Yes, when viewed through the prism of white identity politics, it's toxic. Any other form, including black identity politics, is also toxic, divisive, and a race to the bottom. This concept seems to continually elude him.
9
What could be scarier than being falsely accused of sexual assault? Having your taxes raised! Republicans have long been striking fear in the upper 10% of earners about Democrats making them pay even a couple of thousand more in taxes to finance the military and fight wars and terrorism, to rebuild unsafe bridges and highways, to rebuild communities devastated by storms and fires, to help striving students attend college, to keep old people from freezing to death in their homes and sick people from dying for lack of healthcare, and all that stuff the affluent have no obligation to pay for. It's not fair! It's government theft! Stoking fear of false sexual assault allegations is just another verse of the same song.
4
White men as victims? More like pseudo victims . When entitled white males get over themselves , overcome generations of patriarchal teaching (the man is superior to women ) and behave accordingly , perhaps they will overcome their fear and anxiety . Not denying there haven't been false accusations , but as a whole rightful accusations have gone unreported simply because women who do are treated badly . Kavanaugh most likely did behave inappropriately as a young man , drank too much ; the patriarchy still rules and he has done no wrong .
2
The United States needs more white male leadership!
Without a white man in charge, who will start the next war we shouldn't be in?
Without the white guy, who will ignore a women's right to protect and defend her own body?
Who will ensure that minorities and immigrants are treated with complete and utter disdain?
On the other hand, without "conservative" white male leadership, we might actually be a happier democratic society that promotes equality and respects all inhabitants. Certainly we can't have that!
3
Can we end this folly -- it's getting old. It's also untrue ..
I know a lot of white men and actually I don't know any that fit into his box -- they may be concerned. But, not for themselves.
6
What Trump's response to the Kavanaugh mess has shown is how easy and effective it is to counter accusations of "white male privilege" with equally, or more, compelling declarations of vague injustice. It doesn't matter if the counter declarations are "real" or "valid". They work, and they work against the supposed aim of consciousness raising. Liberals (often wealthy themselves) keep doing it, though, and it will only result in another 4 miserable years of this fake president unless everyone stops this dead-end useless strategy of privilege shaming and comes up with a more constructive approach.
5
Memo to men from a fairly successful middle aged white guy: These are the secrets to success in today’s complicated and highly competitive world.
Get and stay educated. Certifications and degrees matter.
Be honest and sober, lots of folks can’t be these and so if you are, you are way ahead in the game.
Be polite and keep your hands to yourself.
If you can do these simple things, you will be alright.
Try not to worry about what everyone else is doing. Mind your side of the street and the rest will take care of itself.
There, now you can relax and breathe.
7
“Men have a tendency to believe that decreasing bias against women is associated with increasing bias against men"....Isn't it way past time for all of us to just stop this? There does not have to be a loser for every winner.
6
Stop making a skin color issues. There are many people struggling in the US regardless of skin color. It would be more informative to focus on both government and corporate policies that are driving people to poverty.
9
There is such a thing as social class. It affects income mobility, educational opportunity, family stability. There is no reason Amazon could not pay $30 minimum wage except the structure we have that allows huge executive and stock holder wealth to grow at our expense. Sex, race, age and other forms of discrimination serve as a side show. The wealth they keep from us everyday people is enormous.
8
@Emory
Yes, that's how it works, and if anyone has been stoking the flames of resentment it's the GOP. Why is it democrats get told not to stoke the flames, yet the GOP and Trump, just keeps it going.
6
Blow- you have to see the hypocrisy of your stance. Apparently white males are the only group that its ok to openly ridicule and to seek to diminish and destroy?
You and those like you have made Trump. The constant drumbeat over the past 3 decades of how white males are all entitled, don't actually have to struggle and simply get things handed to them had finally reached such a deafening level that it couldn't be tolerated anymore.
There are lots and lots of disadvantaged white men in this country and the way they see the world they are not privileged or advantaged. Quite the opposite; they have spent their whole lives ticking off that box at the end of a job application or college app - "white", and "male" - and every time they live the reality that they are the only group in America that it is OK to discriminate against. Have you ever thought about that?
89
@John Wilson Oh, my god. No, wrong, all wrong. Those struggling white males are angry because they feel that, because they are white males, they are entitled to not be struggling. The problem is, they blame women and minorities and vote for the very people who are deliberately causing them to struggle. And yes, we have thought about who they think they're the only group that is discriminated against. It's nonsense.
12
@John Wilson
Why not whites have been doing just that to women and people of color for decades, literally. And I'm a white male. You make Charles Blow's point for him. Because in your mind, and the minds of republicans, white males are trying to stack the deck in the face of the inevitable fact, that whites will be a minority depending on how old you are, 18-35 it will happen in your lifetime.
This is what the republican party had always been about, with that in mind, that is exactly why they suppress the minority voter, stack the courts, and gerrymandering, which is why the GOP wanted Kavanaugh. Because as you saw or heard, in his rebuttal, he said, " that it's an orchestrated hit by the Clinton's and the democrats, in the politics of the 1990s, what goes around comes around". Kavanaugh embodies their new standard in decorum.
And there may be many whites that aren't privileged, but neither are the white males that you see protesting, and whining about being left out of the current economic expansion. Whites are not discriminated against, but that is the exact thing that Trump and the GOP keep saying.
6
@John Wilson While I don't necessarily agree with the notion of white male victimization. I do, however, agree with your point that not all white men should be grouped together, which is something Mr. Blow (and others) usually do and that is the main flaw of his column.
An unemployed white male coal miner in W.Va or a laid-off factory worker in Michigan has very little common with a Wall Street broker from NY. And the former has and continues to have hard times with a changing economy that has not been kind to them.
Why they support Trump and view him as their hero, well that's harder to explain.
7
Please stop the Hate Speech. It’s time to move on and come together as a nation.
18
@Common Ground
If you consider this "Hate Speech" -- one can only wonder what you call the things coming out of Donald Trump's mouth, because he's doing more to alienate this country than anyone else.
3
This is so on the mark. The "conservatives" on the supreme court advance "originalism" and strict interpretation of the Constitution. AKA - continued suppression of women's and minority rights. If we don't come out in numbers this November and beat this back, we might as well be living in the late 1800's again, as far as how much we will have regressed.
11
@Rubad
That is absolutely right.
3
Sorry. No hympathy for any of them.
4
Quote from Blow "During Kavanaugh’s hearings, Lindsey Graham had the temerity to say, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.”"
Question for Senator Graham: "Who has told you to shut up?"
14
@Dan Styer
I'll volunteer!
1
I’ve been reading quite a bit of racist ranting against white men in these pages, and elsewhere, and quite frankly don’t find it useful in the slightest. I wish Blow would find a topic that isn’t insulting to an entire race or gender. He’s hurling the stereotypes while hissing about stereotyping. Enough is enough. White men have been awfully good to Blow, have they not?
18
@Ship Ahoy
Really, well maybe people of color don't find white males carry tiki torches chanting "you won't replace me" I think that's pretty insulting to an entire race. And your statement is even more bizarre "White men have been pretty good to Blow" that goes right to the point he's making.
Your statement proves that white men don't like being called out, but there are in fact many studies that support exactly what Blow is saying.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/18/1718155115
2
@Ship Ahoy
You're right, it isn't just white men but also brown, black and all colors of XY that are dangerous to all living creatures, particularly to girls and women everywhere. The reality is that it is those devalued, despised and abused girls and women who will save the planet, men and boys along with it. The males have proved themselves dismal stewards - utterly incapable for more than 2000, even to the point of inventing crackpot 100% misogynist "religions" to shore up their perceived right to superiority over all others.
2
"Trump is the paragon, the epitome, of this white male victimization. Everything and everyone is being unfair to him, and by extension, to white men."
This is a classic trait of a person with narcissistic personality disorder. The true source of poor Donald's feeling bad is his inner sense of himself as inadequate. A secure, confident person who knows who he is and what he's about would not need constant affirmation from others, as Donald so clearly does. Think of his pathetic rallies as group therapy. Sad.
5
White male, at the WH (with orange hair) victimization, may be?
1
I wish Blow would balance this and other articles with the theme that the rich 1% need racism and misogyny, but we, the 99%, don’t. It would put his justified anger in some social context.
5
Give it another 10 years, and there will be less of the entitled white men species like Graham, Kavanaugh or Trump.
They will learn to listen to others and be more compassionate, it's just now that they are crying.
2
How absurdly stupid Trump is.
Men rape and women don’t. Men are stronger than women and more physically, aggressively violent sexually than women.
What makes women kind loving and motherly is the very opposite behavior of sexual predators like our president: an evil man to his core. Why he has even coveted his own daughter Ivanka on TV shows as if she was a piece of meat!
As for younger men I have no pity for them. Time they grow up by finally listening to their mothers and becoming the humans that many of them aren’t at drunken parties and in dark allies.
12
I agree. But modern men have always fought back. Look at the "men's groups" that started in the 60s 70s when women's consciousness raising groups were all the rage. What makes it notable is the difference over time in tactics, spokespeople (Phyllis Shafly defeated the ERA) and all the other facts that makes each historical wave of women's outrage/men's backlash unique and unpredictable in advance. My Question: Will we win the midterms? that will be how I judge where America is at on this right now. thanks for the thoughts.
7
Hey, everybody else is a victim. Why can't I be a victim? Is it because I am white? Male? You're not prejudiced, are you?
54
@Ken You can be a victim if you are sexually assaulted. Or shot during a routine traffic stop. Or separated from your children for a misdemeanor offense. I hope none of these things happen to you. But if they do, I also hope you receive compassion rather than pablum from your fellow humans.
6
One of the books I read a few years ago (School Girls?) talked about efforts to equalize privilege in middle school kids. Invariably, when things were made strictly equal for girls, boys perceived it as a loss to themselves and what they were accustomed to. It seemed like when time, attention, etc were kept equal, the boys thought they were being discriminated against.
11
White males have brought us nothing but racism, slavery and the pollution that is destroying the planet of all its inhabitants. The only solution is to bring them down and destroy everything they forced upon us. The process is already underway in the USA.
11
During Kavanaugh’s hearings, Lindsey Graham had the temerity to say, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.”
Single.
Enough said.
9
@Joel Solonche
So now you're equating single with - what?
2
Very insightful, Mr. Blow. As usual, your analysis cuts right to the heart of the matter. One only need to look at Kavanaugh's pouty and outraged face during his testimony to see what Blow is talking about. Woe be to all of us if these white male grievance mongers stay in power. Vote on November 6th!
16
EVERYBODY, certainly every woman, should listen to a popular new song called "It's a scary time for men." Google it, and it comes right up. A pretty young woman singing with sweet spirit about the life men have thrust upon her -- and the lives of men and boys who feel threatened by her. At last count, over forty million listeners -- on line and on Facebook et al.
marthastephens.wordpress.com
6
@Martha Stephens
Very comforting that 40M people have even less to occupy their time than I do - thanks!
1
@Martha Stephens
In about three minutes the song clearly delineates many, many ways women and girls circumscribe their everyday lives in the effort to stay safe from sexual harassment and assault. Many females don't realize how much we do it because it's second nature. Most men don't have a clue because we don't really talk about it.
Women AND men. Please. Listen to the song. Then ask the women in your lives what they do to stay safe. Listen to them instead of talking at them. You will learn something.
3
@Martha Stephens " A pretty young woman singing with sweet spirit about the life men have thrust upon her -- and the lives of men and boys who feel threatened by her. At last count, over forty million listeners -- on line and on Facebook et al."
I'm not surprised. Easily the most annoying thing I've ever seen on twitter. I particularly liked the line about being afraid to answer the door wearing silk pajamas. Because a guy in my building is a rapist? Could be a rapist? Might be? Well, how about when you see him while getting your mail. Is he a rapist then? You you say hello? Ignore him? Run?? Or is he only a rapist when he sees you in your silk PJ's???
White men and white women are not victims in this country. Everything works to their benefit, what could they possibly have to complain about. The omitted question mark is intentional.
7
Too many of the white male respondents seem to misread Mr. Blow’s target as ALL white men, and imply that he should have gone out of his way to clarify who exactly he’s targeting. These respondents fail to see that such “clarification” would in fact obscure the legitimate claim that white male privilege combined with widespread white racism is precisely the problem. If there is confusion about this and you see yourself as his target, that’s your problem, not his.
11
@Robert
I think we understand what's going on just fine. It's you and the author that don't understand. It's completely hypocritical to denounce racism while denouncing an entire race or lumping people together based on race. That's what's occurring in this article, and it ought to be called what it is, racist. I understand some on the left have recently engaged in contorting logic on this point to where a popular notion is now that it's impossible to be racist towards white people, because white people have an institution behind them in support of their racism that are deprived to people of color. Of course power has never been a prerequisite for establishing racism until liberals decided to come up with some reason, any reason, they could justify their own racism while denouncing it in others. It's quite self-evident to me that you don't need a lick of power to be a racist. You can be a rich, powerful racist, or a poor racist without so much as a friend or supporter to talk about your racism with. And, yes, you can most definitely be a black racist. The fact that this even needs to be said to supposedly educated people is baffling.
7
Affirmative action has indeed victimized many white men in various contexts, particularly those in which jobs or admissions to educational institutions are zero-sum games. Although I believe that race and gender should be factors that are taken into account to compensate for past discrimination and to promote diversity, I have witnessed many situations in which race and/or gender have been such dominant factors that the objective qualifications of the white male have been far superior to the credentials of the successful nonwhite or woman candidate. Many of these white men have come from socio-economic backgrounds that were far more modest than were the backgrounds of the nonwhites or women who were selected. This is unfair, and it is also unfair to disparage white men who complain about it or seek redress through the political process. I've known many politically progressive white men who hold their noses and vote Republican because they refuse to vote for a party that institutionalizes discrimination against them. Indeed, I believe that excessive use of affirmative action (along with countless other factors) is what tipped the scales to the Republicans in the 2000, 2004, and 2016 presidential elections.
16
@Cromer
The “objective” qualifications by which the job candidates were judged were penned by the white males in charge, and therefore naturally biased towards persons like themselves. I have seen, time and time again, women and minorities with superior education and/or experience get turned down
because they don’t “fit in” — code for “not a white male.” If it wasn’t for affirmative action, white males wouldn’t have even conceded the small amount of power they have (conceded).
I’ve noticed that no white males ever complain when they get preferential treatment; indeed, they usually don’t even recognize it.
3
As a white male I really have to say that white people generally suck. We are so over privileged and do nothing to help. And with Trump we only hurt
Black lives matter
And we are to blame
9
@The HouseDogy
The world - males and females - stand on the neck of 3.4 billion females, lectures and preaches to but ignores their lives and hopes, torments them, beats them, impregnates them against their will, rapes them, tortures and murders them, takes away all semblance of who they are and any free will - with near impunity everywhere. This cannot go on. Humans mistreat all species and the planet just like females are mistreated everywhere. There is not one corner of the planet where girls and women are safe, infant to granny.
2
@The HouseDogy
Right? If it weren't for white people black Americans could be living the good life in Africa.
1
How possibly can a multi-billionaire who lies and cheats his way into the White House think he's a victim?
How does someone who collected a $200K annual paycheck from his dad when he was 3 years old stage mass rallies that are mutual sob and rage sessions for those who feel like they're victims?
Do Trump's white male victims actually think he's walked a mile in their Red Wings? That he has any clue about victimization besides being the reason for theirs?
Many of weak mind and withered spirit deal with their victimization by identifying with and emulating those who victimize them. Essentially a variation of Stockholm Syndrome, Trump acolytes identify with him as the penultimate victim. Even though he doesn't like beer.
Poor billionaire-president Trump, a victim of leftist mobs and scheming women who've been sexually assaulted.
Let the amen choir sing:
O beautiful for specious lies, For toxic acid rain,
For coal mountains table topped, Above the round-up grain
America! America! Trump shed disgrace on thee
And crown thy men with victim hood From Fox and Hannity.
Trump says he gets no respect. Take his wife...please.
Know what? She wears "I don't really care" just not on her sleeve.
13
Dear NYT:
I regret having to say this: Charles Blow is a racist.
His almost daily attacks on "white culture" and alleged Trump aligned, white-supremacist holdouts are a textbook example of racial scapegoating.
As a working class white guy, from a broken home, who worked his butt off to succeed, I resent Blow's inability to recognize our common American identity, and the need for each of us to take individual responsibility for our own success or failure, even if some of us must work harder to overcome disadvantages of class, race or circumstance.
All of us must contend with scapegoating, which is exemplified in the inability of some -- such as Mr. Blow -- to see past color or gender.
The cruelest, most damaging racism is the sort of identity politics group-think of self-professed "victims" who are unable to see past their own victimiztaion.
This is particularly galling coming day after day from an intelligent, privileged columnist for the nation's newspaper of record.
27
@Jorge Oh, for crying out loud. Learn what racism is before you start lobbing the term at people. AS for being unable to sees past their own victimization, we're talking about two whiners, Trump and Kavanaugh, who portrayed themselves as victims, even after he got onto the Supreme Court despite committing perjury...nothing grosser than the most privileged, to the point of getting away with overt crimes, declaring themselves to be victims.
3
There are no male victims. Only women. It is time men treated women for the brains they have rather than their physical vulnerability and vaginas.
6
Charles M. Blow you are stereotyping.
22
Oh. So Trump DOESN’T mostly represent white men who feel they’re losing ground? Couda fooled me, as they’re always saying it.
4
@Robert, I suggest you look up the word "stereotype."
No cops, no immediate police report, no emergency room records no reliable witnesses, no confession, no case. #we'll do as we damn well please and deny it later and it is my word against hers and the men with power will believe me and vilify her. Trump is giving a master class, deny, deny, deny.
8
"Trump is on a campaign to Make America’s white men feel Great Again."
Yes, preposterous in its premise and damaging in its outcome.
But deepening identity divisions, however unintentionally, is not helpful. Now is the time and this is the place to say this is an offense against all Americans, not just those who are not white men.
Please welcome white men to the fight against this nonsense. Right now we are all assumed to be perpetrators or sympathizers.
6
@Robert
Except people of color are doing better under Trump then Obama. But go ahead and book for the other guy if it makes you feel good.
Democrats, and specifically Charles are obsessed by race.
This has nothing to do with "white" males. Dr. Ford's story was extremely fishy and she changed it so many times that it was laughable. Even ALL of her named "eyewitnesses" refuted her claim. So did all of his.
How could Brett Kavanaugh defend himself? Could he show a movie ticket during the alleged attack? No, because she "couldn't remember exactly where," and "couldn't remember exactly when" and changed her story as to how many people were there. She "didn't know how she got there" until it was shown that it was too far to walk and then she "couldn't remember who drove her" and "couldn't remember who drove her home" and nobody has come forward to corroborate this part. Nobody.
She lied about being afraid to fly.
Feinstein sat on the story for 3 months.
The whole thing didn't pass the smell test and in fact smelled like a sham. and still does.
Sorry Charles, but "white" has zero to do with it.
13
The reason men are worried about their victimization is because men are users accustomed to being the victimizers who for millennia have raped and pillaged freely
But If we are to survive on this planet then it is time women were treated as the real thinkers they are: ready to lend their superior education and better-balanced sanity to a world too long abused by men.
4
Trump is the worst possible American to have representing the country, to the rest of the world & even to its own population of 325 or so million.
I am sure every time his face is shown on TV screens, life expectancy goes down across the USA.
6
@Maria Ashot I wouldn't know about life expectancy because every time I see his face on the TV, I change the channel.
1
It is about time men lost ground in this patrimonial violent world we live in.With women in charge there would be less crime, rape, murder and political hanky panky.
Women are kind practical, and loving people. War and child abuse are not in their life itinerary. The shame through the centuries is that men have not learned goodness and honesty but have instead devoted themselves to selfish bloodbaths and monetary greed.
7
You've written a column to expose a myth about white male victimization, and in the process validate the concerns you're trying to debunk. "43% of young white men feel discriminated against because NYTimes publishes regular opinion pieces about white male victimization anxiety" … perhaps that's a headline for another day.
8
Yes, quite so. And yet it was bound to happen as WASP males have long been destined to be the last minority to demand recognition and redress.
2
Why is it SO appealing to be a victim????
the analysis certainly seems correct.
4
Trump doesn't "represent" anybody. He is just another "entertainment" for a country that has given up on having a responsible government and almost (but not quite) popularly elected a total incompetent who should actually be behind bars.
8
You have to include the majority of white women who voted for him too.
2
"And this victim sensibility that Trump is articulating is not generationally restricted. In January a PRRI/MTV poll of 15- to 24-year-olds found that 43 percent of young white men say discrimination against whites is as serious a problem as discrimination against other groups (29 percent of young white women agreed with them), and nearly half (48 percent) believe efforts to increase diversity will harm white people."
Someone needs to tell these foolish children that this is an overdue correction in an unbalanced society and does not qualify as injury.
To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.
7
I have a brother who bought into Trump's white male victimization rants very early in the game. Because he happened to find employment around the time Trump became President, Trump got him his job. But my brother has been listening to Limbaugh for years, so he was already set to feel sorry himself. Yet the reality is that he was given every opportunity from the time he was a boy.
Most white men I know have not bought into this laughable "alternate reality". They take responsibility for their lives, and often other lives. Trump has never been a real victim in his life; he revels in taking advantage of others. And that's what the modern Republican Party has become, too.
13
Trump and the GOP elevated the reprehensible behavior of white male privilege out of the shadows and into the light. It’s uglier than we ever imagined and it’s been a powerful wake-up call for many of us who are not privileged white males. While Trump and his cronies are busy publicly whining, feeling victimized and acting like spoiled children, we are energized to effectuate change.
4
The guy in the White House is one of the most divisive Presidents ever, and that's saying something, considering that people like Nixon was President 45 years ago.
I just wonder what's going to happen next.
2
When articles like this one (which are extremely common in liberal media) continually stereotype all white people it's not hard to see why so many have developed a persecution complex and continue to desert the Democratic Party. Most people have a threshold for their ideals, where if they are threatened enough they will forsake them in favor of self preservation. This is in fact the main excuse offered for petty criminals: they steal in order to eat, because their situation is so desperate they have no other way to preserve their life. It is not much of a stretch to extrapolate this thinking to political ideology. It's all well and good to be a progressive, until the politicians you voted for start dehumanizing you and cynically talk about demographic changes making you irrelevant.
How easy it would be for the Democratic Party to win this and every other election if they simply chucked toxic identity politics to the curb and did the bare minimum to reassure white people their grievances still matter and no, there's no sinister plot to "replace" them. The Dems seem inclined to think that if they simply harp on about how awful Trump is white people will forget their sense of self preservation and remember their ideals.
They won't though. Not when Trump is playing right into their anxiety and reinforcing it, making it stronger. At this point Trump could be revealed as the anti-christ and I don't think it would matter to his base as long as he puts voice to their anxiety.
7
@Joel
Correct.
1
I've just spent roughly 2 hours scrolling through the many comments on Mr. Blow's piece and have a few observations and thoughts. First, the NYT picks are extremely non-representative of the general views of the reader, myself included. This may be the most important midterm election in American histoey. The topic of "white fragility" is a big loser for the Democratic Party. All Mr. Blow's article does is fire up Trump supporters, further alienate moderates and many independent voters and keep them away from the voting booth, or worse yet, get them to vote republican out of fear. Virtually everyone who agrees with Mr. Blow's thesis is voting Democratic or not Republican already. If the Republican's capture both houses IT'S OVER. There will be practically NOTHING to stop them Russian operatives could not have written a more effective piece to further increase this catastrophic possibility.
85
So, don't criticize delicate snowflakes?
3
@Miles
I became convinced some time back that bashing white males has become a neurolinguistic addiction with many on the left.
They need to stop it if they can. We need a viable alternative to what the right has become.
It would be easier if at least one party would get a grip on itself.
If they won’t a third party will become necessary.
See Conor Friedersdorf’s article from yesterday in The Atlantic by the way.
2
@Miles I'm a little tired of tiptoeing and equivocating merely to spare the feelings of Republicans who may get mad at some idea they find disconcerting. Those folks get mad at the drop of a hat and there is nothing you or I or anyone else can do to prevent them from whipping themselves up into a lather at any pretext whatsoever. Fighting to keep someone credibly accused of sexual assault off the Supreme Court makes them mad. NFL players protesting police violence makes them mad. Women mouthing off to men make them mad. The fact that things cost more now than they did 50 years ago makes them mad. Let's just get on with the business of democracy and intellectual discourse without having to worry about the volatile and explosive nature of the conservative base which can never be assuaged.
7
The president has NO business calling private citizens names, or even negativwly commenting on the activities of private citizens unless there is strong national interest (Obama's "Beer Summit" is a positive example.) This applies to Obama as well. He should have kept the Kanye West comment to himself, and the Correspondents' Dinner shouldn't exist AT ALL for myriad reasons, not the least of which is that if Obama hadn't made that joke, we wouldn't be in this mess. I criticize Obama here, but I have no criticism strong ENOUGH for the current occupier of the presidency.
6
Yes , by all means , make these Trump supporting white males feel great again . Rather than providing simplistic and duplicitous prescriptions that only inflame and diminish and never enlighten , give them a world that asks , that demands their attention and participation .
Violence , and this is violence of the soul , is what happens when there is nowhere to go with suffering . As current news attests , we have about 12 years to correct the path of a planet heading toward environmental catastrophe . Let these angry and frightened young men , and everyone for that matter, find their better purpose in building the cars , in engineering the alternative energy grids , in planning for a fossil fuel independent world .
I have no illusions about the power of the entrenched interests in the Republican Party to continue their denial and blockage of such a direction . If the Democratic Party can appeal to this opportunity , passionately demand that this last opportunity be the focal issue of the coming decade , then quite possibly not only the planet but our vibrant pluralistic democracy can be saved .
11
Hegel (1770-1831) described it best in his 'Master-Slave Dialectic'. The oppressed party fears the punishment, while the oppressor fears a rebellion. Since the oppressor depends upon the oppression of the oppressed in order to maintain wealth, status and privilege, the oppressor comes to fear any hint of rebellion or any improvement in the status of the oppressed. Quickly, the oppressor is consumed by an obsessive fear of losing even an inch of ground to the oppressed. The oppressor realizes that in order to maintain his status and benefits, the core of his very IDENTITY, he must keep the oppressed in total terror, reminding him periodically 'who is boss', and humiliating him repeatedly so that the oppressed will never 'dare' even think of rising up. Humiliation and terror become the necessary weapons of the fearful 'Master'. This not only describes to tee the behavior of someone like Trump, but also that of many of his followers, of all white supremacists, of many police officers, and of many members of your local 'country club'. To give these weak and fearful 'oppressors' any power over others is to condemn the world to an endless cycle of ever-deepening fear and violence.
13
That’s Nietszche, actually. See Charles Sykes’ article.
Hegel was never much interested in material reality, but in the unfolding of the “World Spirit,” in human time.
One thing that amazes me about the people who defend kavanaugh is, when you mention JUDGE Kavanaugh's perjury and continuous lying during the hearing (and apparently long before this hearing), their response is, "Well, when a woman falsely accuses..." Since when does being falsely accused, even when it actually happens, mean the defendant can commit perjury?
21
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we're talking about straight white men. Gay men already know how delicate and fragile straight men can be.
12
@Occupy Government
And lesbians know how misogynist all men can be.
Whatever the issue, Trump claims he is the victim not his opponent of the moment. No one exemplifies white male privilege more than Trump. Therefore, women are not victims, men are.
5
The problem, Mr. Blow, is that to a lot of whites, women as well as men though predominantly men, we ARE in a zero sum game. Far from seeing increasing racial, religiious and other diversity and a greater role for women as enriching our society, all they see is that their massive, oppressive, stultifying and privileged dominance (to everyone but them) is at risk. And it is. As it should be. Because it has run its improper course. In a country whose economy was built on the backs of black slaves, and whose territorial gains aside from the Louisiana Purchase (and consolidated even there) were due to broken treaties and the genocide of Native Americans, isn't it time for a little rebalancing of societal power, influence, culture? This 70-year old white male of Southern ancestry (including Confederate veterans and at least one major slaveowner) sure thinks so.
7
Thank you for this column. I'm amazed (disturbed, actually) by how brittle the strains of toxic white masculinity are in our country. Any change is too much change, any advancement for equality is too much, any accusations - no matter how legitimate- that threatens an assumed, entitled supremacy is a worse social crime than the accusation itself. It's insane.
Our nation is still being strangled and held back by patriarchy, by racism, by misogyny, by homophobia, and by the unearned power of the wealthy. These toxins often find confluence in single individuals - Trump is a perfect example- but they have also infested and infected our power structures, and even how we perceive and process our world and each other through social interactions and through the framing of mass and social media.
I've long hoped that the current Trump administration and GOP Congress is the last kick of a dying animal, but the statistics shown here sadly suggest otherwise. We need a new mass movement of voters, an expansion and strengthening of our educational system, and an end to blatantly propagandistic right-wing media. I'm tired (as a gay man) of begging for my "turn" and I'm even more horrified and infuriated that my loved ones, colleagues, and strangers who are POC and women struggle even harder. It's indefensible. We can't hope and wait for it to die off, we have to work to dismantle it and build something better in its place.
11
this is your contribution to the national discourse? be as ashamed as those you refer to should be (but aren't). you pontificate, a lot it seems to me, on a lot of subjects, but offer no constructive/practical solutions to the divide or a path toward reconciliation and redemption. you have talent and a way with words -- albeit sometimes over the top -- put your energies into reconstruction.
21
You are feeding into the tribalism that is going to rip this country in pieces. I know it is not your intention as I believe your intentions good and are to be a productive voice for change.
I don't think many see themselves as victims as much as they think as forgotten, marginalized, and exploited for cheap humor.
Let's take a look at Trump's base - a poor white person in rural America who sees little hope ... and the only option for a better "life" is to join the military, community college (for a job that locally doesn't exist), and or move to a "city" to get a job as a barista, fast food, back office etc for a low wage. Or stay home and complain.
Their poverty is worse (as you have noted there are more poor whites than any other population) in rural America, the schools are worse, the politicians are worse, the police brutality is equal or worse. Crime and drug abuse is equal or worse than cities. Jobs are few and far between. And if they turn on TV they are mocked ... backwards, "God and guns" clinging, "deplorable" and ignored. Wonder why NAFTA is a 4 letter word in these areas, they feel sold out by a Democratic party and never trusted Republicans.
Language matters. They feel excluded and now told they are privileged and backwards.
Many fight our wars and discarded.
That is what Trump tapped into. Yes, some are racists but most just feel forgotten. Poor and exploited and now often mocked. Dummies.
We need to get to know each other. Not mock one another
20
I am a deep blue Democrat but what has been obviously horribly lacking in the rhetoric of the left are specific, clear arguments for why increasing rights and opportunities for women and ethnic monitories is good for white men. And yes, these arguments must go beyond doing what is morally right. These arguments can and must be made in both quant and qual ways and until they take root white men will continue to feel like they are losing while others are winning. It's simply human nature.
10
@DB Failing to take full advantage of the intelligence, talents, and creativity of half the population sounds like a bad idea. Encouraging dependency and discouraging creative new business opportunities seems like a bad strategy that pulls all society down, not just women.
3
Mr Blow, you paint the world with too broad a brush, and that makes you a part of the problem. I'm a white man, and speaking for myself, I welcome rising equality between men and women, and between people of all ethnicities, such as it is. And apparently I'm not at all alone. According to the very statistics you cite here, a majority of white men feel the same way.
You're also failing completely to distinguish between the demogogues and the nature of their appeal, and the people with whom the appeal resonates. Yes, President Trump and much of the conservative political leadership are harmful.
But these "white men" of whom you speak are whole and fully realized human beings just like you. By dismissing their humanity aren't you being a bit prejudiced yourself? Shouldn't we instead make like old honest Abe and appeal to the better angels of their nature, to persuade them, to compete for their support and simply to recognize the human in the "other"? It shouldn't be hard to do, because it will truly be a better world for everyone if we address issues of equality for all.
We won't get anywhere if we simply demonize the people who see the world differently from the way we do. And I'm sorry to say, that's what you're doing here. Please look in the mirror. Otherwise, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
90
@Fremont As a middle-aged white male myself, I'm not fond of being painted in broad strokes either. You'd be hard pressed to find a demographic group more openly
and widely disparaged. However, Mr. Blow accurately describes the general sociopolitical attitudes of white male conservatives. Those who don't think that way are not likely to identify as conservatives or republicans. There's no denying, however, that the bulk of the right wing sees equality, wealth, political power, etc. as zero-sum games. Retaining privilege and keeping the underprivileged in their place has been a theme and goal of the right for decades. (Or maybe forever.)
6
@Fremont
I think that Blow is simply referring to those white males who feel that at gain for anyone who isn't a white male is a loss for them.
I didn't get the feeling that the was attempting to demonize each and every white male (I'm a white male and I didn't feel insulted by the piece, anyway). The fact is that a good deal of research suggests that perceptions of a rapidly growing minority population are causing white folks in general to become both more racist and conservative, and this relationship between a shrinking white population and white racism and conservatism is mediated by perceptions that white folks will lose relative power and status. Moreover, because white males have on average more status and power to lose than do their female counterparts, these effects may be especially pronounced among them.
2
@Fremont
Funny how white men don't seem to notice, because as a white male, I was raised that white is right, and being a man makes it that much better, because after all it's a mans world. At least that's the lie I heard.
1
No victims here Charles we're just going to let others blame us for their problems. We're not going to take it from anyone. Sorry, look in the mirror.
9
If you lump people into a category, those people will lump you right back into your own.
Next thing you know, everyone has nice, clean sides. Add them together, you get 100%.
Because the constant categorization is, in fact, a zero-sum game, people view everything stemming from those categorizations as zero-sum games as well.
Fix the cause, cure the symptoms. Sadly, everything in politics, from the 2-party system on down, has turned entirely into nice, clean sides. Harder to fix than it seems...
10
Here are some statistics that might help explain the white male fear of "the other".
Only 36 percent of Americans hold a valid passport, according to the State Department, compared to 60 percent of passport-holding Canadians and 75 percent for Brits and Aussies. That means almost 70 percent of us are unqualified for international travel and in fact have no direct knowledge of other countries or cultures.
That makes this group ripe subjects for having their beliefs about others formed solely from media and propaganda. It is likely this group does not have any friends living abroad with whom they can have a dialog.
Only 25% of Americans own a gun of any kind. Clearly a minority. So this set of statistics might shock some:
USA - 112.6 guns per 100 residents.
Serbia - 75.6.
Yemen - 54.8.
Switzerland - 45.7.
Cyprus - 36.4.
Saudi Arabia - 35.
Iraq - 34.2.
Uruguay - 31.8.
Pretty interesting to see the countries NOT on the list. Only Switzerland in Europe. One country in South America and it isn't Venezuela or Colombia or Mexico.
There is something very wrong with the United States of America. It is called FEAR. FEAR stands for False Expectations Appearing Real.
I think this is one of Charles M. Blow's best columns. If you've never been anywhere else, you are living in a delusional bubble. These people think just the way Blow has so well presented. How we fix it I am afraid eludes me. That's why I left America to live in another country.
155
@SF Native A lot of Americans cannot afford to travel abroad. Take that into consideration.
6
That is true, but there are also many Americans who would rather spend the money they could use for travel to broaden their life experience, on a bigger SUV and a Mcmansion. My father was educated, but he was an older white man and did not even allow my mother to teach us her native language because he felt any language other than English was worthless. We need to expand our horizons and meet the rest of the world.
5
Great comments. I’ve often thought Americans in general (and some Americans in the extreme) are far too sheltered from other cultures and viewpoints.
I think the acronym is False Evidence Appearing Real.
5
re: Kavanaugh
I've occasionally enjoyed playing practical jokes in life. If I were on the Supreme Court or had access to the chambers, I would have made sure that there was an ice cold can of beer waiting for Kavanaugh at his seat at the table.
4
Alan Dershowitz compared the women accusers as tantamount to the Macarthy era.
4
Does the left EVER get tired of talking identity politics? It’s such a shallow way of looking and interacting with the world!
21
@Shay
Change “left” to “right” and that’ll fix it. Can’t turn on Fox “News” or go to a Trump rally without hearing them whine and rant about liberals, the left, progressives, Dems, socialists. And they’re all so aggrieved. Pure identity politics.
1
I’m a white man. I’m not afraid I’m losing ground. I want a world in which all human beings flourish as much as possible. But I am bothered by some of the anti-white, anti-male rhetoric on the left, not because it affects my life in any particular way, but because it affects society in a very toxic way. Simply put, racism and sexism are bad, no matter who the targets are. Talking about women and black people as if they’re inherently inferior is wrong, and talking about men and white people as if they’re inherently evil is wrong. Trump and his supporters are contemptible imbeciles, but that doesn’t mean that everything to which they’re reacting is unworthy of criticism.
26
@David - All of the white men in my life (husband, brothers, nephews, boss, friends etc.) are just as disgusted by Trump and company as I am.
The sad fact of the matter that wars, slavery, civil rights violations, sexism etc. have been perpetrated overwhelmingly by white men and the current group in power is made up overwhelmingly of white men engaged in racist and misogynistic behavior.
My question," How many gallons in a keg of beer?"
How could anyone drinking that much of anything be a great student?
Is it a genetic problem?
He looked soo guilty, his mouth twisted and puckered lips ,while his protector declared him "innocent." He knows better.
No justice here for young girls, now grown women in my country.
An extremely sad day in jury prudence history.
6
White men are losing ground due to fair competition. If some are feeling a little hurt, just think how good shareholders and customers will feel when product and process improves as talent reaches the level it should.
8
Poor little privileged white males.
They've been on top and in charge for all of the more than 240 years this country has existed, and now they are "losing ground" to the rest of us, who believe the country should live up to its founding principles: that we are ALL equal. That we are ALL entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But, if THAT happens, white males won't have all the power and all the privilege anymore.
My heart bleeds.............
14
The Republican Party and 45 constantly invoke the white male victimization anxiety cry. The GOP insists upon employing this instrument of racial, gender, and class warfare to preserve, protect, and defend a way of life. Republicans are united to hold this position as sacrosanct. Consistently denying the obvious shifting demographics evidencing multi cultural, multi racial and multi ethnic diversity, multi religious presence, gender equivalency, and LGBTQ participation that significantly contribute to making America better for all, the GOP prefers to exalt white male privilege that others should genuflect and revere, without dissent. No. White males entered America freely, including indentured servants. Privileged white males introduced the institution of slavery and benefitted politically, economically, and financially at the tragic loss of Black Americans, who, before the XIII Amendment, were not persons or citizens. White males similarly orchestrated the genocide of Native Americans to justify acquiring vast territory in the name of manifest destiny. Today, the beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Fair Housing Act of 1968, are actively advancing a liberal agenda to benefit and protect all Americans. The death bound GOP brand of racism and classism is gradually approaching its deserved demise. As a last ditch effort to stave off the inevitable, the white male victim scream shrills at this hard cold reality. No use. Race matters.
11
I agree with objections to Kavanaugh (because of his outrageous behavior) and to Trump’s strategy of stoking grievances; however, the media (including you Charles) and politicians must STOP generalizing about ALL white men and ALL people of color and ALL women. Please stop. If dems lose in November it will be in no small part because of this type of generalizing rhetoric. Alienation as a result of such rhetoric happens in an instant, often at an unconscious level. Don’t underestimate that. Always consider that there are outliers within the groups you’re describing who wish to be respected and also allied (perhaps with risk) with likeminded folks.
176
@PoliticalTango I agree with this writer that if between the MeToo movement factions that believe allmales are abusers and the faction that keeps yelling about general white male entitlement as the cause of everything bad that has ever befallen civilization (some even sound remarkably like the Who is on First skit from in Living Colour), they are going to drive people who agree with them on a host of issues into the opposing camp (Trump loyalists) because any common ground they shared now has fences up and natural allies have been made enemies.
8
@PoliticalTango ^^supra^^ "objections to Kavanaugh (because of his outrageous behavior)"
this is the danger of a lack of due process -- that conclusions are drawn and allegations are never proven, just accepted as fact merely because they were alleged.
that makes it pretty easy to topple a political opponenent, ruin someone's life, etc.
after two weeks of drama, it seems that allegations were made, never proven. yet still people conclude that everything his accuser said was truth.
why?
@PoliticalTango I carefully re-read the article. There is no statement or implication of any mis-behavior by ALL white men. None. Not even a hint of it. Others may have said something different, but not Blow. Your grievance as expressed here is in your head and not in any way the responsibility of Blow. Could he have written something to expressly clarify this. Maybe. But he should not need to.
2
I was told by a man that at work, amongst men, this issue of the false sexual assault accusation is a very big fear and a very big issue for them. I understand that fear - of course no one should have their reputation or career tarnished unfairly. But to me this seems like the fear of terrorism whipped up by politicians after 9/11 -- there might be a terrorist hiding behind every bush! They used a very, very low probability event to whip up fears and steer political discourse (chipping away at some freedoms in the process). Secondly, I am not sure if men appreciate how completely women's lives are shaped in unconscious ways by a need to be wary of men. For our entire lives we need to ask ourselves if we should be in a particular place, or acting/dressing a certain way, or with certain people, for safety's sake. Maybe men are having a tiny dose of this medicine.
223
@Treetop - You seem to believe that men don't worry about anything. That we have this ability to simply walk haphazardly through life without a care in the world. The truth is, nothing is further from the truth. Men worry each and every day about their safety and the safety of their wives and children. They worry about their reputation. Unlike women, we aren't respected for our ability to reproduce. We are expected to make something of ourselves. We need to earn respect. There was no tiny dose of medicine that came from putting on a public spectacle like we saw. All that happened was women became slightly less credible.
3
@Treetop How weird of the men who are so afraid. My husband and son were angry about Kavanaugh and believed him to have done the things he was accused of, most likely because they've known guys like this. I, on the other hand (a woman who knew people who attended similar schools, an old boyfriend who went to the same country club), was resigned that even if he did it, it wouldn't matter.
4
@Mark - What on earth makes you think women are respected for their ability to reproduce? Do you have any idea of the kind of discrimination women face in the workplace?
If you're worried about the safety of your wives and children I would suggest not voting for Republicans.
3
Little did God know when she synthesized melanin from the amino acid tyrosine, a few days before he created Eve from Adams rib about 5000 years ago, that it would create so many problems for her favored species. She also achieved great success with creating hermaphrodites a few days after making melanin.There are approximately 65,000 successful species of hermaphrodites. For reasons only she knows by the time he got to mammals (s)he abandoned that experiment. Maybe things worked on better for her on some other planet.
4
@Pessoa, god is within us, every cell of us contains flowing life full of awareness.
Remember when Trump declared years ago "that there was nobody he would rather be than an educated black man". Now we know he was lying as usual, because not many educated black men had a millionaire daddy bankrolling their financial failures. The notion that black males have ever any advantage in this society is ridiculous and the NYT recently ran an article documenting ongoing discrimination against black males in hiring and we already know about racial profiling and the excessive use of force by law enforcement. After hearing Lindsay Graham whine about being a"single white male" in his defense of Kavanaugh, I wonder what are they drinking or smoking? Donald Trump is living proof that white men don't have to work hard or be educated to succeed in this country.
17
@EPMD Gee ,helps to wonder how many multi millionaire sports and music stars there are who're black.President and many notable actors and politicians who're Black.Begs to ask how many tens of millions of White folk who are dirt poor and struggling,homes destroyed in the floods,makes one wonder? Its like saying the police killed a few Black folk,when many more whites by percentage are killed by police and most never make the news.The news however has discovered that many thousands of black have been killed by their own race in Chicago and other cities yet nobody knows their names.
7
@EPMD
And the inept "tokenism" engendered by affirmative action has not only hurt qualified candidates and the workforce, but has also damaged race relations and hurt the intended beneficiaries of such actions, who are now resented by competitors and colleagues - whether they're white, black, disabled, or female. Jumping the line never makes any friends, in front of or behind the jumper. I believe combat veterans deserve preference. No one else does, for the good of all.
1
I would like to say something to all the men out there who treat women as sex objects and brood mares. Women may date you, and even marry you, but a part of them still think you're jerks.
Women put up with a lot from me in public and at work, but for millions of women, their home is the most dangerous place to be.
You want respect? Earn it.
10
In America, controlling for every factor, white males have built-in advantages over non-white non-males. Even poor, struggling white males have some advantages over poor, struggling non-white persons. There is no systemic bias against them, no tangible deficit to being a white male in our society.
We should work towards a world where being non-white, non-male has no disadvantages, where gender and color mean nothing in terms of outcomes.
But if you want to know why white males might feel aggrieved and seek shelter under the wing of a bigoted demagogue, just read one of Charles Blow's essays. His contempt for white males wafts from nearly every one of his endless essays.
8
Considering that while males are the subjugators, I guess I get where Mr. Blow is coming from.
1
@Midwesterner
Really?! "Subjugators?" Every single white male is subjugating someone?
Why does Trump have to whine? What quality is he lacking that prevents him from acting like an adult? Same goes for Kavanaugh and Graham. This whole victim thing is exceedingly annoying. Maybe that's the goal?
7
This is amazing. I see the same message all across the media: "White people cannot have problems or worries. The challenges they face do not count or are imagined." And this is solely and wholly because of the color of their skin, full stop. Yet, at the same time the NYT runs articles on the rising white suicide rate, lack of middle class jobs due to globalization and automation, and opioid crisis--all of which overwhelmingly affect whites.
Replace the word "white" in this article with any other race and see how racist it sounds. Columnists bemoan the loss of civility and the balkanization in our society, while at the same time demeaning and mocking white people for the crime of simply being white. Race and identity politics are divisive, and the current iteration for the left is to blame all whites for all of societies ills---past, present, and future.
If you wonder why blue collar whites are leaving the Democratic Party, here is your answer. If you wonder why there is a rise in the "alt-right." Here is your answer. White people, like everyone else, are just trying to get by and live their lives, but they are attacked in the media and by the left because they posses some original sin for which there is no atonement. Howard Zinn said "You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train." The anti-white articles show our society is moving not toward racial harmony, but revenge. The choice seems to be made up for whites and when cornered people tend to look out for their own group.
22
@Bill
You are mischaracterizing it. No one said “white people cannot have problems or worries” — far from it! We certainly do have problems AND worries, but not because we’re white.
Ask yourself, honestly, if you could wake up tomorrow with black skin,
having everything you have today, would you choose to?
6
It’s morbidly funny to see Trumpists go off about “race and identity politics.”
3
@Bill: I did not take the same message as you did from this piece. I did not hear that “white people cannot have problems or worries.” The issue is white men who blame women and minorities for their problems. Of course, lots of white men have legitimate grievances. Middle and working class white men should be incensed about lack of opportunity resulting from income inequality, depressed wages, poor healthcare, inadequate housing, neglected infrastructure, and other assaults on our standard of living. But it is not women and minorities who are to blame for these societal ills. The rapacious 1% and the Republican policies they champion are to blame. We — middle and working class men and women of all races — should be working together to oppose them. But we fight each other while they plunder the country.
4
re: "Trump represents all the white men who feel they’re losing ground." What!? No he doesn't. Why make such a sweeping statement that is clearly untrue? It shows how far Mr Blow is from understanding. It's an immediate hit to his credibility on this subject.
It is true that men can't get away with treating women as they (we) did in the past. To that extent, male privilege has been diminished. Most rational people would consider this a good thing.
Just as following 1865, former slave owners complained that they had been deprived of property--their slaves--without compensation. A few Trump supporters, but very few others, still see that as a legitimate issue.
So yeah--if your privilege is based on the subjugation of other people, it's appropriate that you should 'check' it.
But that's not really happening, is it? People seldom abandon a privilege unless forced to.
8
@Justin - Thank you. It has been so comforting and reassuring to see how many good men are speaking up for what is right.
Good guys don't tend to make headlines but they're out there and they're much appreciated.
2
Resentments are powerful.
The Reality Show Con Artist played on the racist and misogynistic resentments of Americans because he knew how widespread and deeply seated those resentments were among whites.
In 1995, African Americans celebrated the acquittal of a man many knew was a murderer because it represented a victory over a system they resented and (rightly) felt was stacked against them.
In effect, the election of the Grifter in Chief was an OJ Jury moment by White America and even 53% of white women succumbed to the charms of a man who boasted about grabbing them in a vulnerable area as if it was property.
It shows how little we’ve actually come in 20 years and depressingly suggests the “post-racial” Presidency of Barack Obama was more of an aberration than the election in 2016.
Unfortunately in many ways the fraud we elected is much more dangerous than one man who killed out of passion and the damage he has done and will continue to do will impact a lot more than two people.
5
G
All good points but can you go father and now explain to me why the majority of white women voted for Trump? I don't get it.
7
Great piece Charles. For those of you who are frustrated at the intransigence of white supremacy racism in America; it lives and thrives because it confers and provides benefits both real and perceived. And for some Caucasians who are white supremacist racists; equality = tyranny, and diversity = loss.
Never mind you that, there have been 45 POTUS's since this country's inception; 44 white and male.
Never mind that 8/8 of the Ivy League schools are headed by Caucasians both male and female. As is Stanford, Gtwon, Duke, MIT, Rice, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Universities of Chicago, California, Michigan and Virginia.
Never mind that the top 10 highest earning hedge fund managers are both Caucasian and male.
Despite the facts, Caucasians and specifically Caucasian males fell under assault, per the delusional fantasy.
It is also interesting that the same GOP that has now fully embraced white male victimization, used to excoriate African-Americans and specifically certain African-American political leaders (many of whom only constituents are a microphone and camera) as "race hustlers" and "victimology" peddlers. "And if they will only stop whining and pull themselves up by their bootstraps maybe, just maybe their lives will be better..."
If the Caucasian male is so innately "superior" to everyone else, than please explain the whining and crying and the "white male victimization" race hustling for votes schtick? You have been biologically blessed right?
Pls grow up
9
LOL... a picture of two old white male "victims" - one of his father's many gifts, and the other of a prep-school drinking fest.
Imagine either getting "punished" by becoming president and supreme court justice had they been brown of female.
7
No matter how you approach it white males enjoy a distinct advantage over women and their racial counterparts from the day they are born.
The effort by Trump and the right to portray themselves as victims is as disingenuous, misleading and self serving as it gets. Anyone not intelligent enough to see through their political ruse deserves whatever negative consequences might transpire as a result.
In order to fairly determine percentages we need to study the differences in attitudes between then and now. Being a white male of 66 years I firmly believe that statistics would verify that we are in a much better place now than then. People like Trump and his angry right wing old white men are certainly not the norm. They are playing a game with their gullible base and those who are not yet seasoned enough to recognize that racism and misogyny should have no place in this world.
4
Every day, according to several credible sources, 3 women are killed by their partners in the US. The same cannot be said for women killing men.
What is so disgusting about the Trumps and Kavanaughs of the world is their whiney cries that they are the victims, when in fact both have been known to exploit women. While women have been subjugated by men since the dawn of time, we have made some progress in the last century. It would be tragic to lose our accomplishments thanks to a minority of Americans who have been encouraged by Trump.
It is crucial for all of us to vote in November!
7
I am a white male, postgraduate degree, financially and professionally successful. Charles Blow’s column doesn’t offend me in the least nor do I feel threatened or targeted by it.
Because he’s right.
13
I'm white, southern, and just turned 62. Trump's campaign to make me feel Great Again is not working. In fact, the pinched-face put-upon little pouts coming from the likes of Kavanaugh and Graham actually make them look weak. Would they be this angry if they could, as in the past, just pat (the not-them) people on the head and dismiss their presence with a little chuckle? Nope. The demographics are eating their lunch while it's still in the sack, and they know it. It will not be denied, stopped, or intimidated.
I just wish these erstwhile "leaders" would face the inevitable with a little more dignity. They are, after all, "my people".
9
Mr. Blow does not understand that the disgust with the “guilty until proven innocent” mantra is not limited to white males. I am a woman and an immigrant. But I believe that due process is the foundation of our democracy, that false accusations of rape and sexual assault do happen and ruin the lives of the accused, and that reversion to mob rule is terrifying, whether from the right or the left. True, Kavanaugh was not on trial but is it OK to ruin a person’s career by unfounded accusations? And if it is, why is McCarthy such a despised figure in American history? He did not put people in jail; he “only” blacklisted them because of accusations of being a Communist spy or sympathizer. There were plenty of Communist spies and sympathizers in that period, just as there are plenty of harassers and abusers today. But this general statement says nothing about an individual’s guilt or innocence which has to be proven, not assumed on the basis of statistics. Frankly, I am getting tired of the drumbeat of being conflated with “white males” just because I don’t accept the totalitarian mindset of Mr. Blow and people like him.
7
When a group that has held power finds it's power challenged, it plays victim. It switches victim and perpetrator. Trump as an authoritarian narcissist, sees any push back as an insult by lesser beings.
It's the historical attitude of monarchs, white supremacists, corporate monopolies, and privileged egotistical males who are sexual predators ---they're used to the power structure operating in their favor, so get to believe they're innately superior, thus deserve their advantage.
Same as the 19th C US elites restricting male voting to only property owners, and woman denied the vote until 1920.
In economics policy, some may lament US worsening inequality, but say paying fare and decent wages will 'hurt business'. As will paid family leave.
Affordable health care for all will hurt insurance profits---which has been the highest priority and the center of politics---so it's the insurance industry that needs protection from the demands of affordable health care for all.
Govt regulations to protect citizens from exploitation are said to victimize big business. Fair and adequate taxation unfairly exploits the wealthy.
The supreme court said govt limits on campaign donations by wealthy donors would unfairly deprive corporations of their 'free speech' rights per 1st Amendment.
Some Americans have adopted the extremist Ayn Rand philosophy that it's unjust to make the superior sacrifice for the inferior. For the strong to sacrifice to the weak.
5
People who fall for scammers as blatant as Trump are likely to have been victimized several times before by others.
4
Race, sex, and other issues can always turn into two edged swords. The drubbing by Democratic Senators was calculated to bring him down. Trumps use of it to bring down democrats is the same but reversed. The loser, the rest of us who really would like these wars to end. But with opinionators and politicians it is the mock battles that count; that gets eyes on the subject. Some listen and believe and some leave in disgust for both sides.
2
Trump's campaign doesn't make all white men feel great again. My husband is sick over Trump's presidency for all of the reasons that you mention in your columns and the one you don't: Trump makes all white men look bad. Thankfully there are enough who aren't like Trump to help make a difference in the up coming election--as they did in the previous one. You know, the one that Hillary won by close to 3 million votes.
7
While largely correct, this analysis missed the institutionalization of practices with the overt goal of giving relative minorities and women a lower hurdle for jobs, admission, etc. These practices become real rules - codified discrimination as opposed to pernicious bias - and do have zero-sum implications. Just ask the Asian families declined Harvard admissions, or the Asians now being asked to attend weaker NYC public schools, despite having earned their place at better ones.
Then, ask why we're able to have those school conversations - it's because the people being hurt are still minorities in the broader American sense, and as such "deserve" to have their voice heard.
Then, if you are a white person reading this, ask yourself if you're comfortable with American Asians taking more places from both white and minority students. If your response is "well, if they earned it, that's fair", then you're not what Blow describes. If however, that thought makes you uncomfortable, then you likely do fall into Blow's category.
4
If my group is in power we can choose to be just or unjust, fair or unfair, as our mood and morals dictate.
f my group does not have power, then we have to rely on the mood or morals of others to be treated justly or fairly. And who would want to do that?
I understand why White males don't want to cede power. After all, things are pretty good right not from their point of view.
That's too bad though. In spite of all their efforts, this country in becoming more diverse, and though White men may fight and resist, eventually this nation will be a better place for everyone.
2
@Neil
Neil, most of us older white men aren't resisting, we're glad to see more equality and diversity.
Not only is it fair and just, it makes our personal lives more full and interesting when we're part of a diverse community.
1
Why is the Trump presidency reminding me more and more of "Gangs of New York" with Trump as Bill the Butcher.
I look at two articles today the "Walmart of Heroin" with all of the white addicts, then an article on the almost intractable problem of the working poor (predominantly black) struggling with homelessness. I am struck by the contrast of those working within the system to try to better their lives with a leg up and the others who have given up and are just looking to skim what they can before heroin kills them.
2
You NAILED it, Charles. Thanks for articulating my exact thoughts so well! Oh, but please don't tell that to my white male family members and friends.... because, ya know, NONE of them could possibly be "like that" (sarcasm intended).
4
As a 57 year white male, I can say with 100% certainty Trump is not making me feel great again... or even good. Actually, I'm sick to my stomach with Trump and his base.
I will vote, and get anyone and everyone I can to vote, in effort to clean up this mess, and hopefully save our democracy.
15
I think that is part of the anti-Obama impulse: the man was so refined, so elegant, so intellectually superior and morally exalted, so charismatic and kind, that many white guys experienced identity shock. The black guy is proving to be the classiest president ever!! Those of us with some education and some honesty have no problem looking up to Obama as the modern paragon of the Presidency. To my eye, Obama was almost Biblical in his epic presentation. Or, maybe I should get right to the point and say he seemed Christ-like. And I'm not even religious.
Trump has been the flip-side. I have never had more disdain for being a white male that the last two years with that seething embarrassment of a human in the White House. He violates every aesthetic and moral sensibility. He is ugly and cruel.
If Trump is supposed to be some kind of vindication or redemption for white males, in my book (as a white male) he has been the ultimate failure. He is the antithesis of excellence in every way.
7
@LG “To my eye, Obama was almost Biblical in his epic presentation. Or, maybe I should get right to the point and say he seemed Christ-like.”
That, right there, is what your average conservative was reacting to — not the fact that Obama was black. When you deify a political figure, it’s only natural that people on the other side of the aisle are going to follow suit and demonize him.
Every interview question addressed either to trump or to kavanaugh should be preambled with words to the effect of "Given the fact that going-on-two-thirds of Americans know that you hold your position illegitimately..." or "Considering the fact that most Americans despise the lie that is your entire existence..." or "Based on the fact that you are not, and by definition cannot ever be, viewed as legitimate by the vast majority..." Etc. I could go on. They could have their faces rubbed in it daily and, while we know that that entire side is completely impervious to embarrassment, it would still have an effect.
Next month. Show up.
5
The bosses have always known here in America that if they can get the white working stiff to fear and hate the black and brown working stiffs they will be able to steal more, and easier, from both.
Throw in the fundamentalists who have been convinced by these same bosses that getting their fair share of the commons, i.e., help from the government when they are down on their luck, is closest to un Godliness and it is a wonder We the People can even feed and clothe ourselves.
This has been going on since the New Deal, almost 100 years. The small town/ rural folks have forgotten that it was Roosevelt and the Democrats who saved their family farms from foreclosure and brought electricity and irrigation to them.
The bosses have doubled down since the 60's and one of the koch bothers was recently quoted that "they have made more inroads the last 50 years than the previous 50". Thanks to Benedict/M. McConnell/Arnold putting on his very best fascist cloak.
It seems, once again, that the folks from the "Coastal Elite Crowd" will once again have to ride to the rescue and keep these people from drinking the poison kool aid their idol and his minions are offering them.
Maybe after We the People save democracy from them we might want to let them know that is will be time for them to fend for themselves. No more sending tax dollars from blue states to prop up the red ones.
8
As a white person who has always considered myself 'not racist' the shift in this country has been eye-opening. I've always known misogyny has limited my life experience but when you don't have to confront bias and racism on a personal level, it's easy to see the world from a pretty limited, mostly benign perspective. I was thrilled when Obama was elected, naively thinking most Americans has put aside their schoolboy racist attitudes. In fact, it turns out many of the people who voted against Obama weren't just following an ideology but sticking with "their kind." What we are seeing under Trump is maybe an accurate reflection of how many Americans are truly racist - about 35%. Within that category also fall the imbeciles, the delusional, and the deeply provincial. So maybe we are only talking about 1 in 5 who believe wholeheartedly there is some superiority in being white. It's more than I would have expected, but maybe bringing it to light, for those of us white people (ie 99% of us) who were deluded by our own personal experience, could be a good thing.
8
Mr. Blow: If you are going to cite polls, you need to put them in perspective. No matter how rosy colored the statisticians color it, a poll of 1000 people cannot be written up as what Americans believe. Almost half the registered voters did not vote in the presidential contest, and 3/4 did not vote in the primaries in most states.
You said: And this victim sensibility that Trump is articulating is not generationally restricted. In January a PRRI/MTV poll of [INSERT POLL SAMPLING HERE ] 15- to 24-year-olds found that 43 percent of young white men say discrimination against whites is as serious a problem as discrimination against other groups ...
I tried to find out what the sampling was. It was not on your link to the PRRI page, and a link for more details led to an internal server error.
The average poll sampling is 1000 people. That is not a significant number to tell us what Americans believe. How many people declined to answer questions? Just look at the makeup of the Republican judiciary panel and the contortions they had to go through to get their "perfect" candidate to the Supreme Court. You have to have a pretty strong stomach to support these dinosaurs, POTUS included, who are so deeply offended when their behavior is questioned that they have to resort to lies and name calling.
