By David Marcus
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
As we slouch away from 2016, a year roundly regarded as
one of the worst in recent memory, the folks at MTV News have snuck in at the
last moment to make it just a little bit worse. In a video segment called “2017
Resolutions for White Guys,” the one-time music network doubles down on the identity
politics parade of horribles that helped create the division and discontent of
the current American body politic.
I’ve written before about how progressive targeting of
white men for special attacks that would never be launched at anyone else is
backfiring badly. I tried to present a nuanced argument about why we should
expect a backlash (or whitelash, if you prefer) to this anti-white rhetoric.
Now I’d like to put it more bluntly. Just stop it. It’s not working, it’s
making things worse, and it’s not clear, beyond click revenue, why this dead
horse is still being beaten.
Before examining what the creators of this snarky but
unfunny list of the white man’s ills think they are achieving, let’s look at
the segment itself, point by point.
Resolved: White
Guys Suck
The first resolution is to “Try to recognize that America
was never great for anyone who wasn’t a white guy.” Let’s forget about the
experiences of millions of non-white immigrants who found freedom and
opportunity in the United States. They don’t count. Those who were fleeing
repressive and deadly regimes in Africa, Central America, and Asia should
probably have just stayed where they were.
I mean sure, they escaped killing fields and death
squads, but they wound up in a place where their native foods are regularly
appropriated and even their styles of dress are sometimes used in Halloween
costumes. If we really want to curb illegal immigration, we should make it
clear what an awful place America is, and explain why no person of color or
woman should want to come here. The takeaway is that America sucks, and it
sucks because of white guys.
Next up, we all should agree that “Black Lives Matter
isn’t the opposite of All Lives Matter and that Blue Lives Matter isn’t a
thing.” I actually have some sympathy for this one, and have argued that we
need to think and act specifically in regard to the unique challenges that face
black Americans.
But when someone says, “Hey, don’t all lives matter?” The
useful response is to say, “Of course, but we are looking at something specific
here.” Instead the usual response is “Shut up, you racist!” Furthermore, when
the Black Lives Matter movement comes out with proposals like abolishing the
police, they make it hard for any reasonable person to take them seriously.
Speaking of police, 2016 has seen at least 64 police
officers shot and killed in the line of duty. While not a record, it well above
the average for the past 10 years. In some instances these officers were
targeted simply for being police. If you don’t like the phrase Blue Lives
Matter, don’t use it. But don’t mock what is a serious, tragic problem in our
country.
Third: “Stop bragging about being woke.” This resolution
might be the best tip-off to whom this segment is aimed at. That’s because
there is not a single white guy in the world who uses the word “woke” without
laughing who isn’t already a progressive.
I know white guys like this, mostly in the theater world.
These are white guys who support the Jubilee 2020 effort to ban plays by
straight, white men from the nation’s stages in 2020. They happily agree to
forgo opportunities for themselves, gladly saying they want to listen more and
talk less.
I think this stuff is foolish nonsense, but they don’t.
They are what are known as “allies.” For their trouble, they are mocked by MTV.
This is because no matter the level of their progressive piety, they can never
truly be absolved of the sin of being white guys.
Another resolution: “Learn what mansplaining is and stop
doing it.” I am man. I enjoy explaining things. I choose not to treat women
like precious snowflakes that fall apart in the face of the raw power of my
masculine skills of exposition. Most women I know are tough enough to take it
and give it back.
The next one is just for judges. It urges them not to
prioritize Ivy League rapists over the women they raped. Hear, hear. But let’s
save a little room to condemn the white guys who run Rolling Stone for publishing lies about rapes that never happened.
Number six isn’t so much a resolution as it is a
statement. We are told that Beyoncé is black so of course she cares about black
issues. On the other hand we (we being white guys) can have Kanye West. We know
that Kanye does not care about black issues because he met with Donald Trump.
So, I guess MTV is saying we decide who is and isn’t black not based on skin
color but on having the right political views. At least this explains how
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas got left out of the Smithsonian’s African
American Museum.
The final resolution is to understand that people with
black friends should not say they have black friends, and that you can have
black friends and still be racist. This reminded me another recent video from The New York Times called “The Life
Changing Magic of Hanging Out.” The Times
video argues that friendships that cross racial lines do, in fact, reduce the
effects of implicit bias. So I think the message here is that it’s good to have
black friends, but you shouldn’t ever mention them and yes, you still suck.
Cut Out the
Political Masturbation, Ya’ll
On its face this MTV video would seem to be directed at
white guys like me, or even worse, white guys who voted for Trump. But as we
see from resolution three, this isn’t really the case. Nobody who made this
video actually expects some guy in his American Eagle sweatshirt and University
of Virginia baseball cap to say “Ooooooohhh, now I get it!” So who is being
targeted here? And why?
The answer is pretty clearly other progressives. This
video’s reinforcement of the progressive bubble serves a few purposes. The
first is just money. MTV brass knows this stuff gets clicks, and gets guys like
to me to write about it, causing more clicks. On a slow day you can always
order up another hot take on how awful white dudes are and expect a nice little
click bounce.
But this doesn’t explain why the creators of the video,
who presumably think they are doing some kind of good, continue to choose this
approach. It also doesn’t explain why progressives who are not in the employ of
MTV choose to pass it around. One friend has suggested to me that this is very
much like a public prayer or profession of faith. It is not evangelical, it
does not really try to bring new people into the fold, but rather is
affirmative. It is a way of ensuring that those already on your side keep the
faith and are not tempted by other ideas.
Being an Ass
Provokes a Dangerous Response
This is ultimately what makes every iteration of “white
guys are terrible” so dangerous. Not only does it calcify progressives’
holier-than thou attitudes, it pours gasoline on the fire of real racism in our
society.
A fellow writer, who urged me to expand on my work
regarding the effects of anti-white rhetoric, directed me to a Twitter account
recently. I won’t link it, because it is horrible, but it has 260,000 followers
and when it isn’t tweeting out alt-right manifestos and memes about white
genocide, it is tweeting out videos like MTV’s resolutions for white guys.
Racists take this stuff and throw it in the face of a
young white guy who doesn’t think our society is a big rock candy mountain made
for his enjoyment. Too often that young white guy’s reaction is, “Yeah, screw
these people.”
Can conservatives and white people in general do a better
job dealing with race? Yes, and I’ve written as much. But videos like this one
mocking and lecturing white men make that project much more difficult. So just
stop. The creators of this video can’t possibly believe they are swaying anyone
to their side. They need to wake up and realize that they are swaying people to
the other side. And that is terrible for all of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment