Douchebag: The White Racial Slur We've All Been Waiting For
October 19, 2014 9:36 AM   Subscribe

I am a white, middle class male professor at a big, public university, and every year I get up in front of a hundred and fifty to two hundred undergraduates in a class on the history of race in America and I ask them to shout white racial slurs at me. The results are usually disappointing.

Now I gotta get to another class half-way across campus, so I don’t have time to tell them that so-called “liberal guilt” is not the answer and that empathy and solidarity are. I don’t have time to explain that learning to share anger at injustice is the start of a common conversation, and that they can learn how to recognize where privilege resides in their own lives by reading about and listening to the experiences of others who do not have it. But I gotta run, so I just say to them: “It’s a long argument, and an endless series of principled choices, but the short version is simply: don’t be a douchebag.”
posted by 724A (167 comments total) 58 users marked this as a favorite
 
As an exercise to get people thinking it seems pretty damn effective? To me it appears to be game theory put into good practice. Yeah it's a little low-brow but as an entry point into the discussion I think it as good a place as any to start.
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:46 AM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


As a student, I ALWAYS prefered formal information regurgitation over engaging, thought-provoking participatory activities, because I am an android.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:48 AM on October 19, 2014 [24 favorites]


Maybe I framed my first post wrong, but this article is way more than an article about teaching methods.
posted by 724A at 9:50 AM on October 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


To wit, It reminds us that while we can enjoy laughing at the douchebag on-line, we need never forget that these rampaging white males are not just a random assortment of crazy loners, but that they often act violently out of a sense of racist and sexist entitlement that renders them the enemies of humanity.
posted by mr. digits at 9:53 AM on October 19, 2014 [20 favorites]


Kayne West, Lebron James, and Tiger Woods. Not douchebags?
posted by pwnguin at 9:55 AM on October 19, 2014 [13 favorites]


Gotta say it, I love 'douchebag' (and derivations) as an insult. Douching is bad for you; it's the opposite of many of the racist/sexist/homophobic origins of so many other insults.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:56 AM on October 19, 2014 [13 favorites]


A note, not a derail: in a het, vaginal-sex context, yes, the douchebag is a "totally useless sexual tool." However it is a common piece in the kit of those (straight or gay) who uh prefer the retrograde maneuver.

Or whatever perfect amazing idiom Achewood came up with for anal.
posted by sixswitch at 9:58 AM on October 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


Douchebag is kind of an odd choice there in that to me and I'm sure others it connotes a person of Italian heritage. “It’s a long argument, and an endless series of principled choices, but the short version is simply: don’t be a douchebag.” would have probably read better as "“It’s a long argument, and an endless series of principled choices, but the short version is simply: don’t be an asshole.”
posted by vapidave at 9:58 AM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Love the article, hate this caption:

In this 1950s encyclopedia, Asians live in pagodas and wear pajamas, Blacks live in mud huts and wear chains, and White people live in mid-century modernist mansions and wear suits.

I was hoping it was intentional, but if there was a mention in the article, I somehow missed it.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:58 AM on October 19, 2014


Kayne West, Lebron James, and Tiger Woods. Not douchebags?

I'm not sure I agree with how the author is setting this up, but he does open up that possibility:
It is an inescapable fact that 99% of those we hurl the term at are rich white men or those who aspire to be and mimic their ways. Only after great debate can we judge if someone who is black or gay or a female or poor can be called a douchebag.
posted by jaguar at 10:00 AM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Mod note: Couple comments removed, let's skip the whole knee jerk thing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:00 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Seriously, Riker is definitely a bigger douchebag than Kirk (and what on earth does "in every edition" mean here?)
posted by the bricabrac man at 10:01 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


A note, not a derail: in a het, vaginal-sex context, yes, the douchebag is a "totally useless sexual tool." However it is a common piece in the kit of those (straight or gay) who uh prefer the retrograde maneuver.

'tis, but it's also bad there--strips away mucosa that protect the rectum.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:02 AM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


who uh prefer the retrograde maneuver. Or whatever perfect amazing idiom Achewood came up with for anal.

Gentlemen refer to it as bowling from the pavilion end.
posted by sobarel at 10:03 AM on October 19, 2014 [19 favorites]


I have never heard of douchebag being even vaguely related to Italian heritage. Is this a common understanding?
posted by jeather at 10:03 AM on October 19, 2014 [33 favorites]


That was an interesting article; thank you for posting.
posted by Wordshore at 10:05 AM on October 19, 2014


would have probably read better as "“It’s a long argument, and an endless series of principled choices, but the short version is simply: don’t be an asshole.”

He specifically differentiates that:
The precise race, class and gender position of the douchebag marks this identity as a specific subset of the asshole, another identity on the rise in the twenty-first century. The asshole — as brilliantly defined by Ta-Nehisi Coates — is someone who insists that all social encounters occur on their terms, as in, “hey that person over there with the google glass is an asshole!” (Glasshole! Get it?) But anyone can be an asshole, after all we all have one.

The douchebag is always a white guy. But he is more than that. The douchebag is the demanding 1%, and the far more numerically significant class of white, heterosexist men who ape and aspire to be them. Wall Street guys are douchebags to be sure, but so is anyone looking to cash in on his white male privilege.

This narrowness of categorization — perhaps unique in the history of America’s rich history of racial and sexual slurs — is what makes the word douchebag such a potentially useful political tool.
People can be assholes about all sorts of things. I'm not sure I like "douchebag" instead of "entitled racist misogynist" (or variations), but I do think it's important to point out the actual systemic racism/sexism/homophobia/classism/etc that certain actions maintain or reinforce; calling a person "an asshole" puts the behavior back into the realm of the strictly interpersonal in a way that erases systemic privilege and lets the person off the hook.
posted by jaguar at 10:06 AM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


What about "Okie"
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:06 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


The asshole — as brilliantly defined by Ta-Nehisi Coates — is someone who insists that all social encounters occur on their terms

This is a fantastic definition.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:10 AM on October 19, 2014 [45 favorites]


(In terms of a word that have been used as a pretty damaging insult to white people...)
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:11 AM on October 19, 2014


What about "okie"? Like many of the would-be epithets, it's a (very) specific slur at poor rural whites. There is no epithet that works on all white people; Donald Trump is not an "Okie." Not that victory would be to resurrect "honkie" and make it sting; the point is to help people see that white people get to have the illusion of having no race, just like the newsreader accent is supposedly no accent at all.
posted by argybarg at 10:13 AM on October 19, 2014 [9 favorites]


I was under the impression that douchebag referred to an arrestedly developed fratboy or a bro. My mental picture of either of those is a white male but I never assumed that it required a melanin deficiency.
posted by djeo at 10:15 AM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


Okie is a term that denigrates a group of whites -- men and women -- on the basis of region and class, not maleness and whiteness.
posted by maxsparber at 10:16 AM on October 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


“It’s a long argument, and an endless series of principled choices, but the short version is simply: don’t be an asshole.”