2
@GG
Absolutely right about what "polls tell us". What is the sampling method - if phone calls, that invalidates them immediately, as most people with smartphones no longer answer unrecognized numbers. So, are smartphone users not polled? If not, what is the sampling method?
Our ability to discern both political motivations and effects is unduly influenced by "polls say..." There are lies, white lies and statistics. To that, I'd add "unnamed, undescribed and motley polls conducted by indiscernably biased or scientifically invalid methods, reported by those incapable of judging or uninterested in qualifying their accuracy. Gullibility to such sloppy soundbite reporting undermines good journalism. I'm calling it out. Let us not forget what 2016 polls predicted. Credibility of polls = zero. Overcitation = lousy journalism.
As if we cannot learn as a society, choosing those who make the most noise or stir up our anger rather than our common sense, again we are "lead" by a man-boy who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. A recent article points out, contrary to Trumps fantasy of his beginnings financially, he was benefit to hundreds of millions of dollars from his father through tax avoidance schemes that most likely were illegal, to avoid inheritance taxes. For the POTUS, who has now lied more than 5000 times since assuming the office he sorely lacks any qualifications for, this is no surprise. It has been said if Trump had merely placed his tremendous wealth inherited from his father into an index fund, he would be much richer than he is. This speaks volumes to his inability to take advantage of the free lunch provided by his father.
This child-man can elicit support from those whom he has nothing in common, by mocking and insulting the afflicted, and minimizing those who have accomplished much more than he ever will.
For white men to claim victim status in the perceived zero-sum gain of equalizing the genders and races, indicates the total lack of a cohesive argument to remain in privileged status. When you don't have a rational argument, attack personally. Sure sign of a loser.
3
When women run this country- the nice guys won't be finishing last anymore. We'll make sure of it.
6
Think you hit the nail on the head with this one.
Can't wait until this awful man is out of office.
Kanye West confirmed his mental illness so some of his actions may be because of his bi-polar disease. Trump likely has some form of mental illness as well given his behavior.
4
Kanye West is another king of debt, is preaching love, is saying controversial nonsense, is dividing people, and is selling himself as victim and solution.
“No one bullied him about wearing the MAGA hat (at SNL),” a source told PEOPLE. “He wore it in promos and all week before the show even aired and was asking everyone if they thought he should wear the hat, interns, anyone walking by who would listen.”
https://www.m.mic.com/articles/amp/191642/kanye-west-tmz-interview-13th-...
Mr. Blow cites Lindsey Grahams' performance, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.” The Senator was poking the bear of political correctness and evoking rage from the Trump-grown, my-back-is-against-the-wall gang.
Steve Bannon has been selling the "poor, poor me" premise door-to-door at far-right nationalist rallies across Europe. Opportunists around the world are getting elected because Trump exported "immigrant rapist".
Mr. West lied about being bullied on the set of SNL. He used that narrative to pledge to a frat: the Despicable Nu's. If you are about love as you claim, Mr West, learn to recognize a lie and to speak truth with full clarity and without ambiguity.
People can try to change Trump; but beware, he already changed you to become a camp follower.
4
I'd go one step farther in categorizing this as "privileged white male victimization anxiety." I make this distinction as a white male who attended an Ivy League University but not from a background of privilege; that is, not from a prep-school. In such environments, the preppie/non-preppie duality was fostered, sometimes thrown up in one's face to remind everyone who was the overlord and who the serf. It's therefore difficult to read about white-male victimization as a white male who's already been victimized by white males of privilege (WMP). And while I can't by any stretch claim to understand the degradation that Black and brown folks have and do face, I have somewhat more in common with them than with WMPs.
3
Isn't it interesting that the group of white men who feel victimized have chosen Donald Trump for a representative? What does it say about that particular group that they can't do better then choose a dishonest, misogynistic, willfully ignorant bully? Why would anyone identify themselves with such a person? If they want the rest of us to feel sorry for them, perhaps they could make a better choice, although In fairness I'm not sure there is a better choice if their goal is to keep the white race dominant.
4
"Trump is on a campaign to Make America’s white men feel Great Again."
Correction:
Trump is on a campaign to Make America’s white men feel Greater Again.
12
"to bind together toxic masculinity and racial performance anxiety ...and any perceived diminution of white male primacy."
Perhaps Blow can comment on the relative rates of violence against women by white vs. black men? The violent misogynistic lyrics of hip-hop that are celebrated by the cultural elite?
6
Actually, it's "Make America White Again," to be perfectly blunt.
8
You totally nailed it in that head and sub-head!!! And it's way past time the system gets shaken up and "equalized"!!! BRAVO for this article.
13
The great pretender has stirred up a whole lot of fragile male ego's. They were frail to begin with and he is firing them up. I suppose his only way to get voters is through their ego's. Pitiful.
5
You have to ask yourself what all the complaining and whining is about? If you can’t get a job in this economy you won’t get one in any. Kavanaugh was off his rocker because he was caught like a deer in headlights. The truth will come out.
6
Trump represents all the men and women of all colors who feel they’re losing ground. Too bad, Blow.
1
@Nreb
NO. Trump does NOT represent "all the men and women of all colors who feel they're losing ground."
And I suggest you go to South Central L.A., or any other predominantly non-white community and ask the people living there what Donald Trump has done for them.
1
@Nreb Not me thank you
Yes, white males worry that without their privilege, they will be treated as badly a they treated others.
16
@Robert K
I have been a progressive my whole life. Now I am being told that, despite all I have done and stood for, I am evil and deserve ridicule because I am white and other white (who are not me) have done bad things. I am sorry but self preservation is a thing and if the choice is made for me ( I am guilty because of my race) then, well, I guess I dont need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.
5
Hear, hear! This comment ought to be at the top. The fear of losing privilege often contains a recognition of the wrongs that privilege has caused others.
2
One wonders who told you this, O Progressive.
1
"Trump’s entire obsession with Barack Obama springs from this. He wants to be better than Obama and be acclaimed for that superiority. Obama, the candidate that a coalition of America’s diversity elevated, must be brought low by the candidate that the right homogeneity has ordained. White scion outperforms black striver. This is America, after all. Basic legends must be buttressed."
AND imagine the pain it causes trump to know that his support comes almost exclusively from the stupidest - least artful and most degraded members of our culture.
The ignorant/racist white rabble is right about one thing, however: They ARE on a inexorable fast track to economic and social irrelevence -And that can't come soon enough!
6
Please stop stereotyping white people, and men in particular.
Young white men feel aggrieved and they ascribe it to discrimination because it's the only explanation they hear. Young black and Latino men are aggrieved and they ascribe it to discrimination because it's historically true.
But the real story here is that young people are under the jackboots of Generation Me, which has rigged the economy and political system in its own favor, even as it has sown intellectual and civic famine. This isn't just happening here; that's what ISIL was.
We only fan the flames by waxing hysterical about "white male victimhood". The narrative is absurd -- so refute it, don't mock it. The GOP plays this identity politics game because it's a winner for them. White people are still the large majority. Alienating a huge swath by calling us all man-babies is unhelpful, and untrue.
It's the inequality, stupid.
14
@Seb Williams
Sorry. But by calling this author, or anyone else who has a different perspective from yours names, is just another example of the sense of entitlement that most white men in this country overwhelmingly believe are their due.
And your comment is a case and point.
2
Speaking as a white guy who grew up (to the extent that I have) out in farm country and still work there, let me just say that as far as I can tell, pretty much nobody on the planet whines about their pickedonness like a Trump or a Trump fanatic.
My general theory is that they can’t afford to; it takes a lot of privilege to feel good about living your entire life on a soapbox. Sad thing is, these same folks are getting hosed every day by the guys they adore.
You are not getting an invite to Mar-a-Lago, guys. Not gonna be that day on Air Force One. You ain’t getting any pie in the Rose Garden; Trump gets re-elected, you’re losing your health insurance and your retirement. How else you gonna pay off Trump’s loans from D-bank and China and Kuwait?
36
Those who say Mr. Blow is painting all white men with the same brush really didn’t read this article carefully. He did not, as I read the article, anyway. Go back and look at the judiciary hearings. Look at those old white republican men pontificating. In large part, that’s what he’s talking about.
7
Like every other opinion column I read in the Times, Blow's correctly identifies the problem ("the patient is very sick"), but fails to gives a glimpse of the hows and whys the patient is sick. In other words, Blow has no idea why entitled while men think it okay to treat women, non-whites, non-Christian, and essentially anyone who doesn't look like them like dead meat. After all, don't they have mothers or wifes or daughters themselves? They do, but..... Let me help you here, Mr. Blow: it's called Ignorance, with capital I. Utter, stubborn, irreversible Ignorance. Perhaps understanding the real source of the problem will get us closer to a solution.
3
No, Mr. Blow I think is quite clear that the cause is white supremacy going unchallenged since the founding of this country. It beats your “ignorance explanation” by weaving in history whereas your explanation is basically just name-calling. I’m not saying that ignorance doesn’t occur, nor that we shouldn’t call it out when we see it. But if you’re talking about overarching casual arguments, I think Mr. Blow does indeed have it right.
4
I think this piece would be more aptly titled "Blow's victimization anxiety". I wish that Blow's opinion pieces were more widely distributed, every white male should know what the democrats think of them.
7
I already know, thanks. It’s why I am voting straight Democrat.
4
It appears that Trump's MAGA slogan hides its real meaning: MAAA - Make America Allwhite Again
4
It's hard to even go one day without another article flat-out attacking and mocking whites, especially white men. Imagine if black people were persecuted in the media like this!
11
@Jon
Black people are persecuted far beyond your poor white friends. Whiny, white people. I should know because I AM white, and I hear the whine all the time.
For example, I read an article yesterday about a young black man who was babysitting white children. A white lady in the neighborhood called the police on him. I'm sure she was personally aggrieved and offended by the sight of a black man working for an honest day's pay.
I could go on, but you probably aren't interested in removing the plank from your eye for long enough to read more examples.
9
@Jon
Please quote the passages in which white men are mocked or attacked. Be specific.
1
Yes, Trump is evil and the cause of all that is wrong in the world. I do suggest another cause of the "white male victimization anxiety": Mr. Blow and his fellow NYT columnists, who are explicitly racist, shrilly attacking white men, sometimes rich white men (speaking of Bloomberg as I recall), sometimes privileged white men, sometimes Ivy League white men, and they include Krugman, Goldberg, Bruni, a few guests and you, multiple times in the last two weeks.
11
The single funniest thing about this whole “white people” confusion in America is that it’s largely due to the English language.
C’est vrai, mes amis.
2
I second that line of reasoning. But I would like to know, how this analysis can be turned into effective political action. Here in Germany, a few years ago, some on the left thought, it would be sufficient to laugh it off. That certainly did not work, as is plain to see with recent election results.
How do liberals, who stand up against authoritarianism, deal with "white male victimization anxiety" politically?
2
You know the old saying; If you can't take the heat- get out of the kitchen. The "Kitchen" being out capitalistic system we live by in Good Old U.S.A. I am a white male and I'm so touched by the poor mistreatments and unfair practices that my sorry white brothers feel. In this country - I was raised not to complain but to work harder when I encountered a difficult times or challenges . There was no room for whining or blaming. There was only opportunity for me to re-learn, work harder and look for the opportunities instead of finding something to complain about. I have plenty white friends that did not re-tool, did not learn new essential computer skills, re-invent themselves, and learn new ways of thinking when they needed to. They are now indeed - irrelevant , all to the fault of there own inability to see the change coming and adapt. Sorry, but this is the fact that most Trump supporters want to conveniently ignore. So they can feel better with their lost potential that they brought upon themselves. Sad.
10
As a white man I have the right to make the following statement:
I'd like to also point out that white men are some of the biggest whiners I have ever met. They are so used to getting a leg up and living and working in a society where they get unfair advantages, that as soon as the playing field is leveled or becoming more level in some areas, they screech and wail and cry out unfairness. To white men, others getting a more fair shake is unfair.
There are quite a number of white men who are not like this, you know who you are, so don't cry out and act like you are one of them by saying you're not like one of them.
Too many white men are not able to compete unless they get a head start. Other people, such as women, ethnic minorities and LBGTQ folks are hardened and used to working under stressful conditions that are not ideal. Too many white men are stamping their feet in temper tantrums declaring "I can't work under these conditions!" And they're right, they cannot work under conditions that are not in their favor: who knew they weren't as great as they have always said they were?
7
Yeah, racism is part of the fuel for Trump's success, but like most of the complexities of life, the underlying cause is multifactorial.
But as even the Times admitted, "The voters who switched from President Obama to Mr. Trump were decisive."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/upshot/the-obama-trump-voters-are-rea...
And these voters number "certainly in the millions".
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-how-many-obam...
Liberal politicians and liberal news outlets are loathe to admit that economic malaise was a significant factor in Trump's victory. To do so is to admit that the Democratic party's economic neoliberalism led to the economic anxiety that many are experiencing across the nation.
"“Trump Country,” as my colleague Andrew Flowers described it shortly after the election, isn’t the part of America where people are in the worst financial shape; it’s the part of America where their economic prospects are on the steepest decline."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/stop-saying-trumps-win-had-nothing-...
2
One day Trump will wake up and realize he is the President of all Americans, not just white republicans. We are one nation, undivided. We won't let a bully divide us.
5
@Petey Tonei –
Highly unlikely. He's already made too much progress dividing us.
These white men who are afraid of women are still in the dark ages in keeping women barefoot and pregnant and at home. They don't feel we are worth competing with in the job market. We have substandard brains. They are afraid they may have to do the wash, take care of the kids sometime or cook a meal. They believe women and can't do anything unless it's explained to us.
Children have two parents so men help care for your children with something more than a paycheck. They need your guidance, love and time too. Sharing the burden at home is very rewarding. When you start paying women what they are worth if they stay at home and don't work outside then you are doing something so they can buy there own shoes. Allot of women work because they have to. Many work for the intellectual stimulation.
The same angry white men not only want to suppress women they also hate people of color and people of different ethnic and religious beliefs. They are afraid and full of angst and disingenuous . They are revved up almost on daily basis by our dishonest president. A man who doesn't pay his taxes so we the populace have to pay more. We would go to jail and Trump would be right there turning the key in one of his holier-than-thou moods. A man who deals with shady oligarchs borrowing money after going bankrupt at least 4 times.
THANK YOU TO MOST MEN WHO ARE WONDERFUL, CARING AND REALIZE THAT WOMEN ARE PEOPLE OF INTELLIGENCE AND CAN EVEN TRIPLE TASK WHEN CALLED UPON.
It's not difficult to understand both perspectives so long as one remembers that they are two different perspectives. Women are often the victims of sexual assault but men can also be victims of sexual assault and are even more unlikely to come forward. That this problem needs to be addressed cannot be disputed. People tend to analyze things from there own personal perspectives. The thought of losing one's career and reputation, not to mention imprisonment, on the basis of an unproven allegation is naturally scary. So I don't think that men see themselves as victims so much as being denied equal protection under the law, that being presumed innocent unless proven guilty with emphasis on the word "proven". Without evidence, we are back to the days of Sen. McCarthy's communist witch hunt of the 1950's where a mere unproven allegation was sufficient to destroy an individual. This translates into resistance to movements like MeToo and BLM whose initial ideas were good, but anything can be taken too far and as a result be perceived as a threat. Behavior has to change. Those sexually assaulted must be urged to file police reports immediately, first so there's a record, but second so the police can collect evidence which is what they're trained to do. With evidence, what started as an allegation can now be corroborated, and this makes all the difference in the world. I understand that women are rightfully angry, but uncontrolled anger can boomerang and has negative consequences.
3
So how come a majority of white women voted for Trump? I think democrats keep missing the phenomenon when they parse the world with the "white male" cliche. As evidenced by loss after loss after loss, Dems cannot win with identity politics. The Kavanaugh hearings effect on polls once again demonstrates that point---however disappointing that reality is.
5
@Luis Rocha How is it that everyone knows how a majority of white women voted? I put my ballot in the only machine that was available at my polling place. It did not say “white votes” or “women’s votes” or anything of the sort.
1
@Jeb! via exit poll data such as the one collected by the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/politics/white-women-helped-elect-...
One interesting test of white male privilege is to ask a Trumpist to repeat the sentence "Hillary Clinton, a woman, received more popular votes than Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election." They can't do it without spouting off about the Electoral College, "we're really a republic not a democracy," or even "3 million unregistered aliens." The fear is palpable.
6
@Dennis D. McDonald If Trump had gotten the plurality of votes, tell the truth: you'd be defending the legitimacy of the Electoral College.
2
Actually I think Trump is only concerned with himself, and is simply taking advantage of white male insecurities to benefit himself. There may not be any grand white agenda here, it may be just all about Trump. That seems to be the limit of his world view.
6
It's not white men, but the professional victims like Charles who see a zero-sum game. White men welcome equality for all. It's the "woke" side the wants to turn the tables. It's them saying essentially, "you've had your time being heard, being believed, being elected, being hired, being accepted at fine schools. It's our time now. Only diversity matters. Get out of the way!"
So there's your zero sum game. It's no wonder white men are defensive.
9
But that time being heard, elected etc put them all on third base. The point is that simply leveling the playing field is not a sufficient remedy at this point.
4
I are one, and that’s ridiculous.
1
@GC
It's not perfect but it's the only remedy. Discrimination needs to be stamped out wherever it exists. But trying to engineer specific outcomes by always siding against whites won't work and will only result in backlash.
1
You just have to love academic opinions like this “‘There’s this perception of a zero-sum relationship; men and women are in competition,’ she said. ‘So if things are better for women, things are worse than men.’ So much is rigged in favor of woman now its hardly a fair system and gets worse every day
2
What do I say to my young sons? They work hard, take all the A.P. Classes that are available and are so active in after schoool leadership and charity activities that they don’t get any sleep. But they have the scarlet letter of being born white. Somehow I don’t think their hard work and grades will land them in an Ivy League school. Where do your kids go to school? I’m sorry life has given you such a raw deal.
4
Has it occurred to you that those AP classes are available only because you live in a wealthy suburb and those after school activities possible only because they’re not having to spend evenings flipping burgers?
7
@BigG
You are not helping your sons by providing them with a permanent chip on their shoulders. Now matter who they are, if they conduct themselves as resentful angry whiners, they will always be losers. Even if they do go to an Ivy League college, if they are always ungrateful & spiteful & bigoted, they will always be losers. I encourage every parent to teach their children gratitude and empathy and a firm sense of purpose & self-worth that does not depend on what college they attend. With great respect I urge you to teach your sons to look clear-eyed at the many people in this world who are less fortunate then they and say to themselves "Whoa. There but for the grace of God go I."
3
@BigG
And because they are white, male, hardworking, in advanced classes, etc. Ivy League admission should be their birthright? But not true for a Hispanic girl in the same exact spot? Or god forbid, an Asian-American kid? There really is a zero-sum situation for specific spots in specific schools. But so what? Your sons are getting a good high school education, right? They can get a good college education at a school in a different athletic conference than the Ivy League.
3
Self-made male victim.
Divides people into us versus them while undermining our democratic institutions. Contradicts himself several times per claim. Lies continually. Has an ongoing war against the press and seems to have ignored the murder of a reporter.
He's cruel.
Most likely has a narcissistic personality disorder:
◾Believes he's special
◾Requires constant attention/admiration from others
◾Disregards the feelings of others/lacks empathy
◾Exaggerates own importance
◾Is preoccupied with fantasies of success
◾Arrogant behaviors/ attitudes
◾Has unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment
◾Takes advantage of others
◾Envious of others/believes other people are envious of him
4
He wasn't apologizing for me. He doesn't even stand for anything I remotely believe in. The man is certifiable.
7
Physical and mental hardship comes to all of us humans and we all need a bit of a soft landing to keep us going. The danger for minority groups is calling someone's life- a white privilege hand out speaks to some illusion that all white people are bound together. White supremacists are the extremist terrorists that exist in every culture. There are so many white people, that it is class alone that separates us from the day we are born and we struggle to find resources and resent efforts for racial diversity because of a complete lack of connection to other white people. By suggesting that people's already fragile lives should not be as good as they are, is not a winning argument. White economically isolated people whose jobs DID leave to go overseas can see that minority groups have each other's backs because of necessity. They feel deplorable (and very poor.) This is why Trump supporters are from some of the saddest parts of the country because they want some kind of reassurance that a very bad life is not going to get even worse. I think a better stance for minorities and all of us who struggle is: Let's make life better for all. We are in this together and we need each other's backs and we need to take care of the planet. Love will always win, but lobbing divisive language that assumes many things about other people's lives is not helping.
3
Hey, that's your readership you are talking about,
4
We've seen this argument since Trump was campaigning. Now that he's had two years of a successful presidency (successful on his and his supporters' terms) whay are we still bothering to repeat it? Feeling superior to aggrieved white men isn't a winning formula for Democrats. Trump has devised the winning formula and unless Democrats find a different approach, Trump will not only be re-elected, he'll win in a landslide.
3
@Mitj
Dream on.
Liberals are the real whiners and “victims.”
7
So you agree that Trump and his supporters have not been victimized and there is no last wing conspiracy against them like they claim.
4
In the first place, liberals and the shoutier progressives types are radically different people. In the second—have you ever LISTENED to Donald Trump?
4
Charles, you’re just jealous somebody took your seat on the victim train you’ve been riding for so long.
10
So you admit Trump is playing the victim card.
4
@M
Yes, he does.
Regressives aren't too smart when it comes to logical thinking. Or implication.
@M
And this is where I have to suggest that you read more of American History in order to see who the real victims were..and to a great degree, still are...
Start with the chapters on the eradication of Native American populations, and continue on to slavery.
1
Yes, Lindsey Graham SHOULD shut up - the sooner the better.
32
Democrats don’t realize they need white men to win, LOL.
11
@M, I don't think we the need aggrieved, insecure ones.
1
@M You missed the point: Democrats do not fear diversity while Trumpists and Republicans do. Speaking as an old white guy, that's a big difference in favor of Democrats.
5
Well, they’ve certainly got this one. Trumpists are not only nuts, they’re panicked children nuts.
1
Trump has spent a lifetime "losing ground". He's only standing where he is today because he had the unique fortune and rudderless morality to benefit from daddy's $400m, tax evasion schemes, and bankruptcy bailouts that artificially buoyed him. But at his heart, he is the same aggrieved person you write about. Not overly capable. Not at all diligent. Not introspective, discerning, or interested in learning. But clearly someone who thinks they deserve something and are somehow (as a white man) getting a raw deal.
I'm a white man. I come from a family where my dad worked two jobs his entire life so that we could have a lower-middle class existence. He (my dad) had and still has not an ounce of entitlement. I inherited the same perspective. I know it is up to me, my own hard work, my own ability to adapt to changing conditions, etc. It's my responsibility. No one owes me.
But by the same token, I have great compassion for those who truly are oppressed, discriminated against, or marginalized in any way. In fact, though I didn't ask for it, I know as a white, hetero male American, I was gifted an accepted and (again, not deserved) exalted starting point to my life. That has only served one valuable purpose: to enable me to understand that others deserve the same respect, consideration, & opportunities as I have.
People should thrive based on merit and character, not by clinging to victim-hood claims. If we use our white 'status' to help lift all, we'll be a better society.
32
@Brad G
Thank God for old white men like you! I agree with everything that you said. Unfortunately I have siblings who are Trumpists . . . . and not a clue . . . . . and oh the victim-hood!
4
Excellent piece, Mr. Blow, thank you.
All toxicity and false victimization flow downward from the egoist-in-chief, white nationalist sympathizer and privileged trust-fund brat of Fred Trump. It's no surprise that his circle of sycophants are equally loathsome, including congressional enablers, like Graham -- angling for the AG position, he really should "shut up," the belligerent histrionics on display from himself and Kavanaugh at the hearing were all for their would-be King. More vile quid pro quo behavior at the expense of women's rights. Merrick Garland, Mr. Graham? Where was your righteous indignation then?
17
I can understand the feelings of fear white guys have when they see serious challenges to their position at the top of the food chain by women and people of color. I can understand them, but I can't condone them. Still people all over the country and even the world are coming to demand a place at the table and in the long run white males will loose their exalted position. And this realization will give them peace to be equal with everyone else -- eventually. Once they accept the fact that they will be able to quit defending their status and start enjoying being a part of something worthwhile. I didn't say this would happen right away. It will be a long slow process. But wouldn't it be lovely if these men could quit fighting women and people of color and join up with them in trying to save the planet which is truly in danger to all people -- even white males.
18
@Pajaritomt
Patronizing approach. Think it'll work?
1
The every growing imbalances in the US made worse by the Republicans tax policies are not some obscure out of sight fact. People see it. The "turn up the hate" style populism of Trump is great at generating feelings of victimization of people who are perpetually lost in the notion that the Democrats just give handouts to minorities to bribe them. But now we see Trump's erroneous blowing off of climate change with kisses to the Koch Brothers as dangerous non sense the voters have to react to. Wall Street and bankers want to sell the idea that wage increases are inflationary and bad for the economy while these very same super wealthy avoid paying taxes driving up the national debt and scaring the bond market. The Rs unwillingness to see these huge corporate tax cuts were seriously misguided. As far as Trump is concerned, in his greedy rip off mind set, pointlessly enriching rich people is his duty.
10
Trump is leading the most significant "resistance" movement in decades. Desperate people do desperate things but they only temporarily stem the tide of change as the momentum of a shift in the demographics of America will eventually overtake them. Trump took it upon himself to apologize to Kavanaugh and his family “on behalf of our nation” for the “terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.” No he need not apologize for the nation, the nation didn't do anything. Trump nominated Kavanaugh without proper vetting. The Republican Senate conducted a merciless kangaroo court. Trump and the Republicans need to apologize to the nation for what they put us through.
23
Honestly & rationally: What exactly in either Trump's or Kavanaugh's life has truly been "unfair"? Seriously. Why do some people, including ultra-wealthy persons like Donald Trump, incessantly whine & complain about the "unfairness" of their very comfortable lives, lives exemplified by extraordinary privilege? I still do not understand in spite of Mr. Blow's always excellent columns which attempt to explain.
12
I don’t really get it, either, but somehow they’re completely convinced of their own deservedness.
2
I'm a white male who is the grandson of Irish and Italian immigrants. My Italian grandmother signed her name with an X and spoke little English; her husband wasn't much more literate than she. Irish side grandfather was a streetcar man who earned 19 cents per hour. My Irish grandmother was a servant to rich people. Neither of my parents finished high school and both of my siblings dropped out of college in their first year. Due to my father's poor health and huge medical bills my parents had no money to send me to college so we lied about my age at 15 so I could work construction during the summers and save for college. Over the years I earned two BS degrees, an MS and a PhD. I did not grow up in privilege nor have I participated in the marginalization, and worse, of women and people of color. So, for the record please place an asterisk next to my categorization as a privileged white male. I've worked hard to get where I am and I'm a loyal Democrat who votes for progressive candidates. In the spirit of Eldridge Cleaver who said: "There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem." -- I'm trying to be part of the solution and don't appreciate it when lumped in with knuckle-dragging Nazis or mysogynist goons because I'm male and especially because I'm white. Otherwise, nothing to see here. Move along. ;>)
29
@OmahaProfessorThe distinction that needs to be made is that Mr. Blow is not talking about you. The fact that you happen to be a member of that demographic does not in itself indict you and the fact that you think it does exemplifies what Blow is saying. I am white and female. I do not feel attacked when racism and white supremacist are criticized. I do not feel attacked when discussions of racial bias are happening. I am comfortable in my status as a person who is as you quote, "part of the solution" Therefore no insecurity exists for me when white privilege is examined. I understand being both male and white you might feel that you are being vilified. Only those who capitalized on that privilege are. When we talk about rapists who are male over 90% of the time do you think we are lumping in all men as rapists? That would be ridiculous and yet you are applying that same logic. Just because you feel like it's happening doesn't mean it is.
2
@OmahaProfessor -- The fact you would withstand association with the chumps described herein would be evidence alone you aren't counted among them.
I was gonna say ditto, but then it occurred that somebody with a PhD should be capable of reading dispassionately enough to know that Charles Blow said no such thing. Especially if they’re gonna quote Cleaver, who flopped from screaming ACTUAL race hatred all the way to the Cleaver pants.
2
In appealing and pandering to so called white male victimization, Trump demonstrates how conservatism has morphed into populism. In doing so, he reveals that contemporary conservatism expresses disdain toward and despair about the modern world, but precious little else. Trump's election, moreover, was as much a cultural reaction to globalization as an economic one.
Nevertheless, evidence from the 2016 presidential election also refutes the facile narratives that Trump's election merely signified a triumph of racism and sexism. Indeed, fewer white males voted for Trump than Mitt Romney in 2012; the number of black males who voted for Trump was significantly higher than for Romney as well.
While Democrats retain an advantage in demographics over the Republicans, this edge will be forfeited again if the former cannot provide voters with reasons to vote for them, instead of only voting against Trump.
1
Actually white males are on an incredible roll, and loving every minute of it. They have a president doing what he promised—cutying illegal immigration, raising immigration standards, cutting welfare prigrams that do not work, protecting American jobs, standing up to China, improving NAFTA. They are not down trodden and worried. They have the bit in their teeth
It’s the left s weak and fearful. They are begging fir more laws and protections rather than proposing things that will help them better compete. Another big loss coming next minth
6
Keep telling the truth brother!!! The fact that rich white men require so much rigging of so many systems to maintain their power shows that they are in actual fact rather weak and afraid. Unfortunately, they (or rather their supporters living vicariously through them) are also armed and dangerous. As noted in an earlier column, it is the same war some of us and our ancestors have been fighting for 400 years. The struggle continues.
8
It's best to stick the label of "insecurity" on Trump and those in leadership positions within the GOP and not on "white men" as a group. We need to convert every voter to our side for the survival of American democracy, and not alienate white men who could make all the difference in the world.
8
A lot of comments here saying things along the lines of "history proves that white men are racist slavers, misogynists who abused and disenfranchised women, etc, etc..."
All of that is true.
But to assert that (most, all?) white men TO THIS DAY are similarly terrible is ludicrous. You also have to admit that you are glossing over some important facts, namely that it was white men who fought on the side of slaves to end slavery, white men who passed the Civil Rights Act guaranteeing (under law, if not in practice) equal freedoms for racial minorities, and white men who voted for women's suffrage. In short, white men have VOLUNTARILY over time granted rights and in some ways transferred power to non-whites and women.
Bashing white men as a homogenous group is unhelpful, as progress will necessarily involve further concessions from white men. So, in an ironic way, articles like this that clearly demonize white men as a group, are harmful to their own cause.
18
Yup. She and her family will need to go in hiding to avoid death threats and he gets to go to the Supreme Court. He's the victim? Really?
23
Some of my best friends are white male humans. They are doing their best to get along in this world. They do not regard an improved status for women, ie, their wives, mothers, sisters, and friends, as a blow to their own. I would like to see more opinion pieces about people like them.
29
@MidcenturyModernGal -- I am a white man so I believe I have a right to make the following statement:
So for all the ages too many white men have been painting entire groups of people such as women, ethnic minorities and LBGTQ folks with a stereotype brush, with generalizations and with patently false and grossly misleading caricatures all in an effort to disenfranchise them. I'm sure they'll survive if the rest of the world who are not white men are no more sensitive to the fine grain details that reveal those white guys who are "good." And I put "good" in quotes to denote just how subjective that claim really is.
Frankly, that we now have to get out our 000 or even smaller 12/0 size brushes to accommodate the feelings of certain white men and their appeasers is just proving the point that white men can't get along without fairness while others have had to suffer being hosed down with a high-pressure paint gun.
9
If he could, Trump would follow the South African model. He won in crucial states by throwing red meat to his base by alarming them about racial, religious,and ethnic minorities. His biggest incitement themes today criminal mobs of women and democrats. Misogyny, crime and raising taxes are now on the front burner.
3
I went to a Trump rally in Las Vegas to see what the deal was. When I got there I saw a whole lot of white people like myself and a whole lot of men in their fifties and sixties of a type you might consider "macho." It all fell into place for me. A bunch of macho dudes growing older and refusing to go gentle into that good night. Unfortunately for the world it means the perversion of everything the United States is supposed to stand for since they have chosen a true miscreant to be their champion. Old jocks never die they just kick everybody under them in the teeth to keep their "rank." My apologies to secure older men who chose reason over the god-like powers of testosterone during their lifetimes.
20
Right. I get that we are not suppose to question referring to a diverse group (caucasian males, caucasian females) as one entity- but why?
I believe 1,000,000% in the damage/struggle of micro aggressions, racist white liberals etc. But can we pull it together and focus for just a few short weeks on the bigger fish? There are some disastrously powerful people and they have a lot of money, hold high political or corporate positions, are usually from a similar background (multiple privileges etc.). Let's get real- there are far more down on their luck, opioid addicted, undereducated, underemployed "white men" without medical or dental insurance that have a multitude of good reasons to have anxiety and are going to be stuck on stupid for a long time about correctly/adequately knowing how to check their privilege and then satisfyingly performing that awareness. Let us still try and end cash bail, protect the environment, move in the direction of housing, health, and civil justice- get that blue wave going.
4
Although there is plenty of white male privilege out there, I do not think it is honest to categorize every reaction to social change and assume that we know what is going on. The anger and outrage in our society right now is far more complex than white male privilege, or "Hillbilly Elegy," or #MeToo, or immigration, or nationalism, or America First,
or democratic socialism would have us believe. All of these
responses seem to me to be part of the larger outrage at the grotesque and unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity in our society.
First things first. We the people are all human beings and we the people are Americans. We have a Constitution founded upon a belief in the natural, inborn rights of man and the equality of every person before the law. We believe that we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For many different reasons, a large part of America now feels that their rights have been violated, their chances for a decent life with a respectable wage have been limited, and that OTHER PEOPLE are taking their rights and opportunities from them. Depending on our perspectives those other people might be white men, females, blacks or Hispanics, Muslims and/or Jews, Republicans or Democrats or secularists or fundamentalists or LGBQT.
The outrage is real, but the reasons and the targets and even the responses keep shifting. It is essential, however,
to keep the outrage civil and non-violent. We need to be able to listen.
11
@SCZ
Yours is a roundabout way of explaining the oldest strategy in the book for the wealthy and powerful to retain and expand their power and already obscene levels of wealth:
Divide and conquer.
8
White men are not being suppressed. They have failed to accept that others (non white men and women -white and non-white alike) are catching up with them. They are afraid of now being in competition with all and are acting desperately to hold on to their edge.
This is a concept similar to "angry white marginalized middle class families" hyped up by all during 2016 election cycle. The fact was that other middle class families are catching up with white middle class families. While middle class now has to compete for what they took for granted in post-world war boom.
Unfortunately, few in media, politics and academia have tried to inform population enmass of these trends. Naturally so because hype sells ... whether in terms of readership or vote banks.
4
Finally, the light is shinning on the truth.
The angriest people in America are male and White, us.
We are the greatest number of mass murderers.
We are the most entitled group, and complain about everything, despite our privilege.
We believe that poor and often inacerated black males are after us.
We say that women are wrong in saying that they should not be subjected to sexual abuse and harassment.
Now, we have an overfed and unread cult leader to verbalize and scream out our make believe and trashy drivel.
How utterly embarrassing!!
23
Bingo, Mr. Blow. Let’s make it their last gasp.
9
The absolute gall in this article is staggering. White male victimization in the context of Brett Kavanaugh?? the man an his family was just publicly humiliated and dragged through the mud out of non provable 35 year old claim from high school that was levied onto him by Democrats and their media cohorts.
Hes just whining right? He shouldnt bat an eye over this. He deserves it and should just stand there and take it because hes white and successful.
Great article Blow. Any white male that reads this is now even more incentivised to run to the polls and vote out every one of your Democrat cohorts.
15
@Sports Medicine: But even if he had been rejected, he would still have been a Federal judge. Hardly a horrible fate.
Meanwhile, Ms. Ford received death threats and was vilified by name by the president.
9
@Sports Medicine
Did you watch Kavanaugh's testimony following Ford's? Ford was composed. careful, and deliberate. Kavanaugh lied repeatedly (ask his Yale classmates). He came apart under pressure -- a whiney, weepy, voice-breaking coward. A man afraid of the truth ... perfect for Trump's Court. My sympathies rest with the country and those poor justices who must treat this inferior as an equal.
15
@SportsMedicine
Judge Kavanaugh humiliated *himself* with his histrionics and outright lying. What an embarrassment! Had he not listened to Don McGahn and instead acted mature and, well, judge-like, he would have been viewed much more favorably. (But then he wouldn’t have whipped up the base, which was the real goal behind McGahn’s tutelage.) Instead we watched him and thought, rightly, “What a jerk!”
More white man privilege: despite the fact that the FBI “investigation” was inconclusive, Kavanaugh not only gets appointed to the Supreme Court but is falsely told he is “vindicated” and gets apologized to on behalf of the country, while Dr. Ford continues to be vilified for political gain and cannot return home due to death threats.
1
Thank you for demonstrating that the New York Times not only tolerates overt racism from its writing staff, but actually encourages it by continuing to publish rants such as this.
21
@Objectivist, you do not understand what racism is. it's not just 'i don't like your racial/ethic group.' it's a deliberate societal effort to deprive a group of advantages enjoyed by the rest of the population, such as good schools, nice housing, decent jobs and police protection. please explain how blow's 'rants' are depriving you of your rights.
1
I'm a white male who, in my younger days took far more risks than I suspect you have ever taken in support of equality movements like the Black Panthers. It's time for you to grow up, Blow.
17
@red sox 9 -- OK, what risks? List them. You're anonymous here, so there should be no reason you can't list your risks. Otherwise you have utterly lost the argument.
8
Amateur bomb-throwing that would be beneath the USA Today. What is going on with this publication? Half of you are openly antagonizing the country's largest demographic, the other half are pointing fingers at perceived bigots. Do people want a war?
17
@Dan
I'm confused, are you saying the country's largest demographic is white men? That's not true, women outnumber men in this country. Also, there is only a subset of white men who feel attacked when one individual white man is accused of misogyny or bigotry. The progressive white men I know cheer when one of these men is taken down, they don't take it personally because they know they are not guilty of these crimes and have nothing to worry about. Men who are not rapists shouldn't feel under attack when a rapist is disqualified for a job, it only helps them and makes the job available for them. I really don't understand this logic.
6
On a related note, would enlightened white folk, conservative or liberal, please refrain from applying ‘woke’ to themselves or others.
Silly.
2
I am a white male and I'm certainly anxious. I'm afraid that people will confuse me as being one of those idiots so aggrieved by those pointing out systemic unfairness. Of the three male faces shown within this article (Kavanaugh, Blow, Trump), the only one inspiring any feelings of brotherhood is the smiling man in the circle, Charles M. Blow.
7
Charles... face it. You love that the Trump era makes it increasingly ok, even fashionable to hate on white people and 'whiteness' itself. You rejoice in the demise of white men. You love that the life expectancy of white men is decreasing due to lost hope, drug-abuse, suicide, etc. You feel that nothing could be more just than a continued downward trajectory for whites. You are joining an increasing loud and unified chorus who see white men as the most evil force in this world. It gives you validation to dig in and declare all the ways in which whiteness must be destroyed..... honestly, it's lazy and counter-productive in every way. Follow Ta Nehisi Coates. Resign your post and do some deep self reflection. Or just continue to spout negative bile into the world.
13
According to Blow, Trump's repeated apologies to Kavanaugh for the severe pain and suffering he sustained at the hands of Dr. Ford and the Democratic party, Dianne Feinstein, in particular, were to stir 'the comatose base to electoral fervor'... There are many names for Trump's base, but 'comatose' is not one of them. On the other hand, Blow identified Trump's the war cry on behalf the white men in his base, 'Make US great again'. They are the real victims of the '#MeToo' movement and a lot more. How dare the prerogatives of white men over women, children and minorities be challenged. A common practice of the Nazi propaganda was to increase existing prejudices and grow new ones against all opponents. In Trump's world, the free press, the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, in particular, most women, minorities, allies, institutional norms along with all opponents and critics are the enemy. Let's not blame all white men for Trump's depravity. Many white men want to 'Lock HIM Up'.
1
Donald John Trump, Sr. along with Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin is part of a white male supremacist misogynist axis of evil. Outraged by a Kenyan Arab Muslim socialist usurper becoming President of the United States.
What is their world coming to when they cannot assault and discriminate and harass anyone drunk or sober without any civil or criminal costs or consequences. Particularly any black female or male. Their anger and rage should not be confused with anxiety. Remember Charlottesville. Remember any Trump rally.
In the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Presidential elections 55%, 59% and 58 % of the white vote went to McCain, Romney and Trump.
No white male need fear ending up like George Junius Stinney, Jr. , Emmett Louis Till, Mack Charles Parker, the Scottsboro Boys nor the Central Park Five. Any black female could end up like Sallie Hemmings, Celia, Lena Baker, Joan Little or Recy Taylor.
Black male anxiety rests in the reality that their lives do not matter. Those sons of Confederate Alabama aka Addison Mitchell McConnell, Jr and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III are hellbent on reversing the outcomes of the Civil War and the Civil Rights eras.
MAGA!
3
Yup.
Older white men remember when mom kowtowed to dad and did all the housework and cooking and provided sex on demand, brought them a beer while they watched the game. All for free, or at most room n board. Later, it was even better, because mom pulled in a salary while still doing all of the above.
Who wouldn’t complain about losing all that? And then those uppity black people want to ruin their property values by moving in next door! It’s just too much for the poor guys.
Well, I’m guessing they’ll all survive just fine after Nov. 6, cuz no matter what, we women are for the most part non-violent types. Maybe they’ll learn to thank their lucky stars for that.
14
@Terro O’Brien: It's a good thing that we remember all that, because those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
1
@Terro O’Brien those were the days!
1
I see the same false narrative in this white male victimization as in the continued false narrative of the black NFL players kneeling being unpatriotic. The president knows he is lying but hopes and feels that the more he talks about, the more his base will believe it!
7
Upon meeting white Americans many citizens in the rest of the world now assume they are racists until otherwise demonstrated.
4
Charles, Your fear is that Kanye's meeting with the President may result in some black men thinking like some white men.....
Oh my, and maybe voting Republican?
Instead of automatically voting Democrat and waiting for results decade after decade and nothing good happening?
Are you afraid black men will get success and then you will have nothing to write about?
I think so.
6
Hey white guys, think of it this way: you will have a lot more fun, love and joy in life if you just relax.
The American nation definitely needs more of these folk in all positions of power, whether politics, as teachers, as bosses, police officers, and so on:
African-American men and women
Native American men and women
Latino American men and women
Moslem men and women
Asian men and women
Here's the kicker on the white male privilege, the women enabling these entitled ones: you need to speak up. Your anti-depressants, binge tv, shopping sprees, and prayers (without action) are not going to help you.
Women enabling the white male privilege? Make a plan to get out from your chumpiness. Get your ducks in order, get support, find your strengths, take small steps, don't tell the entitled one - you know how he has squashed you in the past!!
And know this, women moving out from under that awful stupor of support of white male superiority: it will be extremely difficult (but it's already extremely difficult for you now), because he is going to fight back against you: call you crazy, call you mean, call you evil. Remember all the times in the past when you have tried? Yeah, it's going to be more of that.
But do it anyway. We need your voice. If you will speak out, tell when he cheated, when he abused, when he got black-out drunk, when he blew hundreds of thousands of dollars on gambling, or prostitutes or porn. Speak up. We cannot move ahead until you do.
5
@NotKidding: Remember the not-too-distance, where if you weren't a boss of something, it was because you were a woman, or black, or both?
That doesn't cut it anymore; if you're not a person of rank and privilege, it's because you don't have the stuff. No more excuses; someone else outperformed and outplayed you, and you can't blame it on your race or sex anymore.
Welcome to the 21st century!
3
Charles I hear all this...but what's missing is that Trump and his Republican cohorts are winning the war. I don’t feel a so-called Blue Wave and I don’t see it. What I do see is an old-guard Democratic Party out-flanked, out-gunned and back-peddling in the political area.
As horrible of a man Trump is, along with your free help (the media) he has radically branded or should I say out-branded every political opponent, every institution, and individual put in his path. He has demonstrated that crime really pays and that the powers of the presidency were diminished by the Obama era of “hope and change” and brought to fore that ‘race does matter.’ Who are the Dems fooling? They never truly supported Obama in Congress. Dems are wishfully hoping the current crop of of third-stringers are going to turn this political disaster around. They’re not, there’s going to have to be a political street-fight and an emerging leader willing and able to put Trump on his big flat behind down. Trump has shown how a Hitler was made possible and how men are mere sheep who easily follow what they perceive as power - to the point where they will kill to keep it.
2
Another article by Charles Blow that can be summarized with "all white men are Trump".
15
Imagine if a white man wrote an Op-Ed about "Black Male Victimization Anxiety"
He'd be denounced as a racist before getting the first word out; and he most certainly wouldn't be published in the NYTimes.
Double standard much?
17
Trump. who should apologize to the women he allegedly assaulted, for the fraud of Trump University, and for being such a poor excuse of a human, is apologizing on behalf of the USA to a sleaze bag? What a sick joke!
5
And when the informed and motivated youth head to the polls and vote out the old white dinosaurs, there will be new accusations of age discrimination on top of it. Yes, Lindsey, Shut up and sit down! It's not your race that is the problem, it's your values!
3
@Hootin Annie - "Informed and Motivated"...some, maybe, but others are naiive and fooling themselves that they are the solution. We need all sides to work together not silly name-calling and childish Mr. Blow foot stomping.
3
Anything that begins with "white male" I turn off.
9
Trump "has capitalized on grievance". That is pretty rich coming from Mr Blow- he is a veritable grievance machine. Mr. Blow could bang out 800 words on the racism behind a backup on the Tri-borough bridge.
5
Mr. Blow seems unduly anxious about white males himself. That said, how is it that creating a faux pseudo-scientific theory about any racial group is now acceptable for mainstream publication?
11
So great to see so many comments calling Charles out for his own racism, his barely concealed animosity towards whites. The standards of the NYTimes continue a steep decline towards snarky diatribes against whiteness, maleness, and straightness. It will all backfire. It will only beget more Trumpism. And we will all be worse off for it. Shame
18
@Dan: Racism toward whites? More like the voice of experience.
8
I appreciate Blow's acuity here. "White Male Victimization" is real, alive, kicking, and I see it rearing its orange head in my high school homeroom. During the pledge of allegiance (which is required in MO high schools), it's both fascinating and frightening to see some white teenage male students and a few white female students (!) jump to attention. They are on high alert. We've allowed Trump to resuscitate the oldest national narrative, which he now broadcasts at several frequencies: vulgar to just above vulgar. Super loud if your hat is red. (It's addled Kanye West beyond recognition.) It's the story of Manifest Destiny, winning the West (no pun intended), John Wayne to Ronald Reagan to a very White Santa Claus coming down the chimney. A white Jesus comes in handy. Women, people of color, hidden genius Jews, must be subjugated. And if they are, capitalism flows. Trump's like a giant orange viagra for these white men. Our economy becomes pornographic. Grab what you can. No problem. Bottom line: Trump's white man's ego in all its colonial rapacity, childishly tweeting "unfair" hundreds of times when being questioned or being held accountable, that's what he promotes without understanding for a second the human cost. The only exclamation point here is his wife's pith helmet in Africa.
1
I have a great idea. Let's keep white privilege, only let's extend it to everyone else.
If you take away white privilege, you expose whites to police harassment, job discrimination, and all the rest of those unpleasant things. Who would agree to that? That's no way to get me to cooperate.
If you extend white privilege to everyone else, whites don't lose anything, with the possible exception of those who need to feel that they're better than everyone else. Then, no one else would have to endure all that unpleasantness, and we could all get along, or at least find something else to argue about.
It's about the semantics. The optics of giving something to someone are much better than the optics of taking it away from someone else.
While you're at it though, will you kindly apply your own standards to yourself and stop judging all white males by the actions of some? Assuming someone is a bigot with performance anxiety because of how they look is not a good strategy for obtaining their cooperation.
2
@mlbex
This is exactly what I've been saying also, pretty much since the term 'white privilege' hit our current lexicon.
But here's where you hit upon the problem: "...with the possible exception of those who need to feel that they're better than everyone else." a.k.a. white supremacy. Oh sorry, I guess the correct term is now white nationalism. Same myth - different name.
1
There is no white male victimization. It's just another racist propaganda tool employed by Trump and the sinister Republicans. Another tactic is there use of the phrase mob rule. But there definitely is black male victimization. That's a proven reality. Trump will use any term to gain and maintain power. Bottom line they are almost always racist as with Mexicans being rapists, or NFL players should not kneel down. As for the Kavanaugh hearing he was not a victim. What he was a man without a conscience who is clearly biased. A man who has contempt for women. And a stprwhiner and alcoholic who is in denial. I will leave Graham alone suffice to say his anger is political and artificial. Trump and McConnell will say anything to hijack the country. There is no truth with them. We must continue to confront their lies. And while Trump believes he can brainwash many Americans, I think most are not buying his fake made up stories.
1
This is exactly what is meant by Make America Great Again. It is a dog-whistle for Make White Males Superior again.
4
Spot On.
2
Your crass and coarse dismissal of white male anxieties makes us that much more bigotted, sexist and disgusted.
And the histrionics of feminist women is beginning to make me think that my alleged racism and sexism are simply objective analyses of social conflict in America today.
9
The gigantic backdrop to all this that Mr. Bow didn't mention is that women have been and continue to be the victims of violence and murder - by their current or past male partners/husbands.
Just yesterday on the NYC local news, was an all too typical story of a woman literally gunned down dead on the sidewalk by her ex-boyfriend (and father of her 2 children).
These are literally daily occurrences across America, and have touched most extended families (mine included).
What we need is more men and less angry, spoiled, whiny boys pretending to be such.
5
Mr. Blow falsely states that trump said there were "fine people" among the nazis at the march. Trump in fact said there were fine people on both sides of the statute debate. You can disagree with that but the left should misrepresenting what was said.
6
Trump is odious, the worst American who ever lived. And yet, Charles, your one-sided column plays right into his hands.
You glibly suggest all white men are beneficiaries of privilege when this is patently false. Trump and Kavanaugh grew up wealthy and protected. But most white men do not. Yet they are lumped by association and accusation into the country club set, no matter how modest or disadvantaged their upbringing. If they succeed, it's because they had privileges. If they fail, they're idiots. So is it any wonder they run into the waiting orange arms of Uncle Donald?
I am all for discussing identity politics, but it is a far more nuanced and complicated conversation than white men bad. The democrats, of which I am a lifelong member, can certainly blow this election if they vilify tens of millions of Americans based solely on race and gender.
9
Hey guys try being a woman..see how you like being marginalized,
demeaned, underpaid,over worked brood mares, responsible for birth control but not up to making decisions about our bodies.Now
think of a woman of color and it gets even better.
5
“Trump represents all the white men who feel they’re losing ground”.
So, I presume that these feelings entitle the believer to act badly, immorally, as reprobates because the world has turned against them. All it means is this group feels entitled because they are White and the ascendency of immigrants supposedly supplanting their prerogatives are not. I suggest that, like their standard bearer Trump, that they are lazy, unmotivated and ignorant.
2
It is driving Democrats insane that they attacked a white man and he defeated them. So they're making up a victim story.
Democrats fear losing their power to force the courts to impose their unpopular regime via decree. The rule of law frightens them. They project their own fear onto others.
Democrats did not lose white working class men because white men feared loss of their status in society.
Democrats drove off evangelical Christians, blue dog Democrats, lost black voters by advocating for illegal aliens, white working class people by giving money to Buffett for windmills and raising utility prices. They have now driven off well educated suburban women because of their fake Kavanaugh ploy.
6
White men are told they can't have an opinion and to "shut up" precisely and only because they are white men. The feminist movement has stopped seeking equality, as we achieved that long ago, and instead have sought a complete reversal, placing themselves not beside, but above, men. Of course there will be a backlash when you offer your opinion and you're told, "oh you're privileged, just shut up, you're not allowed to have an opinion on this."
The left and the feminist movement has become pathetic. Until they change, you'll continue lose.
9
White men don't wanna share the world. They want it all to themselves, as It always has been. They musta missed that Sunday school lesson about sharing .
3
Look, when The NY Times Editorial Board feels that it is ok to hire somebody who has posted hundreds, if not thousands, of blatantly anti-white tweets, such anxiety is not unreasonable.
12
So why I am constantly reading articles about lack of diversity in schools? Why do AA and Latino students need whites in there classes? If white are so bad and dumb then why kids of other ethnicities need them in their schools? Why do we want to mix neighborhoods if whites are bad people?
6
And Charles represents all men that judge people by the color of their skin.
14
"White male victimization anxiety"
Or, as most people call it, respect for due process.
9
If a Republican gets accused of misconduct.
Trump: “Totally false accusations and fake news. She should be ashamed of herself. I reaffirm my endorsement for this candidate.”
If a Democrat gets accused of misconduct.
Trump: “Absolutely guilty, no question about it. They should resign, shame on them. Rapist.”
Mr. Blow, you have a real problem with White people in general and White men specifically. First thing, if the title of the article were changed to "Black Male Victimisation Anxiety", it could be in a White Supremacist publication.
With respect to the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, you, of all people should be able to empathise. A 36 year old charge, against a drunk preppy white boy, isn't all that different from a Black teen stopped by the Police, because he's a Black teen. No evidence. No witnesses and in Kavanaugh's case, no victim memory.
"Trump is the paragon, the epitome, of this white male victimisation." That is one way to look at Trump. However, after 3 years in the political arena, DJT punches back at every attack. White Republicans are supposed to cry and apologise and, and, and. But, when the big dog bites back, he's wrong. Maybe you should become more accepting of other people. Or, be more expecting of push back.
As for Obama. I was not impressed. That makes me a racist. If you don't like Trump it's because he's evil. Yada, yada, yada. Mr. Blow, did you ever thank all of the White people, especially the White men that voted for Obama? He never would have been elected, without their vote.
Lastly, you're upset at Kanye for leaving the plantation. He didn't escape after dark. He did not stealthily evade the hounds. He walked out the front door. If what Trump says about Black employment is true, Kanye won't be walking out alone.
6
Trump is and acts like a fool, obviously. But the NY Times'
regular, thoughtlessly pejorative screeds about bad "whiteness" are also foolish. Substitute in Jew for white in Blow's article and it becomes anti-semitic.
Half the country wants a revolution away from Trump and the unchecked power of the brutishly nasty Republicans. But as one "bad white person" sang: "if you want money for people with minds that hate, all I can tell you is brother you'll have to wait." That goes for the left and the right.
If articles such as Blow's are the best the left can do, it has a long way to go to win a general election.
8
Charles, white male victimization anxiety is simply one of the symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
4
You're quoting sources from 15-24 year olds?
Sorry, but your tone is racist as well. White men feeling undermined. Your school of thought is desperate to make white men "feel" undermined, when in fact your article is talking about very few white men and cannot possibly capture the feelings of all white men. So, once again, we make blanket generalizations in the hope of swaying public opinion. Ironically, it was a white man who abolished slavery. Just sayin.
13
@John "Ironically, it was a white man who abolished slavery. Just sayin..."
Because all the black people in government at the time could have done it...?
3
@markd Try thinking about what you write for a change. Instead of following the Kanye West method of trying to say something profound and it just comes out sounding ridiculous and narcissistic. Because all the black people in government at the time could have done it. Hm. No, genius, because a WHITE PERSON had (and yes, deserves credit for) the decency to say it was wrong. Your statement is extremely arrogant and condescending as well, assuming I don't know there were no blacks in office at the time. Why don't you put a different lens on your camera other than the "angry, entitled, black, you-owe-me American" lens. And while you're at it - go have a conversation with a black person from another country, say Ethiopia, Kenya, where they will most likely call out the black behavior in this country as, well, angry and entitled. (yes, I've had such conversations and found them very enlightening to say the least)
The fact that black support of Trump has increased to somewhere around 30% must blowing Blow's mind. Black folk are coming around to the fact that Trump is not a raving racist, and the fact that under Trump's leadership unemployment among black folk is at historical lows.
5
Read this and decided to vote Republican.
12
“The evocation of his white maleness in his argument was an overt shot at the check-your-privilege crowd.”
Do you ever realize how overblown your rhetoric is? And how you say the same things over and over again?
6
Like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, these “victims” have Texas fever, fatal in every instance. The diseased “victims”need to be quarantined, and for those thinking they may be “victims”, we can dip them in a vat to protect the white male species as of yet untreated for the disease.
All you have to do is examine Chuck Grassley and the other white GOP herd sitting on the right, to know that they are in the last stages: saggy flesh, pointing fingers, hissy fits, hysterical ravings some of the symptoms.
As the disease progresses, these “victims” see their female counterparts as the true cause of their symptoms, so they kick up a whirlwind of dust and run roughshod over them before they take their last breath.
1
Thank you.
2
I know so many white men 50 and older who have the victim hood complex,most are just victims of their stupid shortsighted decisions. Too many marriages, overspending on homes,vehicles, and their adult children.
4
"....make America's white men feel great again." And the white women who love them.
4
I think it's objectively true that efforts to increase diversity will harm white men, especially in fields and pursuits (e.g. top-tier higher education and executive promotions) where positions are limited and where white men have enjoyed a dominant position forever. Believing that to be true is not in the same factual ballpark as believing white men are discriminated against more than minorities. That does not make it any less the right thing to do, however, in order to remove unjust barriers and as redress for prior discrimination and oppression.
2
Sign held by a geezer on the corner of Center and Burleson:
Must women lose
for men to 'win"?
1
Own it Trump and cohorts. We get it. What you really want to say is: "White male supremacy now. White male supremacy tomorrow. White male supremacy forever."
2
Trump is the perfect mascot for white males who don't want to give it up their privilege and entitlement. He was born a rich white male yet been complaining about how unfair everything is his entire life. They all need to get their derrières kicked.
1
As always, Charles Blow puts things right: clearly written and cogently argued. Thank you, Mr. Blow.
One might add (and this is not to detract from Blow's essay—I realize that there are word count limits by which he must abide) that once the GOP took back the Senate in President Obama's first term, those feelings of white backlash came out into the open. Senator McConnell's opposition to all things Obama was hardly suppressed though his and his party's animus to Obama as a black man were repressed—they were there all along though they went unmentioned.
Thank you, again, Mr. Blow.
Tom Claire, Newtown, Conn.
3
No "anxiety"--Armstrong walked on the moon carrying with him the Western European intellectual tradition.
The rest--"white male victimization" nonsense--is post-Modern cultural Marxism ad nauseam from our Sovietized New York City mass-media central.
The modern world that has brought so many out of poverty is "white male"--as is the "Bill of Rights".
5
I don’t even know why you bothered Mr. Blow. If their moms, wives, sisters, cousins, or White female co-workers aren’t able to influence their behavior then you know no person of color can.
It’s almost as if those women are complicit.
1
I admittedly pine for a future where women will run the world- goodness knows we can't do a worse job than men who are busy running it into the ground. (BTW: we Black folks have REVOKED Kanye's Black Card, he's hitherto persona non grata to us.)
1
@Keely
Yes, it's a shame men can't get anything right. Like, virtually every major invention and scientific achievement in history and an ever improving standard of living our ancestors couldn't have imagined.
1
The idea of a zero sum game is ludicrous. The GOP, these white supremacists (which most of them are), cannot see nuance or shades of gray. Everything is black or white, good or evil. Their loss is my gain, and vice versa. How simplistic a view of life!!
I am sick and tired of these privileged white men who believe it is their absolute right to take whatever they want, at whatever price to anyone else. No white person can really know what it is like to be a person of color. And those arrogant, white men, such as our supposed "leaders," are the most pathetic of all.
I miss President Obama more than I can say. He was up against Mitch McConnell, the human doorstop, unable even to get his Supreme Court candidate a hearing. Those white GOP human road blocks make me sick.
May our next president be someone with both a brain and a heart. Like Obama.
11
@D. GableYes, unlike you democrats who want to attack people in restaurants and gas stations. Just ask Maxine Waters. Or, a reporter pretending to cut off the president's head. Tolerance.
3
Trump is the epitome of weakness, also having to assert his strength because no one sees any strength in him, except as a bully and a fraud. Obama had his problems, but he didn't have to go around puffing out his chest due to insecurities. Trump will forever be a weakling, as will of my fellow white males who wouldn't know real discrimination and bigotry if it sat in their lap.
2
I think of Donald's Dad giving him $200,000. while still in the crib, and then increasing his allowance to a million a year by the time Donald got to Kindergarten. It was very unfair when Citibank made Donald give up his yacht during one of his bankruptcies. And so many people have sued Donald because he does not pay them, how dare they demand wages, etc. Donald thinks he should get away with everything because he is a celeb: assaulting women, tax fraud, and maybe even treason. He is special.
2
The primary perpetrators of oppression tell themselves a very different story to justify their evil, Mr. Blow. By twisting themselves into victims, they absolve themselves of wrongdoing. The predator in chief will never have a smidgen of the character, heart and intelligence of President Obama. He will never forget that a black man (of any station) made fun of him.
