The White Male Exclusion Act, or, On Real and Imagined Hardships.

It's not the SOS message we want, but it might be the one we need.

“This country is rich with awful things to say about everybody. There's a slur for you and a slur for me - more than one. And because we're terrified of dealing with them head-on, we've made them just as easy to warp and defang.”

—Wesley Morris

I like to think that I am a somewhat well-informed citizen. When Supreme Court cases of interest pop up, I look up and review the pertinent amendments. I open the emails with action lists from the civic women’s league every week. The young man from The Community - who tolerates my mentorship and book suggestions- updates me on the local schoolyard happenings. 

I don’t watch cable news, but I do follow high-quality journalism that reminds me that out in the great wide world, the pandemic is still doing its thing, soldiers are coming home to happy kids, racism is alive and well, and the harvest of whatever humanity has sown on various social fronts continues to come up. The last few years of diving into American History have reminded me that like any other country, we sow, we reap, we repeat. 

These readings have also opened my eyes to how good I have it. The words persecution and oppression for me now contain memories (second hand) of historical, unspeakable cruelties. My eyes have gone wide at the ways different Americans were treated, their suffering legal under the eyes of the law, and acceptable in the eyes of their neighbors. What is it like to live knowing some laws forbid where you can live? Where you can drink, study, or work? To out the gate be legally barred or violently killed, raped, or assaulted without legal recourse because of what you look like or who you are? Persecution. Defined as hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs.

Perhaps my empathy has been exhausted at this point, having read about the hundreds of years of hostility, torture, and theft specifically directed at Native Americans, African Americans, Muslims, Quakers, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, Asian immigrants, Hispanic immigrants, Caribbean immigrants, and multi-ethnic couples. I’ve read the tip of the legal iceberg that was purposefully created to make sure all those people could not achieve economic, social, or political parity with Americans who considered themselves to be (or had been defined as)  White People, or specifically White Men. 

I realize this is a sensitive topic. Especially because I was recently informed that persecution of epic proportions has swept the nation. This oppression was pointed out to me as a major blind spot in my studies. I have entirely missed the Persecution of the White American Male. I love all the men in my life who happen to fall under this social identity. It is because I love them that I could reasonably expect this persecution to be about all the demonstrated ways they have been tricked into over-identifying with a social construction based on the lightness of their skin color so they could be more easily convinced to protect and identify with greedy, tricky people who occupy higher classes at the expense of their health, welfare, and educational opportunities.

 We understand that the United States of America was founded on and continued for years to be shaped by legislation and social mores that encouraged a narrative of “race”, that instead of a single human race there were many and they all fell on some made-up spectrum of superiority. We know ethnicities and phenotypes are real, and that early in American history there were a lot of multi-ethnic friendships and couples who as working-class people tended to fraternize with each other and identified more with each other as a class, and less on skin colors and cultures. This posed a serious problem for the more elite and ruling classes in the early days of America and onward because, on a numbers level, they were ( and are)  badly outnumbered by the working class. If this overworked, underfed, fed up working-class ever got together (as they tended to do) and decided they wanted better lives and policies and basic human rights, they would demand it and easily take it. Racism is complicated, and its origins come from various strains of thought and prejudice. Yet, to understand American racism, you have to acknowledge the major part that class plays. This massive group of working-class people had within it people of all skin types who endured deep inequalities, poor healthcare, food scarcity, a housing crisis, and basic needs left unmet. They all could not take part in certain political movements if they didn't own land. They could be abused by the powerful and their abusers not be held accountable in court. Lots of different ethnicities of the same class could run into the same barriers. That is what made them as a homogenous class group so very dangerous to the status quo. It was to the ruling classes’ benefit to stoke, create, and take advantage of every potential dividing factor. Seizing false, derogatory “facts” about race and who was better than who was one of the most powerful ways that early American lawmakers weakened the group solidarity of the working class. They had to ban and harshly punish multi-ethnic relationships, friendships, and interactions and they did to great effect. They desperately needed to spread racial lies and hand out rewards and special benefits to lighter-skinned people to pit them against the darker-skinned people. It worked and it is still working. 

There are people in this country -who are considered in our society to be White- who are the butt of jokes, degradation, and police mistreatment because they have been categorized as Rednecks, bumpkins, and “trash”. Again, the ruling classes saw the political power of a sector of the working class and decided to tarnish them and their lives by coming up with slurs and stereotypes to dismiss and disempower them. There are people in this country (considered to be White ) who are deeply failed by the policing, legal, health,  and educational systems within this country due to their socioeconomic status. They are tossed aside, denigrated, and abused simply because they cannot afford lawyers, or doctors, or are one disaster/mistake away from total financial ruin. While being a White Woman may allow you to escape the cultural baggage of hatred that is directed at other women, it does not protect you from the violence of men gripped by misogynistic tendencies. You may be offered a kind of protection, but White Supremacy is held up by a pillar of misogyny that while it may not allow the Black Man to touch you, will permit the White Man to kill you. Patriarchy and White Supremacy on a whole offer conditional protection, one dependent on inherent power differentials that women are forced to live with. There are real issues of class and justice and gender facing whole communities of people believed to be White. There is overlap between them and other Americans. There is a serious opportunity still for people of different ethnicities to refuse and root out the ideas of White Supremacy that conveniently pit them against each other. 