From the link:
The precise race, class and gender position of the douchebag marks this identity as a specific subset of the asshole, another identity on the rise in the twenty-first century. The asshole — as brilliantly defined by Ta-Nehisi Coates — is someone who insists that all social encounters occur on their terms, as in, “hey that person over there with the google glass is an asshole!” (Glasshole! Get it?) But anyone can be an asshole, after all we all have one.
In the taxonomy of Titles Related to Shitty Interpersonal Behavior, the DOUCHEBAG is-a child of ASSHOLE.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:17 AM on October 19, 2014


I'm more partial to bloodclaat and bombaclaat -- both a reminder that simply being born white does not mean you are better than anyone else.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:17 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm not an ethnolinguist, but I do know a bit about the English language and I'm fairly certain that the epithet "douchebag" (and its parent "douche") does not derive its power to insult on the level of the vernacular because of late 20th century understandings of the deleterious effects of douching.*

"Douchebag" is not a triumph of feminism.

"Douchebag" derives its vernacular power because hegemonic culture is still quite sexist and anything associated with the feminine is considered trivial, dismissible, and contemptible. (For example, the usage of legions of self-entitled privileged persons who nominate their rivals and peers "douchebags".)

As an epithet, "sexist" does not have the same power as "douche" and that's because it's not underwritten by all the sexist presumption of "douche".

Using "douchebag" as an epithet is really shallow, equivalent to calling someone a "cocksucker", a term also rooted in misogyny and homophobia.

* Thoughtful blog post about the origins of "douchebag" as an epithet.
The first usage of douchebag/douche bag that I could find in the pejorative sense dates back to at least 1951, in the classic novel From Here to Eternity (here an adjective):

“The trouble with you, Pete,” the voice that did not seem to come with him but from that cigaret said savagely, “is that you can’t see further than that douchebag nose of yours.”
posted by mistersquid at 10:22 AM on October 19, 2014 [53 favorites]


Maybe I framed my first post wrong, but this article is way more than an article about teaching methods.

you should have gone with the douchebag: "useless, sexist tool" line... which is pretty good.

But the problem is that "don't be a douchebag" is totally not the answer to: how do I become "anti-racist." However, it's exactly what young adults aspiring to the "middle class" want to hear.
And being that we are at a top ranked west coast university, not only do we all share basic middle class aspirations...
That is, problems with power relations among classes of people actually reduce down to individual moral choices i.e. to be a d-bag or not to be a d-bag. But, then, what does it mean to aspire to the "middle class"? It's usually framed in terms of income, but it's actually about power, specifically your relationship to the capital which sustains every human enterprise. A well-paid plumber will always be "blue-collar" unless he puts down his tools and jumps the line to become a businessman. Which is to say that aspiring to be middle class is aspiring to a particular sort of power... the sort of power where decisions to buckle, down, do you homework, and follow the rules lead to certain possibilities in life. A world where the decision to be a d-bag or not is important is the 'moral free market' that gives the "middle class" it's power.

Now, Cohen, good lefty that he wants to be. Is trying to make an rhetorical argument for redistributing property from douchebags to non-douchebags.
Our policy attack on social douchebaggery can begin with with taxes on yachts, segways and vacation homes. Are you a single dude with more than one car? Pay up. Do you ride to work on the google bus? You should pay taxes to San Francisco for the roads and bus stops your privatized mass transportation relies upon. Best of all, we can stop calling the threat to raise taxes on the rich “class warfare” and just start calling it the “douchebag tax.”
You can see just how contradictory that is, if you've convinced a bunch of college students that what they need to be is not a douchebag. I mean, why should riding on the Google bus make you a douchebag? And, if you're not a douchebag why should you be paying all these taxes?

It just ends up being yet another file in the evidence bin showing that the academic left are clowns putting on a show for a particular audience. He's telling a story his audience wants to hear while telling himself the story of how he is advancing politics.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:24 AM on October 19, 2014 [9 favorites]


I always thought d-bag = dick, as in "don't be a...". I've never attached any racial significance to it but I've also never applied either term to a woman.
posted by fuse theorem at 10:25 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


The international students give their own regional variant insult for white imperialists and tourists — such as “Haole.”

Hawai'i is part of the United States now, Professor.

There is a history of the douchebag as a white racial slur, stretching from when the word was first flung across a D&D game in 1982’s ET

I'm sorry, what?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:25 AM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Perhaps it's just me and maybe because the word "douche", to me, scans as sort of italian [I'm not that far off it seems] and also because I heard it most [I think] in reference to the male characters from Jersey Shore who are represented as being of Italian heritage. Apologies for any derail.
posted by vapidave at 10:26 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I thought the whole point is that privilege insulates one against racial slurs, regardless of what the word is. Why would anyone find "douchebag" anymore harmful than "cracker"? What's to say "douchebag" wouldn't be immediately embraced/co-opted as a badge of pride or laughingly dismissed out of hand?
posted by echocollate at 10:27 AM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


There isn't any racial slur for white people in the US because whites are the majority (or, depending on where you live, the privileged minority). There isn't any word that "stings" because whites get to define what is "normal" in the US.

There are plenty of slurs for white people in countries where they are not the majority (e.g. gringo, gweilo, laowai), many of which "expats" wear with a kind of indignant pride or use to refer to thsemelves ironically; there are so many bloggers who call themselves Gaijin So and So, Laowai so and so. Of course, some of these words aren't really slurs (in the sense of being used to intentionally offend) but they are often perceived of as such, especially if you don't understand any of the language save for those words that signify "someone is talking about the foreigner again." For most of these people it is probably their first experience being an ethnic minority, especially since a lot of them are basically blind to racism in their own countries. Sadly, at least in my own experience, most of these people just come away thinking "X country is so much more racist than the USA" instead of getting some insight into what it's like to be a non-white person back home.
posted by pravit at 10:30 AM on October 19, 2014 [11 favorites]


Okie is a term that denigrates a group of whites -- men and women -- on the basis of region and class, not maleness and whiteness.

I mean, is the argument seriously that if people had, say, different racist terms for African-Americans of slave descent and African-Americans of Latin descent and African-Americans who were recent immigrants, that everything would be just peachy keen? It's not about the broadness of the term, it's about the racist intent.
posted by corb at 10:32 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


"honky" is hardly dead - but i guess one can be isolated from that, especially at college
posted by pyramid termite at 10:32 AM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


That is a deeply weird article.
posted by Segundus at 10:33 AM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Douchebag is an insult not tied to race, or even class, in my opinion. I also subscribe to a personal taxonomy that assigns severity to the insult. Someone could be a douche (an unpleasant person who should be socially flushed away for us all to feel better,) a douchebag (the whole bag must be used,) a douche nozzle (someone who is stuck up your craw,) a douche ejection, etc. (And yes, I know that actual vaginal douching is generally bad for actual vaginas.)

Everyone is an asshole, but not everyone sticks their asshole in your face. A douche thinks their shit doesn't smell and really wants to stick in in your face.

Also douchebag, the word, is far more nasty sounding than calling someone an enemabag.
posted by Catblack at 10:34 AM on October 19, 2014


"Douchebag" derives its vernacular power because hegemonic culture is still quite sexist and anything associated with the feminine is considered trivial, dismissible, and contemptible.
This is the part that left me thinking that it's a more effective example of teaching complex topics than it is a useful reclamation of the term. As you said, "douchebag" maintains its power to insult the targets this writer describes for a completely different set of reasons than the writer suggests. "It's disgusting because it's associated with squicky female reproductive stuff, and also can be laughed at for the same reasons" is the implicit meaning that a lot of people I know take from it.

I think the essay is a really good one and it chews on some really complex ideas, but. Yeah...


But.
posted by verb at 10:36 AM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


I also think "douchebag" connotes an arrogant, socially obnoxious bro. It's true my mental image of this person is white, but I don't think it works as an all-purpose slur against white entitlement, which is often more subtle and insidious than the word "douchebag" is adequate for. I'm not convinced the article gets the connotations right. For example, I don't think of Patrick Bateman as a "douchebag" - he's a bit too socially reserved and "pleasant" on the surface to qualify for that word. I don't know.
posted by naju at 10:37 AM on October 19, 2014 [9 favorites]


I mean, is the argument seriously that if people had, say, different racist terms for African-Americans of slave descent and African-Americans of Latin descent and African-Americans who were recent immigrants, that everything would be just peachy keen? It's not about the broadness of the term, it's about the racist intent.
There's also the inescapable history: words aren't simply neutral containers for linguistic intent. I have an uncle, for example, who casually (and even cheerily) used "n——er" as a descriptor for black acquaintances and even employees for many years. Normalizing words that are imbued with profound social and emotional power because of their historic use doesn't implicitly neutralize them. It simply normalizes their use even among people who would shy back from intentionally malicious use.
posted by verb at 10:40 AM on October 19, 2014


In seventh grade we had "sex ed" and it was an embarrassment. At least the priest who taught us "sex ed" at my catholic high school was honest.

But that's neither here nor there. The point is that during my seventh grade "sex ed" session we were asked to list all slang terms we knew for genetalia. I knew a lot so I was up at the board way longer than any other kid. The teacher eventually told me to sit down and, wiseass that I am, responded with "You said *all.*"

This bought me a week's detention and a confirmation that most teachers don't actually care if you know anything.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 10:41 AM on October 19, 2014 [22 favorites]


It could be that the worst thing you can say to a white person is that they're being "white", or even worse -- that they're doing something that "white people" do.
posted by the jam at 10:42 AM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


Perhaps it's just me and maybe because the word "douche", to me, scans as sort of italian

It means "shower" in French. It's always a giggly moment in high school French class when you get to the At Home chapter vocabulary. The Italian word for shower is pronounced "doh cha." They're close in that they're all coming from Latin, but they are separate languages.
posted by jaguar at 10:43 AM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


I always liked "Ofay" myself. It, at least, has its origin as a pejorative term for whites in western Africa. So, you know, serious cred.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


Yeah, I don't really think that promoting the use of racial slurs really gets us anywhere on the path to equality. (I don't think haranguing young white college students about their white privilege does much either, but that's another post.)

Also this: " but we can feel pretty safe in the fact that there are no “Red Necks” here to insult."

Why in the world would he assume that? I'm making no argument about red neck being the functional equivalent of the n-word. But the author is (I think) a lecturer at UC Berkeley, which could certainly have kids who view themselves as coming from a "white trash" or "red neck" background - you get in to some pretty deep, rural farming folk not even 100 miles away from Berkeley.
posted by yarly at 10:49 AM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


Perhaps it's just me and maybe because the word "douche", to me, scans as sort of italian

Il Duce-Bag
posted by zamboni at 10:51 AM on October 19, 2014 [19 favorites]


The point is that douchebag isn't fundamentally a racial slur, but a specific type of insult based on character traits that are heavily concentrated among white men who are somewhere on the spectrum of "ignorant" to "in active denial" of their privilege.

There is no such thing as a racial slur against white people because 'white people' are not a race, but a strange and malleable class based on exclusion. (That is, you become a white person by virtue of not being considered a person of color.) And white people are so used to whiteness being an optional identity that a meaningful slur has to be a lot more specific than that. And "entitled, privilege denying dillweed" is a very slur-friendly category.

So I am pretty firmly in the pro-douchebag camp. (To be clear, I am not pro-actual-douchebags, but pro calling them that.)
posted by ernielundquist at 11:03 AM on October 19, 2014 [25 favorites]


As someone who is old enough to remember douche bags being sold in pharmacies, the origin of the term as a synonym for "pussy" makes it irredeemably sexist.
posted by Peach at 11:04 AM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


I also think "douchebag" connotes an arrogant, socially obnoxious bro.

Yeah exactly. This isn't a term for general white entitlement because it's specifically about someone with a juvenile attitude, and, consequently, a juvenile's social power. It always read to me like the dirtier version of "jackass" with some sexual innuendo implying that the jackass in question was sleazy as well as obnoxious. The problem with this as a slur for white privilege and entitlement is that it's an inherently dismissive insult that is used to label someone as a powerless, bratty child who is committing petty social offenses," "he ain't shit.' You call someone a douchebag to diminish them and roll your eyes at them. When it's used as a complaint about an SO the subtext is always, "you have no power over me." So as a slur supposedly being used to highlight social power and privilege, not so much.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 11:08 AM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


I think this articles use of douchebag is meant to be proactively definitional, not purely descriptive. "Let's use this term in this specific way to fight racism and privledged right-wing tomfoolery" he is proposing. And I heartily agree.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:15 AM on October 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


There is no epithet that works on all white people; Donald Trump is not an "Okie."

Trump's public persona is sui doucherous, and so has a unique epithet: "short-fingered vulgarian"
posted by zippy at 11:17 AM on October 19, 2014 [15 favorites]


If it's proactively definitional, it's going to have to overcome how the majority of us intuitively understand the word.
posted by naju at 11:22 AM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


Wow, this piece was so on-point. Thanks for posting!

As long as we're weighing in about what we think "douchebag" means, he described my conception of the word douchebag almost perfectly: "The douchebag is the demanding 1%, and the far more numerically significant class of white, heterosexist men who ape and aspire to be them. Wall Street guys are douchebags to be sure, but so is anyone looking to cash in on his white male privilege."

Incidentally, this piece reminded me of how often the Dropbox guys were called douchebags or douchebros in the recent soccer field reservation thread - it appears to be one of the only names you can call an affluent white guy that still has the power to sting a little.
posted by dialetheia at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


I'll gonna let Richard Pryor handle this one: "dead honkie".

(Warning: Saturday Night Live skit from 1975. Lots of racist words.)
posted by benito.strauss at 11:41 AM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


"Since the coming of colorblindness as the official ideology of neoliberal racism, we have needed a precise term with which to recognize and ridicule white privilege when we see it. So we should sharpen our critical swords and wield this insult with a new rapier like awareness, and thereby give the racists, the conservatives, and the 1% something they are always imagining anyways: reverse discrimination."

I love this article, thanks for sharing!
posted by winterportage at 11:57 AM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


it appears to be one of the only names you can call an affluent white guy that still has the power to sting a little.

Creep is the other major one.
posted by jeather at 11:59 AM on October 19, 2014 [13 favorites]


I think of "douchebag" not as a white-specific insult, but yeah, as an insult that implies the worst sort of . . . douchebaggy entitlement that you see in its highest and most likely concentration amongst a certain type of uber-privileged white guy. And I maintain, fiercely, that it is absolutely not a sexist insult; both the instrument and the man it refers to are widely touted by the patriarchal capitalist machine in this country as being absolutely necessary for a woman's cultural, romantic, and social success, but in reality they are disruptive, unnecessary, harmful, and a waste of time, energy, and money.
posted by KathrynT at 12:02 PM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


I don't like the term and have never used it as a description of another human as far as I can remember, but for me 'douche bag', with its bulging fluid-filled sac surmounted by a slender nozzle inescapably invokes a detached set of not terribly impressive male genitals, which immediately morphs in my imagination into a variety of male face with jowly cheeks and a narrow nose, probably best exemplified by certain popular caricatures of Richard Nixon.

Therefore a variation on 'prick' peculiarly apt for corpulent white businessmen in body-effacing dark suits which tend to make their often unpleasantly fleshy countenances seem to float around menacingly yet ineffectually, like bad special effects in a comedic porno-horror movie.
posted by jamjam at 12:02 PM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Maybe it's a New Yorker thing. But man, there is no other word that sufficiently describes the white motherfuckers that control shit in this town across Wall St., Silicon Alley, Rock Center, UES and Brooklyn Heights. It's bags of sexist effluvia getting all useless up in your biz from river to sea here sometimes.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:02 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


I've been trying to get away from using gendered slurs but at this moment "douchebag" so perfectly describes the white guy on the bus doing pull-ups next to me.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:04 PM on October 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


Creep has a sexual connotation though. It's not race-specific.
posted by vapidave at 12:04 PM on October 19, 2014


Ofay used to be worse than cracker or honky, but it's not too current. I used to hate it when my black students called me "Dexter." (This was 25 years ago, before the TV program.)
posted by kozad at 12:05 PM on October 19, 2014


Perhaps it's just me and maybe because the word "douche", to me, scans as sort of italian

This is a fussy bit of pedantry, but: that is not what "scan" means. I think you meant "reads as."
posted by clockzero at 12:06 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Incidentally, this piece reminded me of how often the Dropbox guys were called douchebags or douchebros in the recent soccer field reservation thread - it appears to be one of the only names you can call an affluent white guy that still has the power to sting a little.
Eh, I don't know. I'm a white guy, and I'm somewhat affluent. I'd feel stung by someone calling me a douchebag (genuinely, that is; not, for example, it were one of my friends who was just joking around). But not because I'm a somewhat affluent white guy; rather, because my understanding of "douchebag" is "jerk" or "asshole".

There are lots of names you could call me that would make me feel stung; lots and lots. Douchebag is by no means "one of the only" ones. None of them would make me feel stung because I'm white.

If "douchebag" were to shift in meaning (in my understanding) to be a racial slur instead of "jerk", I don't think I would particularly care very much about being called a douchebag.
posted by Flunkie at 12:07 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Creep is not race-specific, but it really, really offends white guys.
posted by jeather at 12:07 PM on October 19, 2014 [22 favorites]


I'm more partial to bloodclaat and bombaclaat -- both a reminder that simply being born white does not mean you are better than anyone else.

Maybe I'm misreading, but while those are pretty harsh insults (as in, said to the right person with the right tone they will get your ass kicked, no problem, and are also frequently used lightly for comic emphasis), they are not ones that are particularly targeted towards whites or racialized other than being in patois. Bloodclot ("blood cloth," ie menstrual pad; cf "pussyclot") has weight for the usual misogynistic reasons of stigmatizing menstruation; bumbaclot/rasclot is purely scatological.

Re: douchebag, in the last year or so I've started hearing it applied to women, usually something like "Man, she's been acting like a douche lately." I don't know if that's always been the case and I've just started noticing, or if that is a new application of the term. In either case it's describing similar entitled behaviors, and my mental image for the term is still very much a white frat boy even though I hear it used far more broadly.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:10 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I've been trying to get away from using gendered slurs but at this moment "douchebag" so perfectly describes the white guy on the bus doing pull-ups next to me.

What did he say?
posted by jingzuo at 12:13 PM on October 19, 2014


"This is a fussy bit of pedantry, but: that is not what "scan" means. I think you meant "reads as.""

I appreciate fussy pedantry. It's something we share, though language is my short suit. Honestly, thanks.
posted by vapidave at 12:14 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is a fussy bit of pedantry, but: that is not what "scan" means. I think you meant "reads as."

Fussy bit of pedantry, definitely, and, more importantly, wrong. There's nothing wrong with using scan that way.
posted by nzero at 12:15 PM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


My first thought on the term is the early SNL sketch involving Garrett Morriss announcing "Mister and Mrs. DOUCHE-a-bag!" meeting the Earl of Sandwich.

I suspect a lot of its popularity is that it was a phrase you could say as a cuss that wasn't banned by the FCC. And as Todd has taught us, cusses have power.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:23 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm sure learning empathy and solidarity will justify all that student loan debt.
posted by jpe at 12:27 PM on October 19, 2014


How is Riker not a d-bag?

Seriously, Riker is definitely a bigger douchebag than Kirk (and what on earth does "in every edition" mean here?)

In what way is (William)* Riker a douchebag? Kirk is the one who forces himself on women to get them to submit to him.