These victim white boys think nothing of bringing the rest of us down with them. If Kavanaugh was so concerned about the harm to his family, he would have withdrawn his nomination. As it is, he will always be known as a misogynist sexual assault perpetrator. He did not "man" up when he had the chance.
Their souls are gone and they are very unhappy people-- these greedy, narcissistic white men in power. They are desperate and dangerous. They do not believe the rest of us: that we simply want shared power and equality. The patriarchal dualism--us/them, win/lose--is regressive and not part of the evolution of our species. We can only hope they are a dying breed rather than the beginning of the end. And we must continue to speak truth to power.
1
I would like to hear Senator Lindsey Graham speak to the nation just why he believes he should not shut up.
2
No doubt about it that there’s a lot of prejudice against white men now. Fact is, Americans love a lynch mob. Doesn’t matter if it’s for a black man, gay man or white man. As long as people have someone to hate, they’re happy.
8
@Jack Lee Fact is, human beings love a lynch mob. That's a human characteristic, not a specifically American one.
2
When a man of one race writes an article that generalizes and criticizes another race of men, as a group, that is very close to the very definition of racism.
17
Could it be that white men simply want to preserve many of those things they've created and have benefitted mankind? African Americans still make up just 1% of the entire tech industry. No anxiety there I assure you.
3
Discrimination against whites? Good god, I've just taken a swan dive through the looking glass and the pool is empty.
Ok, let's put away the broad brush demonizing ALL white males. The oppressors referred to are a tiny subset of the group, typically born into excessive privilege, who are clueless about the real world. Lumping all white males together as a mass demon will only perpetuate conflict. You know better, Charles.
8
@dajoebabe It seems to me that both Mr. Blow and some of his readers have a few PERSONAL axes to grind that are driving this over the top hostility.
3
Is Blow’s theory right about some white men? Probably. But why generalize to all white men? Does he know that there are plenty of white men who are Democrats, allies for minorities, community organizers, doctors and lawyers to treat minorities or defend them in court?
Does he realize that many of the white men he is calling out voted for Obama twice, only to be turned away by the terrible candidacy of Hillary Clinton? Ostensibly, something must have happened between 2012 and 2016 to these white males who flipped for Trump or didn’t vote at all. According to Blow they must have devolved to become racist and sexist demons who fear that their white privilege is being swiped away from them. What a crazy, crazy theory. Not only that, it has hints of reverse racism and sexism.
This white man—who has always reliably voted Democrat and works as a primary care physician at a public health clinic in a major US city caring for a predominantly minority and homeless population—has completely had it with the social justice warriors who demonize good, decent white men simply because of their sex and color of their skin. It truly is scary stuff. If this is he way of the new Democratic Party, count me out and pretty much any other good, decent white man in the future.
9
White men control all three branches of government, state legislatures, the majority of media outlets, the majority of national and international businesses, majority of wealth in the United States and yet, they are victims. Most of us would like to share in their victimhood of privilege, power and wealth. This is truly bizarro land where truth and reality do not exists for the privilege white man. SMH
3
It’s rich. The man-child who became a millionaire when he was barely out of diapers thinks life is unfair. The ignoramus who took out a full page ad in the Times to call for the death penalty for the Central Park Five (who happened to be innocent of the crime with which they were accused) bemoans false accusations. Could somebody please point this hypocrisy to Trump? Or all the “best people” he hired to busy lining their own pockets?
10
Yep. (From an old white female who is tired of over entitled old white males, husband excepted.)
2
We’re not worried we’re losing ground but white men do get tired of being called names— “toxic” “poisoned by our testosterone”, being blamed for everything wrong with society, and told that all our achievements are due to unfair advantage and everything being handed to us.
White men don’t like being stereotyped—misogynist, racist, elitist, greedy, heartless, drunken, date rapists—anymore than minorities or women do but because we’re white men it’s all ok.
After all, it is all our fault.
5
I agree with everything Mr Blow has written and isn't it one of the most repelling of all images in modern life. The image of the sniveling, whining white male (picture Kavanaugh at his hearings) who believes that African Americans and women are better off than he is. Do any of them seriously down deep believe that in our country it is easier to be black than white? Do any of them really believe, if the tables were reversed, for example, and gay men started hitting on them, that life is really easier for women? If any of them seriously believe these things, then they are truly pathetic and probably need a good dose of back bone.
8
Not all white males. I am personally acquainted with some, I can tell you they are swell. An immigrant like me would get nowhere if white males were not awesome to a fault.
But I can see why those who do feel victimized, feel that way. The likes of you (African American) and me (immigrant from a non-Norwegian country) have deprived them of a life they expected.
So now they went zero to straight up nihilists; slash-and-burn mode. ACA gone. Justice corrupted. Education gutted. Infrastructure demolished. A president who is distinctive in crookedness in power, his senators subservient knaves. And religion as a sociopolitical force to subdue others - in resurgence. All this to show us who is really in charge.
Some are truly hurting. Take a look at the opiate deaths, and the under-medication related deaths in some of their demographic sub-segments. If things are so bad, I can see why they would rather sell their souls to the Russians, than see the likes of you and me live free (they proclaim this on t-shirts, no inference drawing necessary). It trumps suicide.
But here is what we need to own. They are politically engaged and vote. We aren't, and don't. They are angry, we are self-satisfied. They have elevated the pulling of religion and hate-related levers into high art. We are traders of hard luck stories. They are strident when wrong. We are mewling when right. They are steel and gunpowder, we are substance-free rainbows. Ergo, we lose in the long run.
5
Whoever gets elected wins. VOTE!
5
Could not agree more, vote
Trump's new schtick is "Everyone has gone crazy except for me".
Today he said the Federal Reserve has gone crazy.
So Trump is baiting America with the crazy female mob, his new definition of #MeToo. Affirmative Action was unfair too. Look at how hard white males had to work to retain their privileged positions. It's unfair to want equal pay or a place in the classroom.
Or equal justice under the law. Let's ask Treyvon Martin how innocent until proven guilty worked for Him? He was up to something! don't you know.
It's about power and money which white males have the greatest share. And let's not forget the white women who benefit from their 'man' having the most bucks.
Let's not divide ourselves but join together for fairness and decency.
1
Lindsay Graham should indeed shut up except to apologize to hurricane victims in the Carolinas for his denial of climate science. And Trump should apologize for the "terrible pain and suffering" his administration has inflicted on the United States and the rest of the world. As for the white male victimization syndrome in Trumpland, they ain't seen nothing yet.
5
Mr. Blow,
You do a great disservice to all people by slicing humanity into categories. I am a unique individual, yet by your definitions you attempt to complete a checklist to label me into a category that fits your needs.
I refuse to accept that I can be dissected by your hypothetical “sum of my parts”. It is dehumanizing, and furthers the discrimination of our society.
17
European-American men have run this country since its founding. Their hold on power is not yet threatened by the dramatic demographic transformation underway.
So, this make European-American sense of oppression sounds false or simply delusional.
Perhaps these men are afraid because a once overwhelmingly European-American nation is steadily becoming less so.
In my nearly 70 years of life I have witnessed remarkable and dramatic changes in the nation's ethnic and racial composition. Perhaps European-American men and some women see their privileged status endangered by these changes.
As a young man, I saw that Latinos, African-Americans were a miniscule minority, severely marginalized and utterly powerless.
Today, there many millions more of us, and we steadily are finding our way into professions and careers that once were closed to us. We now have a voice that is being heard.
America is destined to become a much more diverse nation. That reality can be embraced or feared.
1
Imagine, Trump and Kanye West together. Must be a one-on-one, since there's no space in any room for anything more than those two narcissists and their massive egos.
"White male victimization anxiety" is merely a euphemism for racism. Don't stop writing about the pervasive principal problem in America- massive racism. Whether open or hidden, millions of Americans hold varying degrees of hatred for Blacks, other minorities and the LGBTQ community.
2
Charles, nice Op-Ed. Thanks.
1
This, too, is true. Charles Blow has been accurately describing what is wrong with Trump since he became President. It seems. and is in fact, no end to it. It is amazing that this one person can display so very many horrible qualities on qa weekly, if not daily basis for so long.
1
I’m getting a little tired of these broad brush articles by Mr. Blow. Next, we’ll be hearing that the FBI hounded Ernest Hemingway because his skin had been over-darkened by the tropical sun, or that Chelsea Manning would have escaped prison if she had stopped short of turning female.
Trumpism is about the preservation of wealth in an unfair economic system. It manipulates lower class whites, and takes advantage of their religious credulity, but the overall driving force is not racism. The rich Jews have fitted in just fine with the GOP, and if there were more black billionaires, they’d be fitted in just as easily.
The broad brush is sometimes useful, but mostly for whitewash and concealment. It’s a shame to see it back in Mr. Blow’s hands.
2
It's Big Brother House, Survivor and the Bachelor all rolled into one. It's Facebook fake and Twitter idiocy. It's the lowest common denominator. It's McConnell and Ryan and Collins oh my.
1
I'm a 60 year old, married for 30 years (to my one and only wife) white male construction contractor, and I think Lindsey Graham and his fellow hypocrites should shut up.
I'm sick and tired of being assumed to be one of the deplorable trumpkins because of my age, race, and profession. Despite my demographic, I'm a proud lifelong LIBRUL.
I don't want to understand why trumpkin sycophants feel so 'persecuted'. Conservatives and Evangelicals have repeatedly proven themselves to be complicit with the moral bankruptcy and gutter politics of our churlish, manchild President. I'm tired of turning the other cheek to their bogus hurt feelings.
I will vote against any and every Republican for the rest of my life. The Midterms can't get here soon enough.
I hope both Trump and Kavanaugh will be impeached and forced to resign in disgrace.
11
@Kevin C.
You will vote for the losing party then, and you will be disappointed because neither Gentlemen will be Impeached. Dems have to get the House first and they just lost that with this confirmation battle.
1
“I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.”
—Lindsey Graham
Let’s see.
The fifth word in the above sentence is a hoax. Everyone knows, including Trump, that Graham identifies as a female.
The sooner the Graham accepts himself, the better it would be for his self-esteem and sanity.
And since the kompromat that Trump has on him won’t matter anymore, Graham can now go back to calling Trump’s policies “exercises in stupidity.”
Be loud Senator Graham!
Be proud Senator Graham!
Love is love Senator Graham!
3
Kanye and the Donald? Sounds like a festival of egotists. Meh.
1
Most white Americans are justifiably furious about unjustifiable favoritism — affirmative action was fine for a generation — it has now gone on for three generations // it is well past time to end it and make everyone compete on their own merits
6
It is interesting though, how the Fake President loves to selectively and quite publicly surround himself with non-whites, so long as they notables in the athletic, entertainment, political, religious, or business fields. It is the “common” working or middle class non-whites that this manipulative and entirely phony Trump reviles. Of course, he similarly could care less about their white, socioeconomic brethren. The man is nothing but an empty vessel.
1
Thanks for another great thought piece, Charles!!! Keep 'em coming.......
Charles, I've long appreciated your columns. I also think Trump is not fit to shine Obama's shoes, I firmly believe that everyone has the right to be free of assault, harassment and intimidation, and I'm pulling for the Dems to win back Congress and the Presidency.
Yet I was also born a white male, and so I reply as follows.
First, not all white males are drunken rapist frat boys. Second, as a university prof for decades, I've observed that the one group that can be openly slandered in academia is white males. Beyond that, I've watched for years as minority and especially white female graduate students with little or no teaching or publishing experience are hired for tenure track jobs over male PhD's in the same subdiscipline far more accomplished on both accounts. This, even though the latter group also studied for years, and have tens of thousands in student loans to pay off. Whether or not we call them victims, they are "persons," just like you and me, fully protected by the civil rights laws and 14th Amendment.
Finally, I vote, and when even smart, thoughtful folks like you make sweeping derogatory race and gender generalizations about white males, you are saying you don't want my vote. This seems like a poor strategy for reclaiming power.
9
Yes. And that's why I voted for Trump and will again--no matter what he does. Between Charles Blow and Lindy West, I'll never vote Dem again.
5
Trump is, to use two of his favorite adjectives, a disaster and a disgrace.
This country is headed off a cliff, and it's up to the voters to slam on the brakes next month.
Excellent points! Women are tired of this victim mentality when he is the real abuser. He will never rise to the level and respect of Obama.
1
What anxiety was the Clarence Thomas case?
3
If you can find a group of people who can't feel good about themselves unless they can constantly put others down, then you can go far in this world. Racists are the easiest people to manipulate because they are already committed to believing in fiction. Trump is their hero because he deliberately insults and demeans whomever he wants. They love it when he does this.
Complex solutions to complex problems? Forget about it! Build the Wall! Ban all Muslims! This kind of simplistic black and white thinking inevitably leads to violence.
3
Not content to just pit whites against blacks, Christians against Muslims, whites against immigrants, and rural communities against urban communities, Trump now promotes "Boys against Girls." The US is eating itself and, in the meantime, destroying mother earth with his climate change policies.
2
Charles Blow is of course right about the wielding of white male victimization in the White House. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The Trump brand of victimization is not bound by any morphology or type; it is a new, transferrable currency offered to the world. Want proof? Look at what Melania said today in her ABC 20/20 interview: ‘I Could Say That I’m the Most Bullied Person in the World.’ That level of victimization is populist bitcoin.
Why should these white guys change? Their way of dealing with things has worked, far beyond their wildest dreams. For eons they have abused women. What percentage of them have actually paid a price for that or faced any repercussion for 30-40 years? They were successful in building a lovely " inclusive " facade over racism that has worked for a very long time. We don't lynch anymore , do we? And look...we are in the year 2018, and no Republican women on the judiciary committee, still no woman as president, the black man who was has had any evidence of him even being in the White House just about erased. A guy who brags about grabbing women elected with 0 consequences. A guy who spent his youth partying hardy and possibly assaulting women now on the Supreme Court. And just listen to how all the Republican men speak about women. And look at the Republican women who fawn over those men and ignore their words, their behavior, and their unkept promises. Look at Marsha Blackburn hugging Trump. Look at Pence who locks up his wife so she can't be in the same room with another man (um that would be another white man, right Mike?). So what's the big deal for white men? Why would anyone even consider that these men are in jeopardy? Americans have always had their back because if you want things done right, it has to be a white man. Look at the picture with this article. Two peas in a pod. We are coming for you. Bfrett, time to part your hair the other way. VOTE.
Unless Mr. Blow is planning a revolution, the goodwill and votes of the much derided and presumably anxious white males will be necessary. Conflating white males and Nazis can only serve to increase said anxieties. One must be careful with generalizations about demographic groups, especially one as diverse as white males. Mr. Blow may feel he is landing rhetorical blows for justice long denied, but his points seem immature and counterproductive from where I stand.
9
Reading rantings and listening to Republican members of Congress, their sense of entitlement is appalling and brings to mind dinosaurs. Their extinction can't come soon enough.
2
The ultimate symbol of white male victimization anxiety (WMVA) is of course former President Obama, who suppressed his half-white heritage - presumably out of shame.
We're still waiting for the book Dreams from My Mother to be published. We're also waiting for Mr. Blow to write a column encouraging former President Obama to write this unifying book, speaking to the values of both genetic streams, black and white, male and female.
Waiting.
Assuming the Democratic party does not continue energizing the Republican base with Nadler et al pre-election, self-defeating statements about a Democratic majority impeaching Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court one can hope DJT will become for all to see a victim of his own stupidity and his own words.
Without question this is one of the most insightful opinion pieces the NYT has posted since Trump’s election. While it is true in every respect, it doesn’t go far enough.
The fact of the matter is every group uses this strategy. Who can forget OJ Simpson playing the part of the poor black man, wrongfully accused? Likewise, there are numerous examples of females stoking the flames of the #metoo Movement to try to help their group.
We all have to be intelligent. More than that, when your group over steps it’s boundaries, attempting to push some form of unfairness for no reason but exploiting the moment, you need to speak out. This is the only thing that separates legitimate movements from fraud. In my mind there is no question that blacks are targeted by law enforcement. Yet, not every black man shot by the police is a martyr.
When minorities blindly support their own kind for gain, they are not unlike the sad white males that cry foul in these ridiculous times
This is easy for me. I am a white male, and I very easily recognize the fraudulent claims of other white males that try to suggest that our claims are unfairly being stripped away.
It’s time for a movement of intelligence— accross all lines of race, creed and sex—to legitimize right and wrong and halt this ridiculous display of rationalizing.
What I wouldn’t give to have a few people actually present an argument that doesn’t serve their own purpose!
White men are to blame for most everything. Even climate change. We wouldn't have climate change if the white man hadn't invented all of that technology that makes our lives so wonderful yet pollutes the air. Plus they spread all that industrialisation and democracy throughout the globe so that people can live better lives...yet they are just poisoning our environment. The only answer is to shun and debase white men and undo all of their creations. That is the only way to save the planet.
3
Some white men will not tolerate a truly level playing field. Civil War: confederate soldiers, losers, joined the KKK and created Jim Crow.
"My race needs no special defense for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere, all they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."
Robert Smalls, 1895, former slave and US House of Representatives.
1
Talk about proving Charles Blow's point. A bunch of (apparently white and apparently male) commentators are upset because they seem to think Blow is bagging on them. I read the article twice to make sure, but nowhere in this article did Charles Blow say "white people are bad" or "men are bad" or anything remotely like that. All he wrote was that Trump is trying to promote a toxic mentality that somehow white men are being victimized when anybody else gets ahead in this country. He cites some statistical evidence that, sadly, this mentality seems prevalent. But nowhere does he condemn a whole race or gender.
And, yes, I suppose Blow is saying Trump is bad and Kavanaugh is bad and Lindsey Graham is bad. But are you one of those three people?
I think Blow might have a point here. A lot of white fellas appear quite eager to seem themselves as victims...even as victims as something as insignificant as an op-ed article.
1
@citybumpkin Let's go through a few points together.
Point 1: Half a population says it is discriminated against (statistics). It must mean they are all delusional, since, how could a white man be discriminated against? (prejudice)
Point 2: "[...] represent for many men a [...] moment of standing proud in their patriarchy and [...] saying [...] they will share no more power".
That's the place where he says "many" (not most) white men are bad, since you asked.
Point 3: The comments on a "perception of a zero-sum relationship" and on men's "tendency to believe" that "if things are better for women[/minorities], things are worse [for] men". When the policy of choice is quotas/"affirmative action", it is by definition a zero-sum game.
Point 4: If you accept the above, then the article is itself, an attack on a population group... That says this population group is delusional for thinking they are under attack. Of course it's going to get adverse comments. And it should. It is a racist article, by someone from which better is expected, since he's a good and intelligent opinion writer.
1
Sir, As I I understand, 60% of white women voted for Trump. Maybe white women are the problem. Is that possible?
4
@Bob Baskerville 53% of white women voted for trump. That’s bad enough so let’s not make it 60%. I’m a white woman, so let’s talk about that 53%. They are rural, white, mid-west, southern, working class, non educated women, who are equally in fear of their husbands, boyfriends, etc., losing their whiteness. When women got the right to vote, they typically voted the way their husbands did. I believe with this 53%, they are also subjected to their male counterparts anxiety and fears. Additionally, those white men, who most feel their loss of whiteness are also stuck between what they through life was going to be because of their whiteness to the fact that culture, economy, and technology has moved past them.
As much as “trump is on campaign to make America’s white men feel great”, women are on a mission to correct this imbalance of power.
2
I often wondered why Trump kept attaching Silicone Valley's leaders. Bezos (Amazon) - Cuban; Pichai (Google) - Indian; Nadella (Microsoft) - Indian; Narayen (Adobe) - Indian. These are colored men taking over positions that were (once) entitled to White Men.
From the moment he descended from the escalator spewing a transparent mantra of white nationalism, he stole from the Breitbart playbook, he has been race baiting America in every way possible. In fact, since it has never failed to rile up his base, he hasn't drifted far from the 'white victimization' theme. The only difference today is that he is now focusing more on 'white male victimization' and his mascot is Brett Kavanaugh. He is now throwing women into the mix with the Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, and other minorities as another 'mob' who white men, like myself, need to fear.
It's hard for me to fathom how anyone with a mother, daughter, or sister would not find his misogynistic and racist diatribes revolting. I can only hope that he has tipped his hand and that the people of our country aren't buying his fear mongering any longer.
He has mocked the disabled and attacked a POW, it doesn't get any lower than that. He might as well vilify victims of sexual assault, the old white men in Congress like Lindsey Graham, aren't going to say a word. It's time for America to speak up at the ballot box and stop this abomination.
3
The notion that white men are "suffering" is so ludicrous only a two-year-old could come up with it...or the emotional equivalent of a two-year-old...crybabies, all.
Men and women of real ability, real talent, real achievement welcome friendly competition from all quarters because it sharpens their own skills and develops their own intellectual muscles. What they possess is not just skin-deep; it is the result of hard work and laser focus, and cannot be acquired simply by being born to parents of a certain race.
If you can't stay "up" without pushing everyone else "down" you really aren't superior in any way, are you? You're really just a bully, the end result of self-aggrandizing fantasies mixed with pure mediocrity and self-pity.
1
Next week I'll cast my early vote for Governor, Stacey Abrams Lieutenant Governor, Sarah Amico, State Senator, Jen Jordan, State Representative Betsy Holland, and John Lewis U.S. Representative.
From this 75 year old white man to all those whimpering white men who are threatened by the ladies, hang on to your hats, they're coming after you in droves and are angry as all get out.
I can't wait!
1
" I guess I can't even talk to women anymore for fear I'll be called a sexual predator."
That is the type of indignant, exaggerated straw man argument that guilty people use.
1
"The women accusing the white man of assault weren’t the victims; instead, the white man was the victim. In some people’s eyes, he was the victim of political correctness, #MeToo’s overreach, a check-your-white-male-privilege culture drunk on its own self-righteousness."
Questions for Mr. Blow:
How many individuals supposedly at the house where the alleged assault of Dr. Ford (as she is now known) supported her account?
Just wondering.
How many individuals supposedly at the Yale dormitory party supported the account of Deborah Ramirez who alleged Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to her?
Just wondering.
How many individuals supported the account of Julie Swetnick who alleged she had been gang-raped at parties where Brett Kavanaugh and his Georgetown Prep friends were present?
Just wondering.
There were many legitimate reasons to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
Hysteria and Sexual McCarthyism are not among them.
My late father always told me that before accusing someone of anything I should be prepared to back it up.
From my perspective, his accusers failed to do so.
The Me Too movement is vitiated by the deficiencies in the accusations against (now) Justice Kavanaugh.
4
@jbartelloni "Hysteria and Sexual McCarthyism" are not in play at all but they sure are a convenient way to dismiss a very real problem. Intellectually lazy but convenient, for sure.
Don’t you love stereotyping. Of course, only when it’s used against Republicans, otherwise I fight it with all my soul.
3
White male here, don't feel like I'm losing ground, although many think I should be I guess. President is a boor of highest sort, but the one thing he has done is lain bare all of those institutions and their denizens who are as boorish as he is, yet think their profundity is somehow cogent.
1
Behind all that hatred, resentment and indignation lurks The Donald's inability to earn the respect of his late father (a white man!) and a bunch of other rich men's sons (also white!) who wouldn't accept such a parvenu into their hermetic high-society. And behind even that lurks his classic male anxiety over the length and performance of his unnaturally tiny...hands.
3
Bernie Sanders filled that emotional void felt by the white working class. Pity the Clintonistas weren't listening.
1
White men are not allowed to feel pain. White men don't suffer, their loved ones don't get disease, their children are not born disabled. I drove a cab in Kings Point, NY and drove from the GN rail station a wealthy man, a law partner at a prestigious firm who became very upset and started yelling in the backseat at the cars speeding by. Well the backstory was thirty years before his five year old son was riding in bike on Kings Point Rd and was hit by a car, thrown a hundred feet in the air and died. He was in the car crying, "I told him (his son) not to ride in the street".
2
As published: "It was also an outright and increasing amplification of a reactionary white male victimization syndrome that has consumed modern American conservatism."
I would modestly suggest replacing "that has consumed" with "that characterizes."
Many thanks.
1
"... And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around."
NO ONE - let alone someone facing the most idiotic nomination process for the Supreme Court conducted by Trump's GOP court jesters - is entitled to threaten me.
And where is the legitimacy of a nomination from Trump who is currently under a criminal investigation that has nailed and received guilty please from 32 people, thus far.
1
I am glad you spelled it out so clearly. Most people see
this going on, but do not say it so well. I am a white woman and grew up with these white men, not privileged ones, but blue and white collar workers. And most tried to be nice guys, but were horribly insecure and were taught to act like a Man, which meant taking charge, blustering their way through, denigrating feelings,demanding things, making the little women get them coffee while they were doing nothing and she was getting dinner and dealing with the kids, and the little woman consented to be his servant. ( I am old so this was back in the day of the nasty old men in congress)
I told a black male friend of mine that I remember the fathers were in such competition with their sons and gave them so little respect, the boys felt worthless and perpetually tried to prove themselves. Hence the lording it over everyone else. This does not justify their behavior and in reality they are big sniveling, terrified babies. But they got away with acting out (tantrums anyone?) by crushing women and minorities and never had to grow up.
These white men are terrified when they become the minority, they will get treated with the same cruelty they treated others,deep down they know they were terribly wrong and they still feel worthless.
Not all white men, many are decent compassionate grown ups, but there are enough of the other kind to wreak misery and havoc on the rest of us. Their day is ending. And I am glad.
3
Surprisingly my (white) son and husband were both angrier about Kavanaugh than I was (a white woman). They were outraged. Frankly, Trump and Kavanaugh are a thorn in the side of decent white guys.
3
"It was also an outright and increasing amplification of a reactionary white male victimization syndrome that has consumed modern American conservatism."
Precisely. That and many seem to be suffering from a bad case of misogyny...
2
I don't get it. I'm a white guy, the son of successful businessman to boot, and I admit I have enjoyed all the privileges of that status. I am neither proud nor ashamed of the circumstances of my birth and upbringing — I had nothing to do with them. But how in the world could I feel like a" victim"? That's crazy. I would simply like for all Americans to have the same opportunities I did. Want to talk about "unfair"? Consider that 44 of our 45 presidents have been white guys. I say, let's give a non-white guy or a woman a shot once in a while. I'm sure we'll always have more white guy presidents. When racial minorities and women are given opportunities to fulfill their potential, then everyone in our society benefits, including us white guys. Come on, fellow white guys — get with the program!
6
Anyone who has read much of Mr. Blow's work knows he is incapable of seeing any debate as something which does not have race at it's core. He is reporting first and foremost on his own state of mind, not the world outside it.
11
Another spot on piece, Mr. Blow. White men have been doing this for centuries, nothing new here. They reverse the relationships to confuse and continue the oppression. So the victim becomes the aggressor and the aggressor becomes the victim. Up is down, right is wrong. I've seen this my whole life. It's called "the game." The GOP is the perfect example of this. They got voted in by rigging the system and complaining that the very people they oppress and violate were rigging the system. White people are crazy. Who else could come with a term as stupid as "reverse discrimination" and talk about it as if it were a real thing? As long as white boys like Kavanaugh can get a job like Supreme Court Justice, not based on his work or character, but just for being a back slappin' good ol' boy, they can just stuff another ear of corn in that hole. I don't see the point of listening to the "other side" if all they want to do is lie. My ears have better things to do.
2
As I watched the recent triumph of male privilege over the challenge of women who raised their voices in the wake of the bravery of Christine Blasey Ford, it hit me that—even more than whiteness—the ultimate trump card in our society is and always has been maleness.
Since the inception of our country black men at least had three-fifths of a vote. Women had no franchise at all until the twentieth century. No vote at all—not even a paltry three-fifths of one—for the first century and a half of our country’s existence.
And who are the primary victims of sexual violence? One in every three women has experienced some sort of sexual assault in her lifetime. One in every six has been the victim of rape or attempted rape. Compare that to one in every 33 men—the overwhelming bulk of whom were assaulted by other men.
So who is playing the victim card here? Men? Men who overwhelmingly dominate Congress to the tune of four to one? Men who thump their Bibles and dominate the Church? Men who are still legally declared heads of their households under some state laws? And our own president apologizes to them—on behalf of our COUNTRY?
Women are half of this country. And while there are evidently still plenty of Phyllis Schaflys here who are quite content to cede their space to men, I for one want my half. And I will demand it at the polls come November.
3
Look, I’m a white guy and a liberal and I don’t like the administration any more than Mr. Blow does. I certainly don’t consider myself a victim of increasing diversity — I’m glad for the change.
That being said, reading column after column like this one (especially from Mr. Blow), which pins all of the evil in the world on traits I share but can’t change — not to mention comments that say people who look like me deserve hate because they’ve been in power “for 10,000 years” (let me just refelect on my long lifespan) — is disheartening and makes me see my own side differently. Why should I listen to a man who mocks a man who looks like me for mocking others?
I would like to suggest that Mr. Blow criticizes those who won’t give up their privilege less, and starts setting a positive example in examining one’s privilege — starting with himself. He is a man, after all — how about he addresses his own masculinity, his own participation in this patriarchal system?
9
@Empathic Man
Mr. Blow wrote a marvelous op-ed about "The Man Problem" some months ago. I can't give you a link, but you should look it up. As woman, I was very grateful to read it.
Your "look, I'm a white guy" attitude is less obnoxious than most, so I will try to enlighten you a bit. I understand that you are weary of being blamed for every ill of society. I began my engineering career before 'affirmation action.' I've been around for a long time. When I got the "leave your white privilege at the door" message before the first woman's march, I was outraged. I didn't feel all that "privileged" when I was getting men used to the idea of a woman in a "man's job."
But, I also had to admit that it would have been even more difficult had I been a black woman. Rage and empathy at the same time, a curious combination of emotions.
I know this social warrior stuff can be excessive, but try to temper it with the understanding that there is a reason for it. I went to the women's marches, so I guess I'm a social justice warrior also. For what it's worth, I'm married to a white man. I don't blame him for anything, and he's not taking all this personally. He knows he's at the top of the food chain and it's time for things to change.
1
As an old white guy myself, I am embarrassed by my demographic - a generally entitled, lucky, well-off group that seems to now be weeping in weakness and perceived victimhood.
Boo-hoo! Man up, guys. You're better than this weakling president who has had everything given to him and cries when confronted by critics. White guys need to stop complaining and realize we're not the only ones who deserve part of the American dream.
3
For many years, I have argued that there is nothing more pathetic in America than a white male bemoaning his lot in life. Now the likes of Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh have come along to underscore the argument. I suppose I should be happy about being proven right, but I'm not.
4
Charles, please explain what you mean by racial performance anxiety.
2
Please pardon Lindsey. It wasn't him; it was "his master's voice" that we heard.