One of those ideas, myths if you will, is the idea that some men are persecuted because the power, benefits, and social privileges structured into the American society specifically for those men considered to be White are now openly examined and critiqued.

Now we don’t want to play Oppression Olympics, because we all lose when we play that game. There are degrees of legal and social oppression sure, but the pain is pain. Just because one Black person was murdered for not picking cotton fast enough, doesn’t mean that it isn’t some degree of hurtful for a modern Black woman to be refused service at a Louis Vuitton store. Just because persecution is legally or socially meted out in different degrees and ways doesn’t invalidate anyone’s experience. I never said and never will say that men who are deemed White in this society live entirely painless, carefree lives of sunshine, ice cream, and corn hole tournaments. I would never say that a White Man who visits another country has never felt the sting or the strange realization of being the only person who looks like him or has never fielded an offensive question about his ethnicity or run into an ignorant prejudice about his culture. That would be foolishness. I do not want to be dragged into a debate about that which I have not claimed. Do not email me about that one time on that one mission trip someone in Nigeria laughed at your hair sticking straight up because you gelled it like Justin Timberlake. That does not fall under systemic legal persecution, no matter how awful you felt about your hairstyle choices being mocked. 

Where this concern for persecution starts to become a whole other problem is when a group of people who have objectively inherited a society constructed around their lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness at the expense of others' lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness define their discomfort with society’s recognition of this fact as persecution. In case you haven’t had a chance to critically review most of American History: Almost every time you see any American that IS NOT a White Man enjoy ANY kind of liberty, freedom, and happiness, it is usually because that right was forcibly and sometimes violently wrested from the People In Charge. Historically, The People In Charge were curiously, mostly always, White Men. The People In Charge tended to also write a lot of rules that made sure that only White Men were The People In Charge. This started to change when The People Not In Charge made big fusses that were so painful and expensive The People In Charge had to stop them by giving them what they wanted. Before you cry out that that is a huge generalization, let me tell you that I am making a huge generalization. That said, the pattern of history while exciting, is quite repetitive. What you find in our corner of history, is that most White People had power, and then mostly rich people had power.  An overview of American History shows this continual negotiation between Everybody Else and the People In Charge. I have yet to come across a historical event where the People In Charge all had a collective epiphany that Other People deserved what they had and willingly opened the doors of power and invited everyone in all at once. I would love to be wrong on that. 

 I also don’t get to cast the characters in the last 200 plus years of American History. I didn’t choose for the People In Charge to be considered White people, guns, germs, and steel did that. It’s not my father’s fault that he finds himself born into a national context where his perspective, look, and personhood have been considered the default. It’s not any White Male Baby’s fault he is born into a historical context that has privileged his life over other people. That is life. That is history. 

What’s also life is when someone like me, who did nothing but happen to be born to certain people, finds herself living with certain privileges and opportunities that come with being born in my zip code. People have rightly pointed out that due to several complicated social and economic factors, my life will objectively have more perks than others. I can work hard, I can experience some hardships, I can have painful and hurtful experiences in my life, and all of those things will be valid. But they are all true at the same time. When other people point out the ways that this socioeconomic reality of mine exists, that it has been protected at the expense of others, and that it is linked to a long history of class oppression previously addressed, I can feel uncomfortable. When schools and institutions decide to factor in other people’s access compared to mine when they are trying to correct historic inequalities on a college campus, that could affect my otherwise unfettered access. When people write critical pieces or create legislation that gives other people without my background a shot at a fraction of what has always been available to me, that can affect me. Maybe people who are angry and have been deeply hurt by the laws and practices that have privileged me will express that anger and I might feel scared. Maybe it might feel like hostility, and that won’t feel great. Maybe there will be a summer of uprisings, and I will see the pent-up energy of people who have been ignored and hurt for centuries, and that will frighten me. 

But, if I look around and see that nearly all the laws and prejudices and assumptions favor me and people like me, and I have yet to experience a full onslaught of legal and social rules that restrict my actions, steal my property, sell my children, block me from marriage, segregate me everywhere, or put me in a concentration camp, I am going to hesitate before I cry persecution. Criticism is not persecution. Having my unchecked social privilege, standing and power questioned is not persecution. Power, at some point, is nearly always asked to justify itself. Even power you never asked to carry or reap from.  In this country, the power held historically by men who called themselves White was justified by a variety of wild things. One we addressed earlier was this idea of “racial superiority”. Another was “mental superiority”. These men believed in things like White Supremacy. Many thought they were smarter and better than women. Many assumed that their perspective was the most civilized. Lots of these people in charge thought that anyone that didn’t look like them or have their money was an animal that could be exterminated, raped, or pushed around. The power of the men who have run this country historically was justified, codified, and practiced for centuries. Unless you are a White Supremacist or Klansmen,  you can concede that most of the old justifications for the supremacy and protection of the power of White American Males were not good justifications. They were and are justifications based on racism, misogyny, classism, ignorance, and straight-up foolishness. And slowly, those justifications and the presumption of innocence were and are being held up to the light to be examined and challenged. 