*there's an argument to be made for Tom Riker.
posted by sparklemotion at 12:31 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Coming from the idea of, "be wary of trying to tear down the Master's house with the Master's tools," I'm going have to say that I'm skeptical of anybody who thinks a 150+ person Freshman lecture is going to be a productive place to promote pejoratives of any kind. I guess I'd have to see the lecture in full but I think it's sufficient to say that any pejorative, such as "douchebag," can be co-opted and turned around, just as we've seen words like "liberal, "social justice," "progressive," and "feminist," have been co-opted and turned around to become pejoratives.

The students who've been on Reddit will already write this prof off as a "SJW" and will be counting their karma points for when they post to TumblrInAction. The students who were raised on Fox News will be planning their covert camera phone techniques in order to selectively edit the lecture. The students who were actually called "redneck" at some point in time are going to walk away feeling hurt and not knowing why.

What I've always seen is that change only comes from relationships -- from actually interacting with and butting heads with other real human beings from other backgrounds in the close quarters of real life. I spent my entire University career in those 150+ person lecture halls and I was exposed to some ideas intellectually, but they didn't take hold emotionally until after college when I was exposed to small rooms with dedicated facilitators who spent more time listening than talking.

I've seen those small rooms facilitated at a fraction of the cost of today's college education. Considering the insanely growing cost of a college education, I don't think it's too much to ask for the professor to not be rushing off to his next class with some self-admittedly trite advice about "douchbaggery." If you are in a place of privilege and you start that conversation, you should be in a position to leverage your privilege to bear that conversation fully.

I hope that the professor is also punching up and telling the administration that if they want to have a class on diversity, then they need to be willing to hire enough staff to have small enough classes to make that conversation productive.
posted by Skwirl at 12:34 PM on October 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


How is Riker not a d-bag?

If Riker was a douchebag, he never would have given back the Q powers in Hide and Q.
posted by dialetheia at 12:35 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


A note, not a derail: in a het, vaginal-sex context, yes, the douchebag is a "totally useless sexual tool." However it is a common piece in the kit of those (straight or gay) who uh prefer the retrograde maneuver.

Wait, I thought that in those contexts it's an enema, not a douche?

I'm not an ethnolinguist, but I do know a bit about the English language and I'm fairly certain that the epithet "douchebag" (and its parent "douche") does not derive its power to insult on the level of the vernacular because of late 20th century understandings of the deleterious effects of douching.*

I hope nobody has illusions that that's the origin of the insult, but I have seen that in a reclamatory reframing context. I'm not a woman so I I've been eliminating it from my personal calling out bad people vocabulary, but I'm not going to call out women who use it.
posted by kmz at 12:40 PM on October 19, 2014


Douchebag is an insult not tied to race, or even class, in my opinion. I also subscribe to a personal taxonomy that assigns severity to the insult. Someone could be a douche (an unpleasant person who should be socially flushed away for us all to feel better,) a douchebag (the whole bag must be used,) a douche nozzle (someone who is stuck up your craw,) a douche ejection, etc. (And yes, I know that actual vaginal douching is generally bad for actual vaginas.)

I'm particularly fond of douche canoe. Where would that be in your rankings?
posted by brundlefly at 12:44 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I found it to be a remarkably well though article on the absence of a white pejorative. And I agree with the writer that Douchbag certainly has moved into a position to fill that needed niche.

But what I was most surprised by was the well articulated defense of the hipster. Particularly in how they are, in some ways, the opposite of the douchbag.

I wouldn't have thought to that part of the argument, and I applaud the writer for seeing it.
posted by quin at 12:48 PM on October 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


I've cited this before on Metafilter, but it remains a legendary underground classic in linguistics and deserves to be known.

Roger W. Wescott, 1971 "Labio-velarity and derogation in English: a study in phonosemic correlation." American Speech, 46 (1-2)

Basically, he explains why "douchebag" belongs to a substantial class of insulting words in English, albeit in purely phonemic terms.
posted by spitbull at 12:51 PM on October 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


Yeah, I would say getting bound up in the definition of douchebag is missing the point here. As someone noted above, a racial slur that punches up is basically a niche waiting to be occupied, and that's the meat of the article for me.

Also, Paul Ryan. As I keep mentioning I live in his district (he was re-elected to Congress, but only on the strength of heavily Republican areas outside his hometown, which voted against him on both ballots) and can never get enough Paul Ryan hate.

I will say that the term of art which I've been on the receiving end of is "cracker" -- in fact, in three separate instances last year.
posted by dhartung at 12:54 PM on October 19, 2014


I have an issue with the near constant appearance of the word "privilege." People use this word as if it denotes an intrinsic quality that someone has. But if it exists at all it is an extrinsic quality either bestowed upon a person by others for whatever reason, or it is something that a person can demand from others for whatever reason. I guess the latter applies to douchebags. But the insistence that it is an intrinsic quality irks me to no end.
posted by njohnson23 at 12:55 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


The hipster might start a coffee shop in a poor, black neighborhood, but the douchebag wants to call the cops on the black men on the corner right after he turns your indy coffee shop into a Starbucks.

I hadn't even caught that on first readthrough, but wow, gosh, no. The levels of denial this guy has about the racism, sexism, and class aggressions endemic to East Bay hipster culture and especially the march of gentrification is pretty undermining to any claim of legit social analysis he's trying to make here. He doesn't understand the slang he's trying to reappropriate-- it sounds like he's casting around for a replacement word for the 80's and 90's "yuppie" No, friend, douchebag isn't the word you're looking for, and if you think hipster douchebags aren't a big fucking problem in Berkeley/Oakland...
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:00 PM on October 19, 2014 [9 favorites]


I am a white, middle class male professor at a big, public university

Of what, and where exactly? My own quick searches are not turning up likely candidates under that name.
posted by IndigoJones at 1:05 PM on October 19, 2014


"Douchebag" was popularized on SNL, and from there it became an all-purpose insult at recess when I was in elementary school.

Jon Stewart was in elementary school about the same time, and he more than anyone else seems to be responsible for the resurgence of the word and its current associations: "douchebag" has quite a bit of overlap with "republican". It's no coincidence that the article singles out Colbert as the "most thorough parody".

This article is the first thing I've read that's given me some sympathy for the term. But it still sounds like an elementary school insult to me.
posted by nixt at 1:05 PM on October 19, 2014


There isn't any racial slur for white people in the US because whites are the majority (or, depending on where you live, the privileged minority). There isn't any word that "stings" because whites get to define what is "normal" in the US.

There is a slur for white, Anglo people in Canada: "mangiacake".
posted by jb at 1:11 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Of what, and where exactly? My own quick searches are not turning up likely candidates under that name.