1
To buy into the broad categorizations of women or white men is only going to lead to trouble. Good white men are terrified. "There but for the grace of God go I." Not all accusations are true. It seems ridiculous to have to say, but this is really what a witch hunt is, anyone can make an accusation and it's regarded as true. Can't we recognize bad behavior for what it is without assigning it a race? What if it were a lot of Jews, or blacks, or Muslims who did something bad? No one would blame all Jews, blacks or Muslims. Stop with the "White Men" thing already.
6
Sure, black people have to submit to interrogations by cops if they're babysitting white kids or having a barbeque or taking a nap or existing near a swimming pool or waiting to meet someone in a coffee shop and are disproportionately represented in prisons and are more like to get summarily executed in the street, but white folks aren't allowed to use the "N word" like all of our favorite hip hop artists do. All we ask is that you let us use that word and let us forget the slavery and genocide stuff and let us celebrate statues of the men who fought to preserve the slavery stuff (but, again, please agree to forget about the slavery stuff).
Trump acknowledged the recognition that Frederick Douglass is getting; isn't that enough?
1
Most young men are not taught anything of the sort the commenter alleges.
That comment is shameful sexism and racism pure and simple. The fact her comment is highly recommended speaks volumes about the prejudices of the so-called unprejudiced.
2
It seems that testosterone of any color causes the wars and violence on this planet. It just happens that white males are dominant here but that will change. It is time for women to take charge and focus on the mommy issues - health, education, environment, global warming, child and elder care, the arts etc. All the chest and drum beating has been a gigantic waste throughout history. We can no longer afford war “games” or street “gangs.”
1
As a daily reader of the NYT, I understand and acknowledge Trump is evil and the cause of all that is wrong in the world. However, I suggest another cause of the "white male victimization anxiety": Mr. Blow's fellow NYT columnists, who have explicitly and shrilly attacked white men, sometimes rich white men (speaking of Bloomberg as I recall), sometimes privileged white men, sometimes Ivy League white men, and they include Krugman, Goldberg, Bruni, a few guests and you, multiple times in the last two weeks.
4
For better or worse, Kanye West is an icon and his visit to the whitest of White Houses will resonate with a certain amount of people as endorsing this POTUS' toxic agenda. l yearn to see LeBron, Serena, Jordan Peele, Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and countless other African American and Latino icons leverage their platforms in advance of the midterms to help put the brakes on this madness.
1
Portraying white males as victims is classic projection as mastered by Trump.
What he actually means is that he and Kavanaugh have victimized and degraded women and:
--are proud of it
--will continue doing it
As of this week, two other Trump projections made it to the press:
--the dems have gone wacko
--the feds have gone loco
Both these statement mean that Trump mental weakness and retardation might be catching up on him. As someone who would never accept defeat, Trump is actually reaching out to his family members to save him and commit him to a mental institution.
But because mental illness runs in the family, Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric will not recognize this cry for help. These children will continue to delude themselves that Daddy's doing just fine no matter what madness he spouts for everyone to see.
2
You know there is no lower limit if Trump, whose dad gave him hundreds of millions in today's dollars and helped him with the rich boy lies that got him out of Viet Nam, and who is up to his eyeballs in self-serving business dealings right now in our WH is the poster boy for ANY kind of grievance.
But there was money to be made off ceaseless and I do mean ceaseless messages of weakness, powerlessness, and rage aimed first by Rush Limbaugh decades ago and continues down to today, telling younger men that they have personal power, that their own self-respect and dignity is found in bullying others, and that the messages of courage and strength given their own fathers are now somehow bogus. A man my dad's age would have thought Rush Limbaugh was a fat boy tearing men down.
I cannot imagine letting my daughter grow up hearing the emotional nihilism these men gave a whole generation of American men. They should be held accountable and their messages of weaknesses put in the toilet where they belong.
1
It’s hard to give up lifelong privilege. It’s hard to share your fortune if you’ve never had to share. It’s hard to admit that there are people who are more talented, smarter and generally more equipped to do a job that came to you just by entitlement. It’s hard to give up your right to treat women as your chattel. My heart breaks for all the privileged white guys. NOT!
4
I’m a white 57-year-old man. They say that in a few years the average American won’t look like me. (Checks mirror) Oh the horror! How will the USA survive!!
3
The "eternal triangle" of human relations is not a romantic or sexual one. Rather, it is the drama of "victim - persecutor - rescuer", outlined by Karpman. There are no stable winning positions in this pattern of interaction. Each position has intrinsic liabilities. All can lose, without anyone winning. The dynamic is compelling emotionally, but blinds participants to the alternatives -- for example, communication, cooperation, and creative problem solving. It reduces life to a game of "cops and robbers", with the added opportunity of stints as "patsy" or "mark". This does not raise anyone up. We are watching the old, white, rich and powerful scramble to preserve privilege. This will not "make America great again". Thank you, Mr. Blow, for outlining this so clearly.
1
Well, I’m a white male and it’s not working for me. I believe trump (never worth capitalization) is pure evil, and Kavanaugh should be arrested. So I guess us white males are a diverse group.
4
Everybody is so unfair to the dear leader. It’s been his go to line forever. How unfair it is to be me. Everyone is out to get me. Seems to work well with the low info base.
1
I generally applaud the arcticle but as a white guy I am trying to understand what he means by “racial performance anxiety”.
1
As Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida's panhandle to untold flooding and wind damage and widespread power outages, it was amazing to see President Trump doing one of his demented dictator rallyrants in Erie, Pennsylvania last night. Mrs. Trump said -- in her interview in Cairo on her first First Lady travel alone week in Africa -- that she agreed with her husband, agreed "with men", that there had to be evidence to support allegations of sexual assault. We are all waiting for evidence to support all the allegations against our mentally unhinged 45th president. When the sun lights the scene of demolished homes and businesses, in Florida this morning, evidence about climate-warming will be abundant. Would that we could clean out president Trump's Augean Stables -- our white house and oval office -- in Washington.
Blow's disdainful references to "white males", "white male privilege","white men", and "white people" are by definition "racist" and purposely offensive.
When Democrats wonder why many moderates and independents reject the Democratic political agenda, they should consider that most Americans are repulsed by the political tactic of inciting more racial, ethnic, and gender divisiveness for short term political gain.
5
White men need to spend a year as poor, brown women. Beyond that unrealistic wish, true equality is a long ways off. They don’t get it and don’t want to change.
4
Not quite. Make it "Trump is on a campaign to Make America's white men and their little women feel Great Again."
That's what's troubling. What kind of woman likes Trump? What woman with an intelligence score that records a blip on the chart likes Trump? What kind of woman is so dependent on her caveman that she follows his every stomp? Does she know what Trump thinks about her?
That's what's troubling. Trump's females.
2
In a nutshell, Trump and the folks who fuel his outrage and rants (in fairness there are thousands of white males and females who abhor everything that Trump represents), dont believe that they can compete on a level playing field...in fact they have never had too! Therefore they can't or won't consider the concept of "Win&-Win", there has to be a looser for.them to have won. SAD.
2
@kabee
I spent the last two years living in isolated rural Trump country. Demographics were mostly white folks insistently mispronouncing the Spanish names of neighboring towns. Theoretically the playing field was level (if that means little to no racial competition) but many of the people were still only marginally employed and barely scraping by, little hope of escaping the town's social and economic gravity well, total fear of the nearest city's crime. The local Mennonite population was also the subject of private ridicule despite their matching skin color. Unverifiable personal stories of God intervening to cure incurable cancer.
I'm genuinely uncertain what point I'm trying to make. People are generally awful? Rural communities exist in hyper local cultural environments? Most likely I'm just saying "pay attention to me and validate my specific experiences." Yeah, that last one seems right, and that's probably a universal need unbound by race or culture or setting.
1
I have no pity for guys afraid of being taken down by accusations. welcome to what women have always lived with.
3
Thank you Mr. Blow for defining the syndrome.
2
The list of people and things, American or foreign, this president exhorts us to hate is endless. So called “White Male Victimization” is only the latest in the list. I sometimes wonder that he does not spontaneously combust from the hate which consumes his every waking hour, to the exclusion of any other emotion.
No, Donald, the majority of Americans are not “tired of winning,” but we sure are “tired of hating.”
4
Could not agree more with this assessment.
However, one image I will never rid myself of is, the oval office meeting where the American media was not invited, and Trump back slapped and laughed with the Russians, as he declared Comey a "wacko." Deep shallowness personified.
Sounds exactly like every one of Trump's mid-week campaign rallies where Trump exhorts his "mob"of supporters to snicker and demean and laugh out loud at the "Dims."
Then he slowly praised the Fox News family of media stars for inventing the word 'Dims" to degrade rthe dignity of all Democratic voters who have the decency to still care about America the beautiful, while Trump allows rampant racism to fester from Charlottesville to Moscow.
I can go on, but you get my point of how sick this all is. Really sickening.
3
Spoken like someone who has not a clue what they are talking about. You really marginalize a significant portion of the voting population with articles like this. Trump has already distinguished his Presidency from that of Obama's. Trump is President of the United States, Obama thought he was President of the United States for the Whole World. That is why he went to Germany when he was a candidate and Trump went to every big city in America. The public Rape of Brett Kavanaugh's good name and character should be disturbing to all men, and the women who love them , in this United States of America.
4
I was speaking with a neighbor of mine, a retired white guy who just retired from the Navy. He is married to a Ugandan lady. They are so sick and tired of the racism going on in this country that they are picking up and moving to her hometown of Kampala. They can no longer tolerate the divisive racist and resentful politics of the left which are targeting white people, especially white men. My brother lives in Zambia and is married to a Zambian woman. He is currently visiting our family in the states and will be stopping by my place in two weeks. We spoke on the phone about this same issue and he had many complaints about CNN International about this same issue which he watches in Zambia. Seems to me that people are starting to wise up and recognize that the racism problem in this country is in the Democrat party.
4
Blow never fails to get it right.... thanks for summing this up - depressing but true.. but a positive message: its not a zero sum game, when we improve things for women, minorities, the vulnerable, its better for everyone... but its just like the way unions are attached: somebody must be losing if many are benefiting.. no! the tide rises! all come for the ride... mjo
“ Divide and conquer “is a philosophy , not uncommon to many fascist dictators of the past . Donald Trump has fully embraced this idea and let’s make one thing perfectly clear - he is not a Republican , he is a neofascist through and through. All you have to do to understand this is reckognize his lack of empathy and compassion for his fellow citizens and for people less privileged and less fortunate than he has been.
The stench is actually not coming from the Justice Department, it is in reality coming from the White House and extends all the way to the Republicans in the Senate.
If the Democrats want to win in the midterms they need to do the opposite of divide and conquer – they need to unite and they must do so with compassion and empathy for their fellow citizens. This is something that Donald Trump has none of , in spite of his apparent wealth ...
2
They’re saying, “Enough.” "They will cede no more ground, they will share no more power, they will accommodate no more ascendancy and validation of the oppressed."
That's at least partially wrong. Conservatives are simply saying that each person should be judged based on their merit. This isn't about ceding ground - as if white men somehow received their positions based solely on their race and gender - and now it's the turn of women and minorities. i have no issue with "ascendancy" and "validation" as long as it is earned using metrics applied to everyone. It's already the case that more than half of college students, law school students and medical school students are women. But I guess that fact doesn't comport with Blow's idea of women as victims, does it ?
99
@Ana Cruz
Could you please point me to the data showing your claim that over half of students (law, medical) are women? Can you also please explain why if the population of the US is over 50 percent women it isn't right that colleges etc reflect that? Shouldn't college student distributions reflect population distributions?
30
@Ana Cruz
So, yay, women in college represent their demographic. Do they also represent their demographic in places of power: CEO, CFO, COO, the House, the Senate, the Cabinet, the White House?
Are they 51% of anything besides college, law, and medical schools?
Are they believed when they report being raped/harassed/assaulted?
Brett Kavanaugh was not judged based on his merit - he was the privileged child of wealthy, influential parents who attended a prep school that's a source of Ivy League admissions, was given a pass on his excessive drinking, was groomed for his current position. Were he judged on his merits he most certainly would not be on the Supreme Court or even any kind of judge.
Those metrics you insist should be applied to everyone: all the rest of us agree and when that occurs we won't need affirmative action or any other such thing. Right now, those metrics are only applied to keep out non-white and non-male candidates.
3
@Ana Cruz "Conservatives are simply saying that each person should be judged based on their merit." This party put Donald Trump in the white house. Do not try and tell me they give a plugged nickel for merit. Also, the issue under discussion is the way they apologized to Kavanaugh for having to pretend to care about sexual assault allegations. Super fair to the women of America, those guys.
12
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. White men so powerful yet so besieged. Trump proclaims Kavanaugh "Not Guilty" although he was never on trial and reminds us all that everyone is "innocent till proven guilty" and then gets his followers to use their "Lock-her-up" chant although the "her" in question was never convicted of anything, except by Trump insinuations.
Yet a lot of Americans buy into the idea that we, and particularly the white male part of we, just so taken advantage of, while everyone else gets a free pass. Yeah-Right!
What a pathetic way for Americans to feel about themselves. Being led by the kid born with the proverbial golden spoon (silver isn't good enough for Trump) and all the things that money can buy.
Fortunately this nation has survived worse than Trump (although he is getting close to being the worst president in history).
These pathetic people just need to wake up and realize just how blessed they are instead of focusing on what Trump tells them they are missing.
269
@George N. Wells
"...he is getting close to being the worst President in history."
Right after the election, I said I would not pronounce him the worst President until he had done 6 months in office
And I didn't. But it sure took discipline.
3
Poor White guys. Wasn't it bad that they had to work with Blacks and Hispanics in the fire and police departments and armed services. The audacity of female invasion everywhere. How dare women and girls invade male venues and occupations. Moreover, the chicks go to college and med school and get better grades. How dare they!
20
Nope. His campaign isn't to make white men feel great again, because Trump himself is ALWAYS aggreived, always being treated "unfairly," always trying to outvictim the opponent, and always inventing opponents to distract from his tremendous inadequacies and manifest failures.
Now he's spewing crazy anti-Democratic party propaganda like a basement pizza parlor sex ring story. Just hurling excrement against the wall to see if any will stick. This country used to outlaw propaganda against its own citizens-- did the Bush admin legalize it to sell us the Iraq War? Because it sure is getting deep around here.
12
And now the fox/trump team is beating the drum that we're not angry Americans protesting. We're violent mobs. Tucker tucks into the subject and trump follows with tweets. Make america afraid again.
So that means black men can't kneel because it's anti-veteran, young people can't protest against guns because they're not old enough to vote and women can't protest against the nomination of an anti-women judge because they're a hysterical mob. That leaves only white men and the women who love them have the right to protest and what the heck do they have to be mad about. They rule and they're about to make sure that continues by passing voter restriction, gerrymandering, census and every other tool at their disposal knowing that the Kavanaugh court will codify all of it. The little smirk on Kavanaugh's face is him saying to himself...."I told you what comes around goes around."
7
@Jenifer: You left something off your list of things that people can't do. White males can't disagree with any part of the liberal platform because they're angry and have performance anxiety.
For decades, the advocates of equal rights have insisted that we not judge people by the actions of other people who look like them. Sure enough, Trump and some other white males are acting badly, but if you apply your own standard to yourself, you would not hold that against the rest of us, especially if you want some of us to work with you instead of staying on the sidelines. I'm not likely to work with someone who accuses me of being a bigot because I'm a white male with my own opinions.
2
@mlbex
And here is the white male being led by all white males...complaining.....again......about how they're so picked on. You can't see the forest thru the trees. When we're on a level playing field mlbex then I'll listen to all your problems but we're really far, far away from a level playing field aren't we?
@Jenifer: Once again you do exactly what you're asking me not to do. By characterizing my comments as a "complaint" you're changing the terms of the discussion against me simply because I'm a white male. It also appears that you believe I should accept the blame for how other people are acting because they happen to look more like me than you.
Once again I call you out for saying that I'm responsible for something because some people who look like me are doing it. You would not accept that behavior from me, I will not accept it from you, and both of us would be right.
2
The Kavanaugh hearings (blessedly) had absolutely nothing to do with race, and yet the Democrats insist upon playing the race card anyway. Why? Because Trump didn't nominate a black woman? That doesn't hold water. Because a white man was accused of assaulting a white woman? What does that have to do with black Americans? Because the Republicans on the Senate committee are white? So what? Is that somehow racist? Is the fact that the overwhelming majority of America's black voters vote Democrat also racist? Do they vote that way because they hate white people? Let's face it: writer Blow's very existence is dependent upon lighting racial fires. It's his beat.
5
@Ed L., Trump has turned the Kavanaugh hearings into an attack on white males, presumably the real oppressed minority.
Way to turn things around, Trump and Ed.
@Ed L. Wow, you just don't get this article at all...and it epitomizes what is wrong with the trump base.
1
Blow how about you read yourself to help you understand why 43 percent believe what they believe.
Trump could not have better enablers than the Times and. yourself constantly mocking dumb white men because if their race and their reacting to being mocked by people who have yet to show the accomplishments from which they earned the privilege to mock.
Keep it up. Just keep it up. Fascism has a chance if only you and the other condescending enablers do so.
7
@In deed mockery? Like the rally where Trump mocked Christine Blasey Ford and mis-represented her testimony to a laughing crowd?
Or are you referring to Trump's mockery of the handicapped reporter who asked him questions about things he didn't want people knowing about?
3
From the viewpoint of a bully, any challenge, any fighting back or protesting at all, any statement of the truth or telling of what really happened, is an insult.
3
We need to stop talking about "White" Privilege when the real issue in inequality. Funny that Mr. Blow does not recognize his "Privilege." May today do not feel "Privileged" but do feel unequal. Start taking race out of every issue and we may finally get somewhere on these issues. Citizens, not groups.
3
At another time the issue might be humorous—like a white guitar player singing something like “suburban white man’s blues.” Trump’s immoral rejuvenation of overt white racism reveals that always existing fine line between comedy and tragedy for what it is. But it also reveals how easily fine lines can be crossed. Perhaps, just perhaps, it can serve as opportunity, to remind us all that the race label is unjust and those who perpetuate it, including the President of the United States, should be condemned. He must also be rendered ineffectual by the election of an anti-Trump Congress and must ultimately be voted out of office, even, perhaps especially, by those who thought he would be better than Clinton.
2
Thanks for the stats on Trump's use of the word “unfair”, it offered additional clarity as to why we have been laughing at Trump's characterization of Canada. During the NAFTA negotiations he regularly stated that “Canada has treated us very unfairly!” Canada, the country with a GDP the size of Texas, and a population a tenth of that of the United States has had it's thumb on America’s economy, choking it, before Trump came along to save you from us, really?
First, Trump paints his picture of the world laughing at you, using you, disrespecting you, then he steps in to save you from all these imaginary foes. What is more frightening is that every one of his followers believe him as they're all victims of the same, imagined conspirators. He is playing the victim card all the time, just changing the perpetrator. The only thing America needs saving from is Trump (and his enablers) before it's too late.
6
45 will never be better than Obama. White male privilege will never go away. Whites who are struggling will never benefit from this administration regardless of how much they admire 45 and believe him for helping them since he only speaks of them while caring about his rich business buds. Minorities populations will not shrink regardless of banning immigrants. if anything, it seems population stats indicate the opposite that whites will begin to be the minority... that is their fear...but even if that happens they'll still have white privilege and wealth, especially generational wealth.
1
Yes, white male victimization is an appalling illness, and the poor white male victims need all the help they can get to stop it from attacking otherwise normal looking men who whine about not being first any more in the classroom, in the job market, in the private household, at the club, in the Supreme Court (Kavanaugh's infamous I am a victim speech), and in the White House where the current white male, who forgets that as president he is supposed to represent all the people, not the wealthy white male from the east coast country club. To stop this disease from spreading, vote in November, and vote for the democrats; only then will this illness be seen for what it is: spoiled men who still want to rule as if this were pre a civil rights and pre women's rights era.To eradicate this disease of entitlement, the republicans must be stopped at the voting booth.
1
With the recent triumph of male privilege over the challenge of women’s voices raised in the wake of the bravery of Christine Blasey Ford, it hit me that—even more than whiteness—the ultimate trump card in our society is and always has been maleness.
Black men got the vote—at least theoretically—In 1868. Women had no franchise at all—not even a theoretical one— until the twentieth century. No vote at all for the first century and a half of our country’s existence.
And who are victims of sexual violence? One in three women has experienced some sort of sexual assault in her lifetime. One in six has been the victim of rape or attempted rape. Compare that to one in every thirty-three men—the overwhelming bulk of whom were assaulted by other men.
So who is playing the victim card here? Men? Men who dominate Congress to the tune of four to one? Men who thump their Bibles and dominate the Church? Men who even now are still declared the head of household under some state laws? And our president apologizes to them—on behalf of our COUNTRY?
Well, women make up half of this country, Mr. President. And while there are evidently still plenty of Phyllis Schaflys here who are willing to cede their space, cede their power, I want my half. And now that men have finally deigned to let me vote, I will go the polls in November and demand it.
8
Sorry. I just don't feel the white man's pain. But I do understand why they might fear losing their power...and retribution.
Anyone familiar with the annals of American History knows fully well that it was white men who not only drove it, but also designed the system so they could reap the maximum benefits -- even if it came from the blood and sweat of the Africans they bought and sold to toil on their plantations, or the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans so that they could exploit their mineral rich lands.
This country's government and justice system was entirely built to give white men the advantage, so that's why they start crying when the see the possibility of it slipping away.
The recent Brett Kavanaugh performance, Republicans in general, and this president in particular are all excellent examples of this -- they are all so absorbed in their sense of self-entitlement that they've forgotten not only whom they're supposed to be serving, but how they got there in the first place.
That's why they continue to carry on this way.
And that's why if anyone should be crying, it's the rest of us.
1
Someone aid, "When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
The snake oil seller's gift is maintaining privilege while selling the downtrodden a storyline that maintains their privilege over them.
I pray it will be, in 2018, women voters who break this absurd cycle..
1
Men need the cover of victimhood because they know they are guilty of having abused women. They need Trump to accept the "false accusation" so they too can deny the truth of their crimes.
6
It's a bit sad how the guys complaining in the comments about feeling picked on are both proving Mr. Blow's point and missing it.
6
I am an African-American man. Since I was a teenager, I have told people that my dream is to be a civil rights activist. A white female co-worker once asked me, “Why would you want to do that?” It is because I believe our social, economic and political systems unfairly favor the wealthy to the detriment of everyone and everything else thereby causing or exacerbating every socioeconomic problem known to humans.
I do not mean to pick on white men. I dare say that whites comprise the majority of anti-establishment progressive activists! However, the world order has been set by wealthy white men who remain in charge of the most powerful governments, financial systems, corporations and militaries. Where black men are shown to be the chief proponents of the anti-populace monstrosity progressive economist George R. Tyler, a white man, calls “shareholder capitalism,” I will oppose their efforts to perpetuate this economic philosophy and will lecture them on the need to develop a moral capitalism.
2
When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
16
I am sick of living a “Groundhog Day” Festivus airing of grievances, where angry white men get to not only dominate the agenda, but force the rest of us to live through their fantastic idea of what is true and to ... with the rest of the globe. Elections are only part one. Eliminate the breathless tick-tock media chatter of winner and loser, and all the rest of the nonsense. Thinking long term in MLK’s “long arc” is fine rhetoric, but I don’t want to wait for change. Enough is enough.
News flash - life often is a zero sum game. When Charles gets to write a column in the NYT, another fine author does not. Denying that this is the case doesn't do anyone any good.
Another news flash - nobody plays the victim card more often than women and minorities. Indeed, that was Ford's sole reason for coming forward – to claim victimhood. Criticizing white men for trying to do the same seems a bit hypocritical.
5
Only Trump could get what he wanted and *still* claim that things are unfair.
Some days the news just makes me sick.
4
It's a tough world for men when one considers that they can no longer brag with impunity about their unwanted sexual violations against women.
When attempted rape, control over womens' health decisions, better pay for equal work and violent domestic abuse come under close scrutiny, the future for white American men in dark suits looks extremely dire.
Well, we guts are not going to take it anymore, and we have Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh to protect us in the highest reaches of political power.
Take THAT, sisters. If you don't like it, then get yourselves to the polls to vote for your sisters and supportive brothers in unprecedented numbers.
Full disclosure; I'll be voting with you.
2
I got into a bit of a back-and-forth with a male "victim" in another paper's comment section yesterday. I just couldn't let the argument this man was trying to make go unchallenged. He was asserting that because men are statistically more likely to die of murder, die on the job and die in combat or in first responder roles, they actually have a tougher go in life than women. Of course, he was selectively cherry picking data to support his case (no mention or recognition of the fact that women have traditionally been denied access to many "dangerous" male-dominated professions, no mention or recognition of violence and gender studies, etc.). The exchange has stuck with me because I can't understand how so many men go through life like this. I am a veteran and some of the toughest soldiers I served with were women, and that's a fact. You rise to the job or you don't, and it's only a very small percentage of jobs and circumstances where physical differences are a relevant limiting factor (e.g. Navy SEALs). Whatever happened to being a gentleman? Whatever happened to protecting those who are weaker than you? Whatever happened to accountability and personal responsibility? Were these not once traditionally conservative male values? Today's conservative man seems to be a lying, denying, projecting, deflecting, proudly sexist boor. It's absolutely shameful. I cannot comprehend how anyone would follow such a man into combat, let alone hire, work alongside, befriend, date or marry.
10
@Aaron
You should have asked him to try going through a child birth for a change.
3
Did the “coalition of America’s diversity [that] elevated” Barack Obama ... to the presidency, apparently ... as this column mentions, include any white men at all? I can provide the answer to this as “yes.” In contrast to the theme of this column ... which arguably seems to promote combative tribalism ...grouping white men into one unflattering behavioral category is simply too ... well, simplistic. However doing so, in my view anyway, fuels support for the disaster of Trump to go forward with resentful vigor.
5
The white European male has enjoyed controlling power and interest in every sphere of American culture: politics, society, business, women, sex, religion, and particularly government, but it's shifting and the psychology is simple. They're terrified.
Over time, men have managed to disenfranchise every demographic who outnumbers them today. Historically, minorities have had to fight hard for every gain they enjoy today, and we'll win this fight too, sooner rather than later I suspect, because all that's left is for angry white men to throw a thinly veiled temper tantrum at a Trump rally.
The problem is systemically concentrated in government and big business, and the higher up they are, the more egregious their behavior. You give a guy a whole lot of money and power and it goes to his ego, his sense of entitlement, and his - well, you know.
But please remember that not every white male fits into this category. Men like my husband have never had an abusive or racist agenda in their lives. There are lots of them out there voting to give all minorities their equality. I want to give them the credit they deserve.
1
Trump cannot apologize to John McCain. He can't apologize to the Khan family. Heidi Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Barack Obama, Mika Brzezinski, Elizabeth Warren, Jeb Bush, Maxine Waters, Angela Merkel, or the guy he shoved out of the way to be front and center for a group picture etc etc etc. I doubt he apologized to Melania in a meaningful way. He doesn't apologize. Yet Trump felt the need to apologize to Justice Kavanaugh on behalf of the American people, which includes me, for what Kavanaugh and his family went through. I am sane, of legal age and capable of apologizing for myself. So Mr Trump go back to your normal nasty self and never apologize. Certainly don't apologize for me.
6
I'm a white male, liberal, agnostic Jewish American. I feel threatened by this mad crowd of white men who feel they are the victims. I think their rage also makes things more difficult for men who would defend women -- I have been in that situation already, and to speak out can have consequences.
So now good men are under attack and have to feel intimidated by bad men.
Furthermore, can't these white male "victims" see that their rage is fuel for a movement to create an autocratic society where most, including most of them, will have less control over their lives and have to live in more fear?
It's easy to observe that countries where women have more rights tend to have better living standards. That may be more than a coincidence. All people, thus far, have come from women. Women do a lot of the child care in any society -- if we punish them, we punish future generations.
I state all this as a man who was once falsely accused of hurting a woman, very probably so that she could gain advantage in an apartment dispute. I spent a night in jail. When this happened, I wanted to shine a light on everything and help facts rise to the surface, to show that she was lying -- that's not what we saw with Kavanaugh.
I have also seen college drunks behaving abusively toward women. I've seen what vicious, privileged males can get away with.
I'm on the women's side.
3
A large portion of the population has defined "white" males as the problem unless we are willing to agree that we are the problem. I don't feel victimized, I am aware of my privilege, but, if you are going to define me as the problem, I am going to push back. It's a lot smarter to define the problem in terms of neutral principles of justice than in terms of identity politics. Apart from anything else, white males are a large plurality and the most powerful single group in society. You need them on board to make change.
4
Mr. Blow you may be the journalistic poster child for the identity politics that many of us progressive white males believe has undermined our collective progress for another generation by producing the ascendancy of a demagogue. Yes, by golly, it seems that there are angry white men out there who perceive themselves as victims. And yet that victim stance is simply a universal cultural trope applicable to every single demographic in our perpetually oppressed, adolescent culture, including those demographics you sympathize with. Just once, why not write a column that doesn't lump people into good and bad, oppressors and oppressed, based on some obvious identifying characteristic, which only serves to immediately alienate anyone whose viewpoint you might want to influence? Just once, why not aim for something slightly more complex, something that requires an emotional IQ?
8
The definition of discouraging:
I read about our ever increasing harsh truths in column after column from writers like Mr. Blow while those that should be reading this stark reality our nation now faces are listening to Rush Limbaugh and watching Fox News.
3
Trump and B.Kav represent two strains of WM Privilege.
Trump is a bully because he is insecure...it drips from every inflated fact, Twitter frenzy and his unsuccessful attempts at acceptance in NY society and now, society at large (based on the popular vote). He's painfully ignorant, coarse and far out of his intellectual league. And so he comes out swinging.
Kavanaugh is a bully because he is over-secure--in his groomed, privileged, prep school jockish self image. He can't even conceive of anything getting in his way. He didn't recall assaulting a 15 year old girl "And so what?" he seems to think. And so he comes out swinging.
Their aggression at being called out suggests neither has any sense of shame. And both are willing to falsify anything to buoy up the self image that's been bred in them by patriarchy. They come unglued when the truth about them is revealed.
But the truth will continue to come out. Both are stains on our governance and sunshine is a good disinfectant. But we can also expect white men of any socioeconomic class to come out swinging when their inadequacies are revealed...whether in SAT scores, job markets, any form of social capital.
6
I am a white man, so I feel empowered to state the following about my kind:
In my village, many white men feel like they are under attack just like we typically ascribe such feelings to ethnic minorities, LGBTQ's and women.