There have been many moments in history when one group of people looks around at the society they live in and the justifications that bolster the status quo. There are moments when those same people begin to loudly, forcefully, and strategically dismantle or challenge those justifications. This is scary if you have an invested interest in a power differential, if you think that your life, liberty, and happiness are to be considered above and at the expense of others, or if you truly believe you are justified in wielding unequal power in this democracy. Perhaps you believe you live in a perfectly, exceptional meritocracy, magically unhinged from the realities of humanity and history. 

For people who have no historical experience with being persecuted victims for their skin or gender, it is understandable that they would mix up discomfort with shame, persecution, and oppression. Being considered a distinct social identity as opposed to the social default is a shock to one who has gone most of their lives not being reduced to a social construct of someone else’s making. For years, “Karens” were considered complex, individually indignant women. “Karen” is a social shorthand now for a perceived White Woman throwing a temper tantrum simply because the world is not bending over backward for her. This is irritating for those deemed “Karens” because their complicated anger and assumption of being the center of the universe are now dismissed, and boiled down into an easily dismissable trope. For years, White Men and White People like my beloved father were just People. There was Everbody Else, and then there were Normal, Default, People. That must have felt good. To not ever have your life or your presence or your actions be seen through a filter of “race”. To live in a society that was constructed to make your “race” the default, and Everyone Else the “other”. 

I looked for the White Male Exclusion Act, and it doesn’t exist. There was a Chinese one, in 1882. It prohibited all Chinese laborers from entering the United States. I understand that White Men are not banned from lunch counters, voting, housing, department stores, or playing in sports teams. I looked to see where they get paid less in almost every sector, and it isn’t the case. I checked to see if they are routinely marginalized for their Whiteness in the policing or the industrial prison complex, and they are not. I tried to find if they were routinely, systemically failed by a legal system that barely prosecutes their sexual assaults or if they were the highest portion of victims of domestic partner violence by guns (they are not). I looked to see if they were underrepresented and shut out of the media and film industry, and I found out that White Men don’t just win, they tend to dominate every industry they are in. It’s almost like they had hundreds of years of legislation and social power on their side. This is not the fault of any man who happens to be considered White in this country. I am not seeking to blame or shame anyone for merely arriving on the scene of vast inequalities. I am asking that this distinct social privilege, this specific set of advantages (like my socioeconomic status) be acknowledged. I am inviting White Men everywhere to use their energy and concern on the real social problems that actually plague their communities so that they can experience life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unfettered by real inequities. There are real issues of health and education and democracy that are undermining communities everywhere (White families included!). But spending a bunch of time supporting politicians who scare you into thinking that all your problems are because of the Insert Scary Race Here are “coming” and “invading” and “stealing” your American promise does not help you. These are distractions, distortions of complex immigration concerns blown up into simple, racist scare tactics that have people voting against their self-interests year after year. The big trick is making people believe that Being White and Protecting Whiteness IS the interest. That keeping America exactly how it is is the most critical issue for people to organize over. If you spend all your time busying yourself with the America that is, with your dwindling power, you can never organize or show up to create an America that could be. You don’t even have time to hold the people responsible for eroding your access to healthcare, transportation, and educational opportunities accountable.

 No one gets to exist in a societal vacuum. No one gets to be handed societal power and demand that everyone can not talk about it (technically, you can do this but it usually requires the same brutal violence and force we have discussed. I do not approve). 

 It’s an understandable shock, that this massive shift in culture where your power, position, and privilege you never once acknowledged is being discussed and debated. To feel even a fraction of a fraction of what marginalized ethnicities have felt could short circuit your brain. Jokes and pokes about your Whiteness might sting, but it doesn’t make you special. It just makes you like everyone else. That awareness, of being at the core like everybody else, is exactly what a handful of super-powerful people from the 1600s onward have never wanted you to feel. Feel it. It could change your life. 

I was raised by a brilliant, kind, and hardworking man who overcame a lot in his life to get where he is. He happens to be considered in this society a White Man. He was the first person to teach me that depending on various factors, some of us had more power and privilege than others. He taught me as a Christian, that to whom much is given, much is required. He taught me as an Air Force veteran, that we had to fight against our discomfort so that American values of equality and freedom could be true for everyone. To the men who look like the men in my life: I hope you become fully aware of the power it is to know that your Whiteness is not the cause of your persecution, it’s simply a magician’s diversion to keep your eyes from figuring out the real trick being played on you. 

“Working your way up the system doesn't mean you beat the system. It strengthens it. It's what the system depends on.”

― Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

Some references for the history behind American Class and Race History:

White Trash and the 400 Year History of Class In America or articles about or by Nancy Isenburg 

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen 

A People’s History of The United States  or by Howard Zinn

From Practice To Theory, Or What Is A White Woman Anyway?  This essay by Catherine Mackinnon (buckle up, it prods and pushes hard. Take what you will)