African-American Studies and American Studies at UC Berkeley
posted by jaguar at 1:12 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wait is this the same professor from the marine Todd story? How is he still alive?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:17 PM on October 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


Yeah, I would say getting bound up in the definition of douchebag is missing the point here. As someone noted above, a racial slur that punches up is basically a niche waiting to be occupied, and that's the meat of the article for me.
I think that kind of ignores the point of bringing up the definition, though (at least for me): If you're hoping to make a racial slur that viscerally hits white people because they're white, I think you're going to have a harder time doing that than merely "Let's redefine a word that viscerally hits white people because they're people so that it now means 'white'".

If "fuckhead jerknozzle idiot creep douchezonger" meant "insulting term for a white person", I'd be at worst vaguely befuddled by being called a fuckhead jerknozzle idiot creep douchezonger. "Does this guy who is calling me a fuckhead jerknozzle idiot creep douchezonger think that bothers me?", I'd wonder; "It sure seems like he thinks it would bother me. That's... kinda weird."

So I think not thinking about the definition, and the implications inherent in changing it to mean "white", is vastly oversimplifying the issue. White privilege is not going to be overcome so easily as "Let's stop using 'jerk' to mean anything but 'white'".
posted by Flunkie at 1:17 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ok, but when was the last time you heard douchebag applied to someone who wasn't white? As the author carefully explains, "The douchebag is someone — overwhelmingly white, rich, heterosexual males — who insist upon, nay, demand their white male privilege in every possible set and setting. ... It is an inescapable fact that 99% of those we hurl the term at are rich white men or those who aspire to be and mimic their ways. Only after great debate can we judge if someone who is black or gay or a female or poor can be called a douchebag." This rings really true to me. He's saying that it's demanding privilege that makes someone a douchebag, and it just so happens that 99% of the time, the person demanding that privilege is a white dude.
posted by dialetheia at 1:25 PM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Honestly I have no idea when the last time I've heard "douchebag" applied to someone at all, let alone to someone who wasn't white. And as I've already said, speaking as a white guy, I'd be stung by "douchebag" - but not because I'm white. Because I'd be stung by what I consider it's synonyms, like "asshole". If it meant "white", yeah, not so much.
posted by Flunkie at 1:30 PM on October 19, 2014


>"Ok, but when was the last time you heard douchebag applied to someone who wasn't white?"

And I always find, yeah, I always find somethin' wrong
You been puttin' up with' my shit just way too long
I'm so gifted at findin' what I don't like the most
So I think it's time for us to have a toast:

Let's have a toast for the douchebags,
Let's have a toast for the assholes,
Let's have a toast for the scumbags,
Every one of them that I know
Let's have a toast to the jerkoffs
That'll never take work off
Baby, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can.

posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:47 PM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


I have all kinds of thoughts and feelings about whiteness and the lack of slurs that punch up (Louis CK does a devastating critique, there) ... yet what I feel most compelled to say is:

"Captain Kirk forced himself on women? What."

Thanks, brain. You are a real pal.
posted by allthinky at 1:52 PM on October 19, 2014


"The levels of denial this guy has about the racism, sexism, and class aggressions endemic to East Bay hipster culture...is pretty undermining..."

However, it's a pretty spot-on description of the hipster culture in Bayview Milwaukee, and (to my limited experience) the more hipstery parts of Chicago.

I'm too old to really be a part of the that culture, but as some of the areas I frequent are cultural concentrations of this type, as an observer, I would certainly consider his a valid point for some parts of the country.
posted by quin at 2:07 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


"Captain Kirk forced himself on women? What."

This is my first watch through of TOS, so I'm only on episode 10, but this definitely happened in What are Little Girls Made Of? (time 2:14 in that clip, apologies for the obnoxious voiceover)

I'm leaving out the Evil Kirk attack on Yeoman Rand in The Enemy Within (because that was evil Kirk)
posted by sparklemotion at 2:22 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


This is my first watch through of TOS, so I'm only on episode 10, but this definitely happened in What are Little Girls Made Of?

Oh man, 2:44 in that clip. What is this, I don't even.
posted by nzero at 2:28 PM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


This seems like a complete misunderstanding about racism. The reason there are no white-male slurs that sting is that the sting comes from the power discrepancy between the user and the target of the epithet. Racial slurs hurt because of their legacy in that power differential, not because of the etymology of the words.

You could call a white man "Genius" or "Tough Guy" or "Gorgeous" and it would hurt just as bad as the N-word if you were reminding him that you had the power to arbitrarily fire him, arrest him, take his stuff, beat him, or sexually harass him.
posted by straight at 2:47 PM on October 19, 2014 [15 favorites]


Oh man, 2:44 in that clip. What is this, I don't even.

subtext.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:11 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


After following MetaFilter for 10 years being referred to as a "privileged old white man" seems a sufficient epithet--covers gender, color, age and happenstance. Also covers oppression, exploitation and greed. Thanks heavens I have two daughters and 3 granddaughters.
posted by rmhsinc at 3:28 PM on October 19, 2014


Xipster is a Latino hipster, I've heard people call themselves bipster (black hipster) so does that mean hipsters are white?
posted by chaz at 3:37 PM on October 19, 2014


It could be that the worst thing you can say to a white person is that they're being "white", or even worse -- that they're doing something that "white people" do.

We already co-opted that one. See: "That's mighty white of you."
posted by MikeMc at 3:39 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think it needs to gain the specificity he wants to really sting. But even then it's never going to be the N-word strong until the insult is reliably backed with real discriminatory power. It's hard for me to describe.

The name I've been called that hurt the most was 'Haole' in Hawaii. I mean, on the one hand it's just a descriptive term. The papolo guy, the pake guy, the haole guy. But it really does carry a dismissive quality. Don't pay him any attention. Just some haole guy. And discrimination against haoles certainly does exist outside of the city.

I'm in no way saying its "just as bad" etc. I do think white people should be required to do some time as a minority, though.
posted by ctmf at 3:49 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I do think white people should be required to do some time as a minority, though.

Sweet, when do I get my ticket to Hawaii? Oh, and where will I be staying?
posted by MikeMc at 3:52 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I reject the concept that douchebag is inherently sexist. I think it inherently describes sexists.

It's not about it being associated with "squicky lady parts", it's about thinking those lady parts are squicky. It's something that exists to say "here, you're gross, use this thing that isn't even good for you to make yourself less gross so i can even tolerate you".

It's a device that exists to say "i think i know better how you should be than you do". That is a fucking great term to use for someone with attitudes like this.

I feel like the campaign against it, partially in view here, is missing a critical step in thinking about that term by getting as far as "and it's about thinking lady parts are squicky" without really digging a little deeper.