They will not ever be cured of this feeling, and from what I've seen, the feeling has spread like a flu and has made more white men sickened with this delusion. They seem to pass it amongst themselves, and when they get together, it reaches a fever pitch that does not subside. They go on forth all the more ill feeling.
This is a social disease and it will not abate until it has wiped out all of its victims -- the problem is, no one is sure if these white men are the victims or all the rest of us are. Surely, we will find out sooner than later.
I have found that it is best to look upon these people as sickend, as having certain needs, in some cases, special needs, and as a caring liberal, progressive pacifist I work to find ways of offering palliative care without compromising my dignity, integrity and sense of morality. They are hurting humans, and while their disease is one that does not readily evince sympathy and understanding, all the same they are victims of a larger system of oppression that they once wielded upon others that has now come back to smack them down, and quite ironically, they are pretty much helpless to alleviate their own pain and suffering. Trust me when I say, if we don't find a way to help these poor [__] they will ruin society.
3
The cries of victimization reflect entitlement mentality, lotsa entitlement.
2
Gee, Mr. Blow, we white males have taken the lead in founding this country, fighting its wars, building its industries and infrastructure, and maintaining its democracy -- and yes, now ceding power to other ethnic groups. And now we are the sniveling enemy? Mr. Blow, be fair. You sweep all of us together and see us all through one lens.
4
@JimVanM Wow Jim. I wouldn't mind betting that the white men who 'founded' the country generated much of their wealth off the backs (literally) of slaves. Fighting its wars? - well there were more than a few black infantry men from the Civil War to present day and I suspect that, at least in wars since about 1950, blacks are over-represented in the military compared to their portion of the population. Building industry and infrastructure - I haven't spent a lot of time on factory floors but when I have, it seems to me that the black folk are pulling more than their weight. But I have to admit that you've got me on that democracy thing: blacks are systematically discriminated against in the polling booths (gerrymandering; fewer polling places in nominally black neighborhoods; voter ID laws; etc.) so clearly they are not adding to the maintenance of democracy as they ought. And BTW if anyone needs it: </sarcasm>.
3
@JimVanM yea, and blacks and hispanics did that same stuff right next to y'all.
2
@JimVanM I had to read your comment a couple times because I thought my eye were deceiving me. The lead you refer to in the founding of America etc was done on the backs of minorities and women while abrogating the rights of the same. Not all white men are guilty but the great majority have enjoyed the privilege whether they know it or not.
3
This emerging sense of victimization on the part of white men is particularly ironic when examined by a member of a group historically (and often fatally) victimized by false accusations of sex assault against white women: black men.
As to Trump's sense of "fairness," that's a misnomer of gargantuan proportions. For Trump, no deal is "fair" until he comes out on top and other parties to the "deal" are crushed.
I feel great already. What I don't understand is why the white man is blamed for every social ill known to man and the "oppressed" simply use that as an excuse to take no responsibility for their personal actions and future. Sadly, that "it's being done to me" attitude is passed from generation to generation for too many citizens.
But, as my comment started, this white guy feels great.
4
White men would like to believe that they are champions of freedom, equal opportunity and liberty, but they offer those virtues only to each other. History shows that many white men supported slavery, discrimination,misogyny, and voter suppression. Donald Trump is the leader of demographic warfare: old white men against the rest of the country. We look forward to the defeat of his party this November, and his removal from office no later than 2020.
4
.
Wrong. People of all races, creeds, colors and both genders are welcome to participate in the American Experiment -- exercise their freedom in this great gymnasium of liberty. But when their immaturity and lack of understanding threatens to tear the gymnasium down, wiser and more prudent individuals will step forward.
Time to get on the right side of history. This is not a race or gender issue at its essence.
1
President Obama has everything that Donald Trump lacks starting with intelligence and going from there. Trump felt diminished by this black man, and has done everything in his power to destroy President Obama's legacy from the ACA, to the Iran Treaty to the Paris Accord. Trump wants to wipe the record clean of President Obama's imprint and replace it with - nothing, because it is the destroying that is the accomplishment. Trump is the epitome of the injured white male made furious by being taken down a notch or two by a black man he knows stands head and shoulders above him. He fueled that anger into a national campaign that encouraged white males to feel that their power had been usurped by blacks and women. He whipped up racism, misogyny, and xenophobia. He made hate - not America - great again.
The Kavanaugh hearing starring Brett Kavanagh in the lead role as wounded white male, and Lindsay Graham in the supporting role of the powerless white male played right to Trump's base. The hearing became just another Trump rally. Kavanaugh's depiction of the maligned white male convinced Susan Collins that this man who had lied under oath and whose suitability for the position was decried by legal scholars and a retired Supreme Court Justice, should serve on the highest court of this land. Strident, privileged white maleness won the day.
406
@Diana Huh: all that "intelligence" and he could never get the economy to grow more than 2.5% GDP in 8 years, yet amazingly 2 quarters after he's gone we are tapping at 4% and how above? His "peace deals" entail giving Iran $4B (don't forget the $600M in untraceable cash on pallets) so they can use it to foment terrorism and kill people? His signature achievement is destruction of the health system where every year small business face 15-20% price increases and the unintended consequence is a series of part time jobs for Americans w/no benefits. Yes, DJT is a pig, but he surely is effective. I'll take the ability to accomplish things over "intelligence" any day and twice on Sundays
4
@Diana
While Trump may be able to remove Obama's accomplishments from government policy and take the benefits away from the American people he can never take the actual accomplishment away from the Democrats and Obama's administration. They are a permanent part of the historical records and will continue to live in the hearts and minds of America. And while he may be currently cheered by some and will be long remembered for his actions he will not be remembered well.
2
To understand how an entitlement to being first relates to disproportionate rates of affluence and poverty, and a variety of social measurements, correlated with race one needs to consider whether there is a clause and effect or not, not just assert that there is and wait for somebody to prove otherwise. One can win an audience’s approval that way but one cannot correct any problem that way.
Most people who are rich are white and most people who are poor are white, most people in prison are white, and it’s because most people are still white. The proportions of minorities that fit these categories don’t match the proportions amongst whites. That is the tell tale sign of racial discrimination being a real factor in people’s lives. White privilege is not the driving force or the proportions of disadvantaged amongst whites would be those whose numbers exceeding all minority populations. In our affluent country, that simply does not happen. Most white people have been affected by inequities as have non-whites.
One needs to remember why affirmative action was instituted. After centuries of deliberately keeping minorities from equitable access to a prosperity unmatched in history, minorities just had not the resources to catch up. At the margins, minorities were to be given an advantage to gradually make up the resulting differences. But the the age of growth was over, for all except the very rich. So this initiative had insignificant impact on most with fewer resources.
2
Another excellent opinion piece, Mr. Blow. Yet once again, you're preaching to the choir of the Democratic base, throwing them the liberal version of the same red meat that your counterparts at Fox News and the WSJ feed their base. And while this same strategy might well indeed strengthen each side's core supporters, it could
also increase the size of one base over the other if it broke out of its own comfy bubble and began to speak directly to those most opposed to it. From now on, the name of the game must be introducing, then persuading and finally convincing those who automatically despise you to those who may now begin to understand you, what you stand for and how much common ground there really is. Perhaps this concept is naive and idealistic and obviously such a process can't happen overnight, but the sooner it begins, the better. Talking at or past one another is always a fool's game. Talking directly to one another is another game entirely. And that's a game that nobody seems to be playing right now. It's also a game that can appeal to swing voters who can make a big difference. What have you got to lose? Everybody wants their version of their country back. A true leader and a true leading party can bring those people together instead of dividing and conquering them.
59
This, a thousand times.
@Guido Malsh Oh, are you insulting! How is this opinion red meat? Fox lies and lies again to whip up hatred and fear. What Mr. Blow is saying is actually true. There is no honest talking to the Right who favor Fox news. Their whole world is built on propaganda. NO, bowing to racists and women haters and finding a common ground with puffed up white bullies ( the real snowflakes) will not work, These bullies want to be catered to, not have honest discussions. They abuse people for their own needs. Really if some one is whipping you, do you really think it is only fair to have a discussion? NO! Get off your high and mighty horse and stop with YOUR propaganda. No common ground with those who cheat and lie and beat up on people to make themselves feel good. Do you feel good now after writing your comment, telling Blow he should honor those who want to enslave people and demean them for even living and have an honest chat with them. Thank you again Mr. Blow for the truth!
4
@Guido Malsh
The two sides also appear to have contradictory ideas regarding what constitutes racism. The easiest way for someone to on the left to lose any hope of of building consensus is to label their ideological opponent as racist. Clinton's email scandal was bad, but the real immediate damage she did in the campaign was using "deplorable" as a dog whistle labeling Trump supporters as racist. Only the dreaded "N word" has more power than the label "racist."
I don't know how to fix this. Maybe a televised debate on racial politics that ends with gladiatorial combat.
1
Attacking an opposing social group because of their unearned wealth and privilege is a long standing, and often successful, populist strategy. Unfortunately, it works best when you don’t also depending on votes from this same privileged group (i.e. whites) to gain political power.
The long-term trends may or may favor non-whites voters, but as a famous economist once said; in the long run we are all dead. In the last election, non-Hispanic whites made up over 70 percent of the voters and over half of all Democratic voters. White males alone cast more votes that people of color (blacks, Hispanics and Asians).
Based on current trends, whites will continue to make up a majority of voters for the next 40 or 50 years. According to the Census, the largest increase in voters in 2016 was among non-Hispanic whites who were also 65 years of age and older (2.8 million) – old white folks apparently don’t have much to do beyond voting.
As a long standing Democratic voter, I’m concerned that the strident attacks by Mr. Blow and other progressives on whites and “white privilege” will only serve to drive increasing numbers of whites from the party and consolidate Trump’s and the Republican Party’s hold on power. Hillary Clinton focused on identity politics on her road to getting only 37 percent of the white vote and ushered in the victory of Trump.
22
@Woody Your analysis has a problem: the assumption that all white voters share in all aspects of "white privilege" and thus will mostly vote as a bloc against anything relating to progress of non-whites.
The brilliance of the GOP leadership has been to fool a large majority of their white base into explicitly or implicitly believing that their problem is non-whites, when it is actually the most privileged of whites (which makes up the vast majority of the top 1%). Keep the masses fighting amongst themselves while we rob them all blind, is the mantra. It is the primary generator of their political power, since as we've seen abundantly, recently, they legislate against their own purported ideology. The results of such legislation is not to promote white privilege per se; it is to reap more wealth for the 1% and eventually apply greater economic stress on the masses, which generates more internecine sociopolitical warfare, which allows them to remain in power. Diabolical.
@Woody All politics are identity politics. The accusation that others are engaging in "identity politics" only feels like it has merit because for too long only one identity has had power and now is panicking at the thought of losing it.
Here's a quick test. What group has the highest degree of "victimization anxiety"--white males, black males, females? Did anyone really pick the first?
Yep. Can you imagine a similar heading with a different word for "white" or "male". "Black Male Victimization Anxiety"? "White Female Victimization Anxiety"?
Charles Blow seems incapable of writing a column today that does not focus on "white males". There is much anxiety today over status and perceived "victimization". But class and race seem bigger factors than gender.
Mr. Blow, when you have actual data to support your views, let us know.
1
If I had behaved like Judge Kavanaugh in a court either as a witness or accused, I will be held for the contempt of court.
If I had behaved like him during a job interview, I would have been shown the exit door.
Just saying....
59
@Amar ... Yes, but the perfect candidate gets away with some things that a paper shuffler never could. Judge K is extremely qualified for his new job.
1
"Trump is on a campaign to Make America’s white men feel Great Again." Yes, that is what a lot of this is about. White men feeling undermined, feeling their power slip away as whites become part of the mixture that is America rather than remaining the majority. Trump would feel at home in South Africa when it openly practiced apartheid. He would be the head of the Ku Klux Klan if that was possible now. He would also be another Joseph McCarthy or Roy Cohn.
Did Kavanaugh know that he was going to be nominated for the Supreme Court 36 years ago when he is supposed to have assaulted Blasey Ford? Did she know? It's possible that she came forward because she felt we deserved a better person on the court. But when the men in power and a party decide that lying over small things doesn't matter that paves the way for the bigger lies. The biggest lie is that this was done to undermine Trump or the GOP. If they want to believe that they can.
Trump was elected because of the Electoral College, not because he won the popular vote. The more he and the GOP harp on the 2016 elections the more they remind us that he does not have a mandate from the people. Trump is not making America great again. If anything he's running it into the ground which is normal when the GOP is in control of things. They make America great for the richest, not the majority.
19
@hen3ry I am not a Trump fan, but you and many others need to come to grips with the fact he is the democratically elected President. That sir, is the mandate from the people, like it not. He's making it great again for the folks that want a middle class paying job, great again for anyone with a 401k that plans on retiring before 83, great again for all the folks that now have jobs as part of the significant reduction in the unemployment rate and the rich.
3
@gdog Trump and the GOP need to come to terms with reality and stop blaming the Clintons for their own problems.
Trump did NOT win the popular vote. He won the Electoral College vote. Those are two different things. He had no mandate from the people unless it was in his mind and I take leave to doubt that he has a mind at this point.
I had forgotten that both Trump and West were dissed by Obama. The man had class.
14
If you where brought up right and haven't committed sexual assault, you should have nothing to fear. It doesn't matter what race you are if you have nothing to hide; accusations are just that, accusations that must be proven. However, if you have something to hide, like many white boys of privilege, like Trump and Kavanaugh, you will be hyper defensive and reject all calls for an investigation. Both Trump and Kavanaugh know this from experience and so far have successfully dodged any accusations that could stick. Now things are different and Trump is right, white boys of privilege are terrified, as they should be.
8
I have been a personal/professional development coach for 20+ years. I also served in government/politics in the late 1990's as the first - to this day the only - woman leader of my upstate NY community of 25,000.
Believe it or not, women elected officials then were even less welcome than they are now.
I can tell you from experience there is one thing no one ever, ever wants to talk about...emotional maturity.
We re-coin it "emotional intelligence," and all kinds of pseudo labels, etc; to poach a phrase from George H.W. Bush & per this article...it's about emotional maturity stupid.
Just because you are powerful, successful, wealthy, or well-educated...doesn't mean you have matured emotionally. Witness Kavanaugh's “beer & bro,” angry, partisan tirade...that won him a seat on the SCOTUS.
Witness, God love him, President Clinton's less than wise choices; a brilliant, highly educated, committed, exceptionally gifted communicator.
So, after 20+ years of working for the empowerment of women – in gov't., travelling to major cities all over the U.S. to co-facilitate courses for women, offering free courses, creating an empowerment project for women after the 2016 election - the people who are coming to me now for assistance...are men.
They want playful, powerful, intimate relationships w/women in their personal lives and empowering, mutually supportive relationships with women in their professional lives. They want to see & learn & grow & heal & mature…emotionally.
2
I guess the Democratic Party has decided their best chance to achieve their goals is to drive all white males out of the party. I’m a life long Democrat, have only voted for 1 Republican in my life ( Arnold Swartzenegger ), supported Bernie and voted for Hilary in 2016. But I have had it with the demonization of white males by this party. The talk now about so-called “white privilege” treats the concept as an agreed upon fact. In the medical field that I trained in and have devoted my life to, exactly the opposite is true. It didn’t feel like privilege to be denied entry to medical school with grades and test scores that would have guaranteed a candidate of color automatic acceptance to any of the best medical schools in the country. Apparently, having your father pass away when you are 15 years old doesn’t count for anything in medical school admissions, but dark skin, even if you are upper middle class, guarantees admission. I taught in the inner city and worked overnight to pay the bills while getting my credential because my white privilege didn’t pay rent or buy food and I had some goals to accomplish. But I did get into medical school, 8 years after graduating college. And then, it didn’t feel like privilege to watch my professors in my ultra liberal residency program fawn over the residents of color and practically create a stampede to be the “one” to mentor these residents. Democrats, I am out of your party. I will likely drop my subscription to the NYT too
34
@Philly Frisco I can't dispute your claims of not getting into med school with your grades or that you had to work at night etc. However, have you ever stopped to think that for well over a hundred years black men would not have gained entry period or would not get jobs that would ultimately take them to college or med school.
1
@Philly Frisco Yes. They have clearly announced that they are our enemy. Therefore, it's vice versa.
1
@Philly Frisco...oh, boo hoo, so you had a rough time reaching your goal, but you made it and I assume you became a doctor. Be thankful and stop being a victim - others have had a hard time too - many, many women and they are just now opening up the windows after a long period of injustice... Drop the Democrats? I suppose you find the indecency of the Republicans preferable - Trump's rallies
are a scene of nasty, crude, lying he's infamous for. Not to
mention his copycat Republican congress that defames the
house and senate in ways we've never seen before. You're a lucky guy! You made it!
1
Trump is only fueling a fire that has been smoldering for years. If it were not indeed the perception of white male victimization anxiety trump would hold no sway. So what exactly are we to do to make white men feel more secure?
2
I have been a personal/professional development coach for 20+ years. I also served in government/politics in the late 1990's as the first - to this day the only - woman leader of my upstate NY community of 25,000.
Believe it or not, women elected officials then were even less welcome than they are now. I can tell you from experience there is one thing no one ever, ever wants to talk about...emotional maturity.
We re-coin it "emotional intelligence," and all kinds of pseudo labels, etc; to poach a phrase from George H.W. Bush & per this article...it's about emotional maturity stupid.
Just because you are powerful, successful, wealthy, or well-educated...doesn't mean you have matured emotionally. Witness Kavanaugh's “beer & bro,” angry, partisan tirade...that won him a seat on the SCOTUS.
Witness, God love him, President Clinton's less than wise choices; a brilliant, highly educated, committed, exceptionally gifted communicator.
So, after 20+ years of working for the empowerment of women – in gov't., travelling to major cities all over the U.S. to co-facilitate courses for women, offering free courses, creating an empowerment project for women after the 2016 election - the people who are coming to me now for assistance...are men.
They want playful, powerful, intimate relationships w/women in their personal lives and empowering, mutually supportive relationships with women in their professional lives.
They want to see & learn & grow & heal & mature…emotionally.
7
It continues to sicken me that Trump’s obvious hate for Obama has us in many respects where we are today. I’ve watched that correspondents dinner a few times and truly lament Obama roasting him that way even though at the time it seemed uproariously funny. But you could see the seething anger in Trump. I suspect that was the night Trump decided he would show him. It was clear earlier on how Trump hated him, largely I suspect because he was black. I wonder now though if Obama ever regrets that evening in 2011. I think it unleashed a true monster to our world.
12
@Griffin, I agree wholeheartedly that Trump's hate is sickening, but Obama should have no regrets. None. Roasting Trump good-naturedly was a gentle way of answering the relentless attacks on Obama's character. Absolutely all the blame is Trump's. He is indeed a monster, and if Obama had lain down and taken it, it might have been worse.
It’s nice to know there are people who are fighting for my right as a white man to feel aggrieved, even if I don’t actually feel white male grievance at the moment. At least it’s there if I need it and I see a time when I might need it, especially if Trump’s storm troopers come for me for not being white enough (i.e., atheist Jew) or enthusiastic enough about white male grievance. Then if they do come for me I’ll have a real grievance, but it will not be pertinent to the suffering of white male privilege. Instead, it will be white male privilege with the sword of self righteousness persecution giving me an honest-to-goodness grievance.
8
Kanye West is going to discuss prison reform that will likely help blacks in a way that no other president has been willing to do. Everyone knows he's going to walk away with the package, that Trump has been great for black America. But go ahead and hate.
5
Blow why do you insist in giving White Woman a pass on this? Was it not a hire women who asked John McCain Obama was a Muslim trying to take her country? We are always hearing about the aggrevieted White Male but never do we talk of the fearful White Female. How could any woman not feel empathy’s for Dr .Ford? I am a man and I had tears in my eyes watching Ford testify. Dr.Ford reminded me of one of my teachers who was just a good person and a great teacher. To say you believe something happened to Dr Ford but you don’t believe it was the Judge who did it is one of the most disingenuous arguments i have ever heard. I truly believe there are just as many white women who fear their place in American society is being lost. They are so fearful that they are willing to support people you would be fearful to let babysit your pre teens.
14
@Steven McCain
You are worried he gives white women a pass? White women commit far less hate crimes then black males. Ever seen Charles address the wrongs of this demographic? I haven't.
1
Kavanaugh, lied under oath. Enough said.
13
Trump is the poster boy of the DSM-V's classic narcissist. He believes he is better than anybody else. He plays the victim and projects his own weaknesses & failures onto other identity groups or individuals including his overuse of the word "unfair". Even his body language reveals his "victim" role as he often folds his arms when speaking to the press in a defensive posture. Since he has little to no empathy for others except for easy to see through "pretend" caring, he truly takes pleasure in mocking & undermining minority groups like Mexicans, women, blacks, gays, etc. Especially since this GOP Southern strategy is the one that pushed his Electoral College win over the top against Clinton. Another sign of his extreme narcissism is his immature need to seek revenge. He can't just discuss his disagreements with policy with opponents, he must use "over the top" (i.e. mentally ill) school yard bullying language like "lock her up" and accuse his detractors with words like "unpatriotic", "evil" or "nasty women". He has masterfully manipulated his cult of angry white men in the forgotten rust belt states to channel their aggrieved anger at other identity groups for all their problems. Never mind that robots, automation & the rising competition from low wage, off shore jobs that has shattered the rust belt states to the core. Trump blames easy "liberal" targets which whips his cult into a boiling white hot mob who feel their manhood affirmed through their shared hatred.
21
I think there is a risk of forming a generation of women who are possibly being trained to see inappropriate behavior where there is none. I am white and male and have implicit biases. If I see a group of young black men walking toward me, I feel differently than if it is a group of young white men. That's a prejudice on my part. I fear that a possible consequence of the #metoo movement is that many young women are going to form implicit biases about men. The fact that sexual assault is a real and a pervasive and disgusting problem is not helping (conservatives really ought to pay more attention to what happens to women at college). The fact that sexuality and pornography is inserted into the consciousness of young people so early is not helping. When I hear conservative parents blowing off the notion of sexual assault claims I wonder about how they are raising their children. When I hear liberal parents assuming anyone accused is likely guilty and deplorable, I wonder about how they are raising their children. We must raise our daughters and sons to become adults with integrity and absolute respect for others. Only then will we avoid false accusations and sexual assault. The shrill tone from both partisan liberals and partisan conservatives on these issues disgusts me with great intensity.
99
@The Lorax Women There is no need to worry that women will develop a bias against men--women have known to be wary of men for centuries. Those fears begin to form from a the time a girl is very young and the adults around her begin to instruct her in the work of constant vigilance she must do in order to try to protect herself from harassment, assault and rape. This education continues into adulthood as women are constantly barraged with safety tips and messaging about how their choices (getting drunk, wearing a short skirt) will be used against them if a man hurts them. Those fears grow through our lived experiences as women. From a young age, most of us begin to experience harassment from men. Most women have endured some kind of sexual assault, ranging from being grabbed to much worse. One in six women has been raped. Throughout my life (and I am typical) I have heard countless stories of rape and assault from my friends and loved ones. Women are already biased against men and with good reason. #MeToo doesn't want to amplify that bias, it wants to stop sexual assault and rape so women don't have to live with that fear, which would diminish bias against men rather than amplify it.
4
@The Lorax I agree whole-heartedly with you. I also noticed something very interesting in your comments. You stated that you "fear that a possible consequence of the #metoo movement is that many young women are going to form implicit biases about men". What you need to realize is that that same implicit bias has been formed about BLACK men and other men of color for decades, if not since the end of slavery.
That same implicit bias that you've admitted to experiencing "when a group of young black men walk towards you"? Well that is the same implicit bias that most white woman already cast upon black men. Because of the sins of SOME black men, as well as decades of conditioning by popular media and societal biases, when a white woman envisions being a victim of sexual assault, that vision usually includes a black male perpetrator. But why is that so? Studies conducted by the US Dept. of Justice (among others) conclude that sexual assaults occur proportionately with the population, (i.e., if black men make up 15% of the population, then 15% of sexual assaults are committed by black men). Black men do not commit MORE sexual assaults than white men, however ALL black men suffer implicit bias as a result of assaults committed by black men. This is something that white men have not historically experienced.
#metoo will undoubtedly result in white men being feared more than they have been historically. Deserved or not.
2
@The Lorax
Guess what Lorax, women harbor "implicit bias" towards men already--I didn't need a movement to remind me of my lived reality.
3
Trump's apology "on behalf of our nation" was also an attack on our last vestige of independently functioning judicial and legislative branches of government. Why should the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who asked pointed, probing questions in measured, reasonable tones, apologize for fulfilling their civic duty? Shouldn't the apology come from Kavanaugh, whose outburst veered on contempt of Congress? We are all owed an apology for the Senate Republicans who refused to release the bulk of Kavanaugh's record for the hearings, who are not pursuing the perjury committed by the nominee, who did not make public the findings of the very limited FBI investigation and who refused to function in their own advise and consent capacity in the case of Merrick Garland.
16
@An informed reader How dare he even assume he is apologizing for me as a citizen of this country. He does not represent me because I am female & Native American & disgusted by his very presence. He won't apologize for his behavior but thinks he can apologize for everyone else.
1
Unfairness, indeed. In Michael Moore’s recent film, Fahrenheit 11/9, the filmmaker credits Gwen Stefani as the reason Trump decided to run for office in the first place. He was insulted that Stefani was paid more for her role on The Voice than he did on The Apprentice and wanted to prove his worth.
5
When in history has any group voluntarily given up their power over other groups? The white male hierarchy that is the GOP has shown that rules are mere obstacles to kick aside, ethics are for sissies and there is no shame in lying and cheating to get what you want. Trump became the leader of the GOP because they created the perfect environment for him to thrive.
Malignant testosterone had destroyed the GOP long before Trump joined the party.
10
White man here -- articles like this push me further and further right.
Quoting a female Wesleyan professor to understand white male psychology and Vox? Lol -- and is if these broad-strokes are even possible. You're in your own left side Fox News bubble.
Your world view of this victim-credibility hierarchy falls victim itself to one of the tragedies of human nature, that the oppressed's desire is not freedom but to oppress their oppressor, be it real or perceived.
I don't side with Trump or Kavanagh or any of that, but this worldview is toxic, and crazy. It leaves me feeling like this: I am voting against you -- for centrists.
25
@Charles Samuel there should be an end to the two party system. There should be no parties. Candidates for office should run on their strengths & the concerns for the issues of the people. No Party Rule. People Rule.
@Charles Samuel
I appreciate your sentiment. This whole notion of victimization politics has to stop: and, as cliche as this idea has become, it is both sides perpetuating it.
The war on Christmas, reverse racism, "being treated unfairly", "religious freedom" on the right
Identity politics and "call-out culture" on the left
A positive, all-encompassing message would resonate very strongly right now, but everyone desires to be a victim except actual victims. And what does this do to people who actually are victims, whether it be of racism, sexual assault or harassment? It drowns their voices out.
2
White men being in charge of everything (government, businesses, households) is just the "natural order of things" to Trump's base. At their root they are simply traditionalists who are incredibly resistant to change. They don't understand gay marriage or trans people; they bristle at being told they have to use "PC" language or drive more fuel-efficient cars. Fortunately, this demographic is shrinking and aging. It will die out eventually--but perhaps not soon enough.
14
The irony of Trump's obsession with the word "unfair" is rich indeed.
The man who received well over $400 million from his father (mostly via unethical and perhaps criminal means) while claiming to be a self made man, who was a passive millionaire by age 8, who is the textbook definition, not to mention beneficiary of a wildly inequitable economic system is obsessed with unfairness???? Yes. The world is so unfair to poor Mr. Trump and other poor chaps like Brett "Gramps also went to Yale" Kavanaugh.
I'm white. I'm male. I'm in my 50s. And I'm repulsed by Trump and Graham and Grassley. They are making America ghastly again.
20
"Divided we fall." Such seems to be the tactic of those assaulting
American Identity by destroying American Culture, creating crevasses to entomb who and what made this country great, targeting fellow Americans, stratifying city states, inciting difference, endorsing separating "white men" from society, marginalizing People due to the color of their skin...
"It's the same old song, but with a different meaning..."
"Turn the beat around...".
Indeed !
12
Zero sum thinking. Equal rights means fewer rights for me.
It's all part of the "How DARE you!" tour.
6
A lot of men in my generation want to “own” the women in their lives. My generation is Trump’s generation. These old white men are living vicariously through Trump. Very weird. Very bad for the country.
22
Thank you for your perspective Texan
Describing or categorizing anyone based on race is wrong. It’s not Trump that you should criticize. Start with the man in the mirror.
23
This new term I'm hearing - misandrist - is ridiculous. It's absurd.
It's like "reverse racism."
When you are the group in power, and have always been in power, the idea that a group you've been oppressing, ie women are against you because you are a man, period, is nonsense.
People do not like to be oppressed, period.
Women are upset about being abused, beaten, raped, assaulted, harassed, treated like second class citizens. We do not want men telling us when and how often to give birth.
We don't want men limiting our horizons. We don't want men telling us we can't be equal in our houses of worship, that we are unclean.
We couldn't even vote until 1919. And that's in the US, supposedly an advanced civilization.
If we complain about rape or sexual assault we are "misandrists."
If we complain about workplace harassment and seek fair pay and a non-hostile workplace we are "misandrists."
If we stand up and say, no more, we are "misandrists."
Men, listen to yourselves.
24
Mr Blow sings his one note song once again and in doing so undermines issues of real importance.
Seriously, the "check your privilege crowd?"
With every column he writes, Mr Blow sings his song of white male oppression of everybody else. Every matter is defined by him in such terms. Granted, today's column includes the disclaimer of "all the white men who feel they’re losing ground," but the attack is still the same. It is his version of using the word "thug."
We need to reject Trump and men like Kavanaugh. They lie brazenly about who and what they are. They do not deserve to be in positions of leadership. Those republicans who are now crying that Ms Blasey Ford was wrong, or that those who demonstrated against Kavanaugh were hired pros are just as culpable as Trump and Kavanaugh.
Of all the senators who sat in judgement of Mr Kavanaugh on Mr Grassely's committee, the most impressive was Senator Kamala Harris. She is a force to be reckoned with and an example to white men, black men, brown men among the rest of humanity of what it means to be a forceful, intelligent person of moral integrity.
But Mr Blow's preoccupation with villifying white men is tiresome. He may resonate with his echo chamber, but he turns off far more people than he attracts.
The goal of politics is to win. Mr Blow's tactics will lose. It's just math.
26
@TDurk Everybody grinds their axe, Mr. Blow takes it to a new level, daily, and projects it to the world. It is a free country, and for that we hope he is grateful.