When i think of a douchebag, i think of the guy who doesn't just catcall my friends i'm walking down the street with, but yells out his critique of their outfit. A douchebag, as with the actual product itself, takes it beyond just sexism into paternalistic i-know-better-than-you. It's somehow greater than the sum of its parts of entitlement, paternalism, sexism, and the warm embracement of privilege.

So yea, when you want to reject it because you think of its associating with vaginas, think a bit deeper about what it was saying about that genitalia, not just its association.
posted by emptythought at 4:02 PM on October 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


"honky" is hardly dead - but i guess one can be isolated from that, especially at college

At my last job, I was the only white male in the trenches on the ops floor. (Also a bit older than almost everybody else.) One of the only nearby restaurants that was open during late and weekend shifts was a Chinese/Southeast Asian place called "Hong Kee & Kim", so naturally everybody used to get take-out from there. It wasn't long before the name got shortened to "Hong Kee" in office parlance, and soon after that it became known simply as "trip's restaurant".
posted by trip and a half at 4:04 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hopefully doing time as a minority would be enlightening. You might think hey, this is kind of shitty. I resolve never to be like that.

Unfortunately from what I've seen its just as likely to reinforce us vs. them thinking and the desire for "revenge" when the tables are turned.

Is that what the resistance to equality is, at root, I wonder. White people fearing the empowered minorities would of course "make us pay" in retribution?
posted by ctmf at 4:04 PM on October 19, 2014


Hopefully doing time as a minority would be enlightening. You might think hey, this is kind of shitty. I resolve never to be like that.

Unfortunately from what I've seen its just as likely to reinforce us vs. them thinking and the desire for "revenge" when the tables are turned.


As a white guy who lived the first 17 years of his life in a large low income housing project in Milwaukee where whites were in the minority I can virtually guarantee that you'll get more of the latter than the former. I had a white friend who grew up in the same project and from childhood had mostly black friends, spoke (a form of) AAVE etc... and before he hit 30 he was complaining that the community he moved to was "infested" [with blacks] and now he lives in the country. As soon as he got out of the projects he wanted nothing to do with black folk. He's not the only one either, a lot of the people I grew up with there have left for whiter pastures. It's stories like that that make me shake my head when people say that racism is born from ignorance and from never interacting with people different than you, sometimes it's the opposite.
posted by MikeMc at 4:22 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Alex P. Keaton is a douchebag, but Marty McFly is not.

I always thought Family Ties should have taken that small extra step towards verisimilitude and changed Alex's name to P. Alex Keaton.
posted by klanawa at 4:25 PM on October 19, 2014


my shrink said to me the other day of something, "well that was mighty white of him" and that was essentially his snooty way of saying this person was being a douchebag. So there's that.
posted by angrycat at 4:28 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


note that both me and my shrink recognized that this might be a racist thing to say and we changed the subject
posted by angrycat at 4:28 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I like douchebag ok, but I've really been getting a lot of mileage out of gamergater.
posted by Biblio at 4:34 PM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


Just as long as it isn’t the "H-word”…that is beyond the pale, and I find it deeply offensive...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 4:39 PM on October 19, 2014


I too hate being called a "Hooligan". I vastly prefer "Miscreant" or if you must, "Reprobate."
posted by quin at 4:46 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


Do we really need a white racial slur? Is the vision of equality that we should aspire towards a world without the N-word or Douchebag? Maybe. Maybe it is. But as everyone who is not colorblind can plainly see, this is not yet that day.

I understand this sentiment, but I guarantee that people mimic what they see, and it's a tall order to expect most people of less-than-average intelligence to parse that there are different rules for different people, justified by a power imbalance in society. Calling names tends to encourage tit-for-tat. Maybe we're willing to live with that in order to have the feel-good option of calling injustice a particular derogatory name, but we shouldn't feel surprised if slurs continue across the board if we insist that there are exceptions that require an article-length explanation to justify in the first place.
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:25 PM on October 19, 2014


I can't seem to find it online at the moment, but there's a fascinating early George Carlin routine on the distinction between "douchbags" and "scumbags" in '40s New York. (It's on one the six albums after FM & AM, but none of the track titles seem likely. Possibly sometime from Occupation Foole?)

It was enough to convince me never to use either term, on the grounds that their history is both gendered and racist. In Carlin's world, douchebag applies only to women and both terms are intimately associated with working class Italians.

Having grown up in the 80s and never having heard either term used except with hipster irony, it's possible Carlin is just a nut and there isn't actually a widespread association between those words and ugly things. But, without some more research, I'm going to stay away.
posted by eotvos at 5:26 PM on October 19, 2014


It could be that the worst thing you can say to a white person is that they're being "white", or even worse -- that they're doing something that "white people" do.

White People Crazy plus an interesting article on same.
posted by emjaybee at 5:32 PM on October 19, 2014


I can't seem to find it online at the moment, but there's a fascinating early George Carlin routine on the distinction between "douchbags" and "scumbags" in '40s New York. (It's on one the six albums after FM & AM, but none of the track titles seem likely. Possibly sometime from Occupation Foole?)

This - and the history of "douchebag" in general - is really interesting to me. I'm in my mid-20s and I always assumed that "douchebag" was a fairly recent thing - there was at least a surge in popularity in the last decade, right? In my cohort "douche" has always been an inherently jokey slightly antiquated word much more than a thing people actually did, and "douchebag" used almost exclusively to describe men and most often by women.
posted by atoxyl at 5:44 PM on October 19, 2014


I don't think douchebag is a racist or classist term. "Old salmon pants" is, but anybody can be a douchebag.
posted by discopolo at 6:33 PM on October 19, 2014


As a Trekkie, I can't see calling Shatner-era Captain Kirk a douchebag. Douchebags aren't heroic. They don't put other people before themselves. Kirk can be arrogant and sharp, but he always tries to do the right thing and has demonstrated many times that he'll sacrifice his own life for the good of others. NuTrek Kirk is more of a smug fratboy type, and douchebag is a better fit. But even there, it doesn't quite work. I don't like the character's revamp and he has definite douchey tendencies, but he's still a guy who will die to protect the ship. I think douchebags are supposed to lack empathy, and that's just not Kirk.

I've always found it odd that such a feminizing term is usually applied to such alpha male types, and seemingly without any attempt to feminize them. If you call a guy a pussy, you're saying he's weak. That's a nasty thing to do, but at least it kind of makes sense if you buy into the bullshit, misogynist premise that women are weak. With douchebag, you're calling a guy a feminine hygiene product to say that he's a macho prick. Huh?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:39 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


I would say that in my experience 'douchebag' is not a recent term, but it's only recently that it's become a mainstream word. I put it in the same category as 'pussy'; not the worst words but ones that were just not used casually or even publicly (in that they would have been bleeped on tv). It's probably just confirmation bias, but I think The Daily Show kind of normalized those words.