@TDurk it’s not check your white privilege, it’s be aware of it because it is real (and I am white). There are deep ingrained cultural assumptions made when a person of color walks into a store versus a white person, in terms of suspicion, ability to pay, etc. If you are white, you don’t “feel” the positive effects of the positive assumptions made in a split second. You just have a nice experience. No necessarily so if you are a person of color. Research has shown this to be true.
Where we are at now is that racial discrimination and sexual harassment are being exposed in ways like never before, mostly due to social media and cell phone technologies. We can’t escape them when we can capture it on a phone and put it on social media seconds later.
If this is tiresome for you to hear about, just imagine how tiresome it has been for women and minorities to live through it day in and day out. Now these voices are being heard, and finally people are being held to account for their own behavior. (And no it is not all white men, but it is a subset).
These are not tactics, these are voices being expressed. Women are 50 percent of the population. Minorities are about 30 percent. That’s the math.
@TDurk: agree with you, except Kamala, who is just another unqualified political hack running for President. She got her start by being Willie Brown's eye candy.
2
Divided, we fall.
5
Clearly, their fears are unfounded.
White males are in control and still make the rules
If anything is evident in the last few weeks it’s that.
4
Mr. Blow, I agree entirely, but this has been going on for years.
2
Ah to support every inch of this white male supremist nation that Trump feeds and personifies. Wave at democracy as she walks slowly past and over the distant hill.
6
@Mike Wilson if democracy is female then she is being pushed over a cliff by republicans not walking slowly. Strange that a man would call democracy a "she". So dictator is male, democracy & freedom is "she"?
2
Every time Trump and his ilk raved about Kavanaugh's distinguished unblemished career (as if that alone proves his innocence), I wanted to say "what about Dr. Ford's unblemished long career." That told me all I needed to know about double standards for men and women.
547
@JMM
" I wanted to say "what about Dr. Ford's unblemished long career." That told me all I needed to know about double standards for men and women."
Honestly, you comment is just more"Whataboutery." What's wrong with the "other side," is never, ever, "all I needed to know."
@JMM
Her career is certainly blemished now, thanks to Sen. Feinstein.
2
@JMM
The burden of proof should be on the accuser, not the accused. Dr. Ford was quite unable to prove her accusation against Justice Kavanaugh. Even by Sen Collins' "more likely than not" burden (as opposed to beyind a reasonable doubt), Dr. Ford's accusation didn't hold water. Therefore, since the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, Justice Kavanaugh is, indeed, innocent.
No one, not Republicans, journalists or even acquaintances, attempted to review any negative aspects of Dr. Ford's life. Can you imagine the feminist/#metoo uproar if ANYONE had questioned Dr. Ford about HER drinking, about HER relationships with men, about any other questionable teenage social decisions SHE may have made? That person would have been excoriated.
As such, no, I don't buy your rather tenuous theory about a double standard being applied to Justice Kavanaugh's advantage. I think quite the opposite is true. Dr. Ford was afforded velvet glove deference to her story, while Justice Kavanaugh was demonized and slandered.
I think the cleansing light of truth should be applied all around. Release the therapist notes, the lawyer communications with committee Democrats, the actual polygraph results, the funding sources for Dr. Ford's legal team. Let's see whether its the accused or the accuser telling the full truth.
Fair is fair, is it not?
4
People are always looking for someone too blame. Politicians are predictable: never waste a good wedge issue. Meritocracy is a great mantra, as long as it is tied to the Y-chromosome? (I am an old white guy.)
The situation with women is not complicated. Over the past 65 years the number of men in the workforce has almost doubled--the number of women has nearly quadrupled: https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#one .
During the Great Recession the percentage of the population in the labor force dropped from about 63 to 58%: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000 . We are back to about 60%. With the growing population and decline in manufacturing and increased automation of so much work, what did we think was going to happen?
Women are outperforming men in terms of getting college degrees, and entering law and medical and law schools. The women are catching up (and in some ways surpassing men)--no shocks here.
The use of the victimization foil is no surprise here. Women have used it with justification for quite a long time. They have been victimized by men worldwide for centuries.
Trump, and those like him (and many before him), are using this as part of their divisive tactics. Those are not confined to gender, but are also based on race, income, education, political views and more. These are partisan tropes, used repeatedly in our political history.
6
All true - Obama may have chafed the white supremacists especially because he oozed intelligence and good breeding - sumthin' those unedumacated overall-wearing truck drivin' down home white boys from the South do not.
That would rankle in their craw - they MUST take him down.
They don't want to understand that white multinational corporations have designed away their honest manufacturing jobs to China and Mexico - they want someone to blame - and if called to account for their Southern Lynchings - oh no - that cannot be highlighted - much better to keep on with the white boys agreeing with each other that all their problems are them black men about to rape their white daughters ...
9
I wish Mr. Blow could produce a column every day.
6
@otzi66 He produces the same exact column every week.
5
Not all of us old white guys are like the ones you accurately describe. I am proud of how our nation is not just a bunch of folks with northern European backgrounds. We are so much better, and will get even more so - but the country will never look like it did when white males were the only ones enfranchised, and amen to that.
7
"Power concedes nothing without a demand." - Frederick Douglas
The jig is up. The GOP is now fully in a zero sum political game and accepting no more demands. Preserving white privilege and civil supremacy by any and all means necessary. Using the courts to shore up white hegemony politically and economically. Making popular dissent and truth the enemy of the state. This Trumpian movement is a backlash to every societal advance any minority group, female and LGBTQ has made in the last 50 years in America; especially Obama's presidency. We always new what MAGA really stood for.
4
Blow flat out nails it! The only question is when enough non-white males are going to realize this situation and stand up and fight it. If the majority of Americans, who are not white males, vote this will be over quickly. It might be messy, but there are just so many more non-white males. We are at the point that we need to fight for equal rights for all.
4
Projection. Whatever Trump says is projection. The victim is the victimizer.
4
Is there any hope at all? Because I'm not feeling it.
4
The problem is that feeling aggrieved really motivates people to action. Trump is a master at making the powerful consider themselves “victims”. He presents society as a zero-sum game and empowerment of any one other than a Republican white male (RWM) victimizes said RWM.
Ever since Newt Gingrich, Republicans play the victim card in lieu of actually governing. They are victims when they control the government and victims when a Democrat is POTUS. Governing requires thought, compromise, and seeing people with opposing views as “real”people instead of evil caricatures. Being a victim is much easier.
6
Nationally, about 5 percentage points fewer white male students and 3 percentage points fewer Asian male students graduate than their respective female students.
It is not their fault.
It's an overwhelmingly female led and run system that educates them.
Males of color statistics are even more dismal.
3
I have yet to understand how any African American or member of a minority (which means anyone who isn’t a white Christian) voted for Trump. And there were plenty of the latter groups who voted for Donald Trump. I’m white and I didn’t.
9
Don Jr.'s statement that he worries more about his sons than his daughters says it all. One in 5 women will be raped in her lifetime. Of every 1000 rapes, only 300 are reported and only 6 men will be incarcerated. Of the 300 reported rapes it is estimated that 3% are false accusations. So, for every 1000 women raped, 9 men may be falsely accused, not punished or incarcerated, just accused.
There is a 20% chance that one of his daughters will be raped in her lifetime and a 0.02% chance that one of his sons will be falsely accused of rape. Even if he thinks that being falsely accused is equal to the trauma of being raped, he must value his sons much more than his daughters.
12
@ML I see Trump Jr's fear differently. I see it as a statement that even the "young" male Trumps are sexual offenders, and now they may fear recrimination.
2
White males still get over 75% of engineering degrees - we still dominate technical workplaces - we run most of the entrepreneurial companies - we are increasingly choosing not to mentor females as they enter the workforce - our plan to dominate professional sports and rap have unfortunately fallen through - we'll do just fine.
6
I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh humiliating “victims” for having crimes committing against them. Now the republican cry is to call themselves victims? Give me a break.
6
Channeling the Democratic Party of 2018, Mr. Blow seems bent on alienating a large segment of natural (and former) allies of the Democratic Party as recently as the Obama Administration because ... what? ... it feels good? The fact is that everyone in the bottom 90% is losing ground. Democrats would rather inflict unnecessary suffering on their own constituents than maintain an alliance with voters they don't know, don't understand, and cannot conceal their contempt for. Why do you think Obama won states in 2012 that The Heiress lost in 2016? That would be because Obama could listen and identify with ordinary Americans in a way today's Democrats cannot or will not.
9
This is so tiresome. The lengths that mainstream Democrats will go to find racial injustice in nearly every issue the public debates. All purported transgressions of Kavanaugh were among young, white adults.
Non-whites were simply not involved here.
Interpretting BK's behavior in response to these allegations, in terms of his race is itself racist. The Clarence Thomas allegations involved only blacks, as I recall. Even in this far more substantiated case, where his critics were mostly white, racial prejudice did not seem to be a factor (despite his now unlikely view that he was getting "lynched".) Mr. Blow's latest line of attack is classic 'projection', as I learned it. He identifies with victims and promotes victimization almost reflexively - and now he alleges others are ones playing the victim.
15
@carl bumba You may need to read the column again,. I can't find the word race. I think privilege was mentioned twice. I agree that non-whites were not involved but what Mr. Blow mentioned was the victimization that Trump and Kavanaugh are claiming.
@carl bumba
Equally tiresome is the notion that "mainstream" Democrats are any more monolithic and than "mainstream" Republicans. Put your prejudices away.
Hey, ja ever think that maybe some white men earned what they have? That if others had studied, sacrificed and/or worked as hard they too could be successful? That actually, affirmative action - and there has been and is plenty - has made true the opposite of white privileged?
10
@Bjh Some white men earned what they have, I would even say most white men have earned what they have. What I would also say is that those white men have had far more opportunity to earn what they have than women or minorities. Surely you jest that white men are now disadvantaged as women and minorities have been. Your white privilege is not something you have or received or were given it is the privilege of not having to deal with the things women and minorities have had to deal with, such as assuming women were not ambitious enough, couldn't be lawyers or doctors etc or blacks were not capable of higher learning or assumed to be thugs or thieves. I could go on.
2
Some of the push back is not just because of the perceived loss of privilege. It's because many in the #MeToo movement want to turn 200+ years of dealing with standards of proof on its head. Like the comment by Catherine Mackinnon in this week's Sunday Review. Sorry, but this gives me anxiety:
"Culturally, it is still said “women allege” or “claim” they were sexually assaulted. Those accused “deny” what was alleged. What if survivors “report” sexual violation and the accused “alleges” or “claims” it did not occur, or occur as reported?"
7
These white men are showing how ridiculous they are. They have had total control of our country since day one. Now that there is more of a level playing field, they can't take the competition from people of color and women. They need to get a grip and grow up.
I'm a white woman who was thrilled when California passed the ERA back in the 70's. The very first thing I did was open my own checking account and applied for a few credit cards. I was married and had 3 sons. All of them are married and/or in a relationship with a strong woman.
I'm still married, for 60 years. Goes to show that just because I'm a "libber" doesn't mean that I hate men. To the contrary, I like men. I just don't like having them try and dominate me. We are partners. And, there is no way that my husband is henpecked. He always lets me know in no uncertain terms when I've stepped over the line.
14
Trump voters range from the truly racist, anti semites, women haters (about 10% of them my estimate) to those who truly held their noses and voted for him on important issues like blue collar rust belt jobs to slave labor countries, obsessed identity politics, wall street going wild, no foreign wars etc.
Trump quickly saw the opening and demagogued all the issues.
You, Hillary and other identity politics east coast liberals completed the job and helped serve the ego maniac demagogue Trump on a silver platter to us.
Don't make the same mistake twice. In 2018 and 2020 nominate moderate progressives who are in tune with what a majority of Americans want not what identity obsessed east coast liberals want.
Learn from history or forever be condemned to repeat its worst mistakes.
6
@Paul, why is it that "identity politics" is condemned as a relatively recent phenomena? Why wasn't it identity politics when only white men could vote? Or when black people were counted in the census as a fraction of a human being? Or when women couldn't open a bank account without their husband's consent?
Truth is, white men have been practicing "identity politics" since day one. They were the ones who got to define which identity mattered,and who had power and freedom, based on identities they defined and regulated.
Now that others aren't following the script that white men wrote, they are aggrevied. Too bad, guys. They are now "the victims", when the rest of us organize and call out what white men have been up to for hundreds of years.
What a bunch of whining cry
1
@Helga- Identity politics are always wrong. It was wrong when white males did it yrs. ago. It was wrong when blacks did it in the 1970s and it is wrong now when women do it.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
1
I'm a white guy. Not particularly victimized. And, not put out by others success.
My only anxiety is over healthcare access, retirement savings, and taxes.
23
It’s possible that two things can be true at once:
That there is a “check-your-white-male-privilege culture drunk on its own self-righteousness,” AND that Trump and Kavanaugh are lying, loathsome people.
I don’t agree with Lindsey Graham on almost anything, but his complaint that white men are expected to shut up and listen struck a chord in this white man’s rather left leaning heart. If I can recognize the truth in what he says, what of a conservative Republican? It is a call to arms for them, an identity politics play strengthened by the left’s own identity politics game.
That’s not to say that racism doesn’t exist or that sexism doesn’t exist.
But men’s “tendency to believe that decreasing bias against women is associated with increasing bias against men” does have some basis in reality. I can recall my mandatory EEOC training films where every single bad employee depicted (there were about 6) was a middle aged white man who looked an awful lot like me.
I wanted to crawl under a desk.
And yet in my own personal experience, I can name an awful lot of female and non-white co-workers and bosses who sexually harassed, discriminated, etc. Yet THAT form of diversity wasn’t important enough to address. Apparently God may not be a white man, but the devil surely is.
Sometimes when white men claim that they are victims, they really are.
And just like everyone else, sometimes they aren’t.
Can we please take identity out of that evaluation process?
13
@Objectively Subjective
When you feel that jolt in your gut about being told to "shut up," think about women like me. Once upon a time, I was giving a presentation to an all male engineering group. In the middle of a discussion about some of the data, somebody quite senior to me told me to "shut up." It was quite jolting. You see, he would never have been so summarily dismissive to any of the men. I'm surprised he didn't say "shut up and get us some coffee."
This incident happened long before there was any such thing as EEOC training. If you felt like crawling under a desk during your training, well, good. All the men who sat there during my "shut up" episode were white males. Maybe you were never a "shut up" sort of white male, but plenty of your fellows were.
If it is true that women/minorities have, to some extent, turned around and became harassers themselves, then the training films ought to be gender/race neutral. Bad behavior is bad behavior no matter who the person is. We all know it when we see it.
I enjoyed Graham's whining about being told to shut up. Instead of thinking, gee, now I understand how it feels, he complains like a small child who's not getting his way. Zero character. I'm delighted that he's on the defensive--it's just so much better than being ignored.
1
As we no Trump will literally say anything. Truth for Trump is both malleable and irrelevant.
I am a white male about the age of Justice Kavanaugh. I guess I am supposed to fear getting accused of sexual assault? At least according to Trump.
But you know what, it never crosses my mind. Why not? Because I just don't find it challenging to avoid behaviors that could be so construed.
This is just Trump doing his classic misdirection - he says something absurd as a baseless counteraccusation to legitimate accusations against him. Fox News immediately takes his side, repeats the Trumpian lie as a legitimate argument and the Trumpkins swallow it unquestioningly then beg for more.
I have a sister, a mother, a daughter, and a wife. It is beyond how reasonable men across this country, regardless of political affiliation, cannot acknowledge a reality we all have had either direct or indirect experience with.
Eventually the truth breaks through. I am convinced that Trumps lies, his past, will eventually catch up to him. I certianly hope so.
9
There are a lot folks that are becoming discouraged with the Democratic party. It's not just white males. It's the perception, often rightly so, that the Democrats:
- no longer support the rule of law, due process (Title IX kangaroo courts);
- are inimical to ALL religion:
- are hostile to Israel, support BDS, and toy with antisemitism:
- have embraced "socialism";
- refuse to condemn antifa violence;
- support de facto, if not outright, open borders (sanctuary cities, "abolish" ICE);
- promote, foster and encourage identity group rivalry and enmity.
I have voted straight Democratic all my life. I have been a delegate to Democratic conventions. I voted for and supported McGovern, Obama, and both Clintons. Now, I feel totally in the political wilderness. I consider myself a slightly left-of-center moderate. I certainly do not support and will not vote for Trump, but if you think I am going automatically pull the Democratic lever in the future . . . NO MORE!
9
How about not appealing to race and gender as if it entitled anyone, but appealing to just facts and arguments?
How about that: there is a very entitled, very privileged person who repeatedly acts in a despicable manner. And he's the President.
Those characteristics relate to facts, to his character and his choices, and not to what he looked like when he was born.
If there is indeed a white men's backlash against new wave feminism and identity politics, it might not be because "white men don't want to share power".
Most of them don't have that much power to share anyway.
Maybe it's related to members of those movements increasingly mocking, dismissing the concerns of, belittling the problems of, in two words discriminating against white men based not on their personal history, character, achievements, but based on their skin color and gender.
They do so in the open, in the New York Times, every single day.
Apparently, equality ceased to be their goal a long time ago.
8
@Colin I was with you until your last sentence. Equality from the other direction was never even achieved. White men still have advantages in this society.
@Desden Agreed, to a certain point. Now there are inequalities that cut both ways - take engineering studies or academia for example.
All I meant to say, is that some very vocal groups are divisive, and show the same kind of prejudice they are supposed to fight.
As a psychology professor said to our class many years ago, it takes enormous social, emotional, and intellectual discipline to step out of who we are and objectively examine our beliefs and values. Our default behavior is to look for and invent justifications for who we are---so, it does not surprise me that the white victimization card plays well in Trumpland.
5
Or maybe Trump represents a lot of people who have disliked the direction our elites have been steering the country in for the last 40 years.
6
Opportunistic resistance to persecution can land broadly on a persecuting group in the form of biased conclusions about guilt by association - all are condemned as guilty by association.
The statements attributed to Wilkins makes it seem to imply men, especially the white ones, just don’t get it. The zero-sum relationship statement suggests there is a fundamental error in the perceptions of whites and men. Where is the economic fact checking to prove it? If it is a matter of whiny whites losing undeserved entitlements, then shouldn’t the economic data show increasing per capital income distributions across the population as a result of higher GDP?
I applaud Trump and Blow. They both incite thinking, which can lead to action. Meanwhile, we can still work on finding a better way.
While the source of the anxiety may be unreal, the anxiety itself is real. And Democrats must take notice, if the want to win. It's one thing to go after Trumpy, Weinstein etc. It's quite another to make Senator Al Franken's removal the model of things to come. It's one thing to encourage literary work from people with unique, dare I say minority, viewpoints. It's quite another to dismiss great works of literature as the view points of 'dead white men.' When women and minorities are asked to vote in their self interests, shouldn't men, white men, do so to?
3
Those who live by identity politics are liable to drown in them. American politics has become consumed by a fragmented, classless, victim-based outlook. Celebrated identities gain the status of being special because their members are eternal victims. Being a member of an identity group also has not wealth criteria.
That's why elites love identity politics. it transports them to the moral high ground. An extremely privileged (re: wealthy) person can wear the victim mantle just as justifiably as a working class person, and gain publicity from it. An extremely privileged person can have their wealth and power and tut-tut people without wealth and power too. That's pretty good cake.
What has irritated the identitarians is that Trump has cried "victim" on behalf of the Identity (ie, white male) That Shall Not Speak Its Name But In Shame. Trump's "me-too" platform is a serious challenge to identity politics because it threatens to reduce to victim status the white-male identity that confers victim status on all the other celebrated identities.
Trump has taken identity politics, which requires victimhood, to its highest possible point, and, in so doing, has probably marked the demise of a highly emotional, pre-political outlook that is hostile to due process and free expression.
4
I'm a white man opposed to Mr. Trump as president (despite hopeful skepticism about some of the actual policy moves he's made). But it does not take an historian with much insight to recognize the natural backlash arising from being told, since you were born, that you are a privileged member of a wicked class of humans: white males.
This is a confusing message for a seven-year-old boy in the 70s watching his hard-working, high-school-educated, divorced white mom living in income-adjusted housing working 12+ hour days to pay for TV dinners in our one-bedroom apartment, and it has not become easier to process over time as the arrows drawn against white men have evolved into nuclear warheads, particularly in the #metoo era. While I'm pleased with the progress of other groups of people, I am concerned that what we are seeing with the Trumpers is the predictable result of a Weimar Republic-like stranglehold on white men. We should not repeat the mistakes that led to WWII (as one example) by isolating and identifying "white men" as the cause of all of the world's problems. While they may well be, it's not because they are white, right? That would be racism. It's because they're privileged . . . supposedly. Except most--MOST--have no reason to FEEL privileged.
Which makes it all the more troubling that they have chosen Trump, the epitome of privilege, as their blue-collar hero. That tells me Trumpers are no different than anyone else looking for a free handout.
6
This column is disingenuous.Trump wouldn't have capitalized on the salience of race & ethnicity if the Democrats hadn't exploited it. We're here because the working class feels like the Democrats have abandoned them. And lets be honest. They have. In ways both large & small. Take NAFTA for example. At the 1993 NAFTA signing President Clinton said “NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, & good-paying American jobs...I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the first five years ...” Looking back over the past 25 years, all of the shiny forecasts about NAFTA, every premise of every policy, all of it, has been lies. First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as companies moved their production to Mexico, where labor was cheaper. Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits.Third, NAFTA drove several million Mexican workers and their families out of the agriculture and small business sectors, which could not compete with the flood of products — often subsidized — from U.S. producers. This dislocation was a major cause of the dramatic increase of illegal immigration in the United States. Fourth, and ultimately most importantly, NAFTA created a template for the rules of the emerging global economy, in which all the benefits would flow to corporations & all the costs to workers. The DP can't win over working class swing voters if they can't address their concerns. And they won't be able to govern without them.
7
Throughout the GOP primaries and the general election I wrote column after column about the rise of Trump and the mood of the nation.
Some folks criticized my view as too simple. Time has vindicated the simplicity.
My point was indeed simple. The rise of Trump came from the simmering resentment of many Americans over hippies, civil rights, women's rights, feminism, gay rights and affirmative action. This simmer has been constant since the 60's. In Trump the simmer came to a boil as he drew the dispersed bitterness into one big racist, homophobic, resentful caldron.
You can see it in the faces at the rallies. He gave these men and women (nearly all white and heterosexual) the permission to vent the long-pent up bile with impunity. Many who felt slightly constrained, now feel empowered as they find kindred spirits in their red hats.
All other policy and political factors are negligible.
10
We really ought to revisit the idea that Trump suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There are really many reasons for this (admittedly amateur) diagnosis, but chief among them is that they are all quick to blame other people, take no responsibility for their own actions, and they are absolutely positive that they are not the victors but the victims.
3
What does being a white male have to do with it? The latter half of your case puts Kanye West right up there with Trump among those privileged who are now claiming discrimination. Why must we on the left continue to use "white male" in the pejorative and then in the same article say white men are incorrectly claiming there's a bias against men (strictly narratively speaking – we know the reality). I'm not saying white male privilege isn't real, but let's not pretend you're not trying to create a narrative bias against white men. You can say they deserve it and you might even have a case, but at least own it. And saying "well this group and that group have dealt with these biases since the beginning of time" isn't a defense.
10
Why white males in America today might have reservations toward left wing politics?
I'm a white male and I don't see left wing politics as being progress. I see it as being full of bunk just like right wing religion. I believe in clarity, science, great art, logic, accurate comprehension of reality. Left wing politics to me appears a disaster to the Humanities among other things. Tell me honestly, is there any clarity to statements such as White Privilege, Toxic Masculinity, Racism, Sexism, Misogyny and so on? The left just appears a combination of Marx, identity politics, terms which they twist now this way and that so long as it adds up to their advantage, and it is certainly a disadvantage to white males.
I find the left petty, bureaucratic, small-minded and with a cheap Marx/identity politics morality, a system every bit as mind numbing and behavior confusing as any legal/moral/religious jargon that has appeared in the United States. There appears little objectivity to it. Exactly how is a white male supposed to be to not be considered Privileged, with Toxic Masculinity and so on?
I've found religion, legal/business jargon, left wing Marx/identity politics, etc. phenomenons to be ultimately subsumed under the field of psychology, and psychology weaponized, ultimately benefitting groups with the primary goal of controlling people. It's like we're all being afflicted with mental forms of WMD, paralyzed against clear thought and action, confused with respect to reality.
9
This column is spot on. I've written extensively about the three basic choices we all have, in every moment: be a fearful, whining VICTIM, be a conniving, scrapping SURVIVOR, or be a wise and courageous NAVIGATOR. Trump is the voice of the VICTIM.
2
From this column, it sounds like Trump was talking just about Kavanaugh and his family and the treatment that Kavanaugh and his family just went through.
But somewhere between the second and third paragraph, Mr. Blow's imagination turned this into "an outright and increasing amplification of a reactionary white male victimization syndrome that has consumed modern American conservatism."
4
Trump may delay but cannot stop the inevitable emergence of a clear majority of culturally and racially diverse Americans regaining the White House. And restoring traditional American values of respect,civility and inclusion. Trump and his narrow band of supporters will become just a bad memory. At that point America will truly become great again. It is clear that Trump impedes America’s return to greatness no matter what he proclaims.
2
What made America great was a respect for the rule of law. Liberals don’t seem to understand this. Liberals are all about #movements. This is not how a civilized society works. In third world countries, corruption is rampant. The rule of law matters less than who your friends are or who you’re able to bribe. Trump is standing up for our traditional value of presumption of innocence. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, but he’s 100% right on this.
8
Mark, Trump is the ultimate lying, corrupt con man this country has ever had as president. He is a disgrace to this country and rule of law. He doesn’t respect rule of law that goes against his corruption. He has besmirched the traditions established in this country for a president by not releasing his taxes, by devaluing journalists and institutions that acts as checks on his power, by lying incessantly about everything.
The FBI should have been allowed to conduct a full investigation on Kavanaugh. What were they afraid of ? Truth ofcourse.
6
@Mark
[cough, cough]...sorry...[cough]...I seem to have some irony caught in my throat.
1
This article actually supports the particular paranoia and delusion it seeks to assail. If expressing outrage over what you believe to be a baseless accusation of sexual assault is "an outright and increasing amplification of a reactionary white male victimization syndrome," then what's the appropriate response? For white men to simply accept accusations of sexual assault as a legitimate method by which political power is more equitably distributed among racial and gender groups? Sure, why not? The cool thing about seeing all of politics as a struggle of opposing racial and gender interests is that you can decry any stance as "oh that's so typically white" or "so typically male" or better, "so white male!" - and they can't turn it around and do the same without being racist or sexist. Is it a great system or what?
8
White male privilege is an issue, but it is women, 50% of whites,perhaps a bit more, who make white males of the type described possible. As mothers, sisters, teachers, girlfriends and wives, they are as responsible as their male counterparts in the creation of the Brett Kavanaughs and Donald Trumps in this world. They are not passive victims, they are active agents.
As toxic, or more, is the use by Trump of 'the American nation' as description of his supporters, particularly the more unhinged ones who sign 'Lock her up' as if we were in 2016. All dictators and the worst kind of populist do it, confuse a section of the population, their followers, with the whole of the nation. I'm amazed that Democrats listen to that piece of verbal fascism time and time again and let it ride.
2
Black people and white people are human beings, and as such their primary impulse in life will be to pursue - to a large though not absolute extent - their own self-interest, while seeking to evade, minimize, or shut down anyone who opposes them. Again, this is simply a central impulse, not the sole one; there are also more sympathetic drives, but these always operate in tension with a constant desire to look out for oneself. What this means in practice is that white people will seek to defend their privileged position while denying the grievances of minority groups, while members of minority groups will seek to leverage their grievances for maximum personal benefit. These assertions will likely offend everyone whom they refer to, but if you reason coldly, restraining your knee-jerk emotional responses, then I'm confident that you will agree with me that these statements are largely - though again, not comprehensively - true.
In this murky situation, search for objective solutions. Dismiss white people's refusal to acknowledge the continuing existence of racism and black people's support for inefficient responses like affirmative action as by-products, primarily, of self-interest. Set a goal of eliminating the black/white wealth gap by the year 2058, with bi-annual reviews to ensure intermediate progress, then launch a series of programs aimed at reaching this goal, reviewing them frequently so that we can expand what yields results while ditching what doesn't work.
1
@Matt "Black people and white people are human beings" This is the only part of your comment that has any basis in fact. To suggest that there is some innate difference in black and white people to oppose the other is ridiculous. I live in a community that is over 95% white. I have never looked upon any of this white community as anything other than another person. We may like different foods and have different pasts but other than that we proceed as equals. The few times that racial epithets were hurled at me the first people to stand with me were white.
Historically blacks have been discriminated against in America, not much to dispute there. At least acknowledge this without suggesting that we are somehow predisposed to work against each other.
@Desden Black people have been discriminated against in America in ways that can only be described as shockingly savage. I do not believe that there are significant innate differences between black people and white people, and I did not state or suggest that in my comment. It is a tragedy for everyone involved that blacks and whites sometimes work against one another, and this arises not out of any natural predisposition on the racial level - I cannot see that anything like that exists - but simply because every human being is selfish to a greater or lesser extent, and sometimes we pursue that selfishness in a short-sighted manner. Instead we should work together to close the black/white income and wealth gaps by a certain specific date, which will result in a better world for everyone (more human capital brought to bear, more happiness, less conflict).
No, Charles, it wasn't "the swearing-in of Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Monday," he was already sworn in.
It was a reenactment for the cameras, with Kennedy taking the role of Roberts.
Kavanaugh didn't have to participate in Trump's reality show, and Justice Kennedy didn't have to, either.
They both should have figured out what Trump most likely would say. No healing will come from this White House. Shame on all of them.
6
Trump has given voice to a feeling of victimization that was always there. His misogyny and racism is so obvious it makes it ok for those who agree to speak out. I think deep down everyone feels persecuted but most of us do something productive with that anger - get involved, work to change the environment etc - but some wallow in the "I'm the victim" space. Trump has made that ok. It remains to be seen if anything changes when Trump finally goes.
1
The patriarchy is creaking; it is not cracking but groaning and whining. Some men identify with Trump when he calls these funny noises the patriarchy is making victimization of the white male; some men would like to stop the groaning.
However, political stunts like the nomination of Kavanaugh drive deeper wedges in the electorate. It is not clear yet what the immediate consequences will be but in the long run a broader electorate and changing demographics will affect politics. Many white men wonder where or if they have a place in the new politics; they are hanging on like Lindsay Graham did in his rant in the Kavanaugh hearing.
Mr. Blow's columns are an articulate reminder that a significant group in the United States acts out of fear and desperation. Many think that by fussing today they might have a place in the future.
3