I distinctly remember reading David Duchovney's Playboy interview and being very surprised at his casual use of the word pussy. Google tells me that was 1998, so I'd say that it's some time after that that douchebag gained popularity.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:45 PM on October 19, 2014


With douchebag, you're calling a guy a feminine hygiene product to say that he's a macho prick. Huh?

I think you're calling him a useless tool because douching is unnecessary for your vagina.

I started hearing douchebag/douchebaguette right around the time gawker used the word "twatwaffle." Then twatwaffle went away.
posted by discopolo at 6:45 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think you're calling him a useless tool because douching is unnecessary for your vagina.

I got that explanation, yeah. But it seems really strained. It requires an explanation because it's so counter-intuitive. (If anybody's confused by it, you kind of have to give a little lecture on feminine hygiene products. That's not how snappy put-downs are supposed to work!)

If you're just spoiling for a term to describe smug, overly entitled white guys, I think we could do better. Why can't we just call them O'Reillys and be done with it? Limbaughs would also work! Or McCains. We're spoiled for choice, really.

(Unfortunately, Santorum is already taken.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:13 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


I remember douchebag from my high-school days, 1960-63. At that time a douche was considered an appropriate act of feminine hygiene. I confess that in those days I was only generally aware of how a douche worked. The negative connotation associated with douchebag seemed to be attached to the resultant effluvia. Namely that it was stinky. Back in the day it wasn't associated with a white male, just with males in general. It seemed to indicate a person who was clueless in a noisy way. I don't remember any women being called a douchebag. In any case, douchebag never became one of my pet phrases, and it definitely wasn't a term I would use in the presence of an adult.

Dipshit would have been my equivalent to douchebag. I recognize that douchebag has taken on new flavors in the past 30 or so years.

I have mentioned elsewhere that I lived with a Navajo family during most of my teen years. The woman of the house rarely used racially charged terms, but Mr. Cruz sometimes would shake his head and say "white people" in response to some dipshit thing he noticed white people doing. It may be unnecessary to point out that he was drawing a line between his family and the white world they lived in. I never felt uncomfortable when he said that, maybe because I felt like a member of his family (I'm white a male). As I look back, it seemed to me that I pretty much understood how it worked--the minimization of this family by white people. I was and Okie. In those days, the Okies were those whose parents came to California from Oklahoma during the Great Depression. Their children were Okies if they didn't rise up into the middle class, and still worked as a hired hand of one sort or another. More likely it was the grandchildren of Okies that weren't saddled with that label. Also [resemt in those days were Prune-pickers (from Arkansas) and Wetbacks (from Mexico). All these terms were very pointed slurs, fighting words when offered in the right context. Even though they referred to where different folks came from, they meant you were uneducated menial workers. Some of these folks carried the extra burden of being other than white. Not all the slurs punched down, though.

One of my favorite jokes was: Do you know what they call Bartles and James in Mexico? (no, what?) Dose Okies. (it helps if you know something about cheap wine and good Mexican beer.)

When I lived in Hawaii I thought the term Haole was a little more specific than simply "White person." I thought it had a context, as in, "Them haoles are like cock-a-roaches; they come over on the boat and get into everything." I was sometimes called dat haole guy, but I didn't get the sense that I was being insulted. Maybe that was due to thick-headedness on my part.

This thread, indeed the article itself, reminds me that humor is powerful when used to teach by example which maybe is hard to define. Jokes can be blades with two cutting edges. They don't require any particular skill to employ, but when powered by an active wit they can kill, metaphorically speaking, or they can take the sting out of a situation. Or, when used by someone with a blunt wit, they can pass any number of hateful "-isms" to the young and unwary. The better part of humor, though, can help a person to gain a foothold. If you are able to laugh at a douchebag, he looses his power to humiliate you.
posted by mule98J at 7:41 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


Cracker ass whitey trying to dictate how everyone else can insult his fool self.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:23 PM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


I got that explanation, yeah. But it seems really strained. It requires an explanation because it's so counter-intuitive. (If anybody's confused by it, you kind of have to give a little lecture on feminine hygiene products. That's not how snappy put-downs are supposed to work!)

Well it feels snappy to me. I think my whole life everyone's said no one needs to douche and that would give you an infection or worse.

I mean, I come from a POV where guys who don't know anything about the vagina or menstruation or anything are pretty much considered willfully ignorant and dumb, if not completely stupid. That's why those "guys describe how they think tampons work" videos are so funny.
posted by discopolo at 8:27 PM on October 19, 2014


How about "enema nozzle"?
posted by Ber at 8:39 PM on October 19, 2014


Overtones of homophobia.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:47 PM on October 19, 2014


If Riker was a douchebag, he never would have given back the Q powers in Hide and Q.

Riker didn't give the Q powers back. He used his newfound Q powers to convince everyone that he gave his Q powers back. He used his Q powers to create Tom Riker as an extension of his own consciousness just to mess with people. Tom Riker going to DS9 to pretend to be Will Riker and insult Miles O'Brien was actually just Will Riker pretending to be Tom Riker pretending to be Will Riker.

There were no wormhole aliens, it was just Will Riker.

posted by cortex at 8:57 PM on October 19, 2014 [14 favorites]


It could be that the worst thing you can say to a white person is that they're being "white", or even worse -- that they're doing something that "white people" do.

Whiteboy. Includes the derogatory "boy" which is mighty derogatory on its own in lots of places.
posted by BinGregory at 9:51 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Any othering term spoken with enough malice towards the powerless is offensive.
posted by benzenedream at 9:57 PM on October 19, 2014


'tis, but it's also bad there--strips away mucosa that protect the rectum.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:02 AM on October 19
[1 favorite +] [!]


Epony-factual?
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 10:07 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


Bogan
posted by evil_esto at 2:52 AM on October 20, 2014




I smell a LARP Trek spinoff.
posted by Flunkie at 5:55 AM on October 20, 2014


I couldn't find video but in one of the interskit stand up portions of Key and Peele's season 1 episode 6 they talk about "racist is the n word for white people".
posted by schyler523 at 6:12 AM on October 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Or whatever perfect amazing idiom Achewood came up with for anal.

Here's the best I could do.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:26 AM on October 20, 2014


Re: douchebag, in the last year or so I've started hearing it applied to women, usually something like "Man, she's been acting like a douche lately."

I don't remember any women being called a douchebag.


I think the first usage I ever heard was from Truly Tasteless Jokes, published in 1985, when I was in eighth grade--and it's a joke that involves a woman being called a douche bag:

**
This guy walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "I'll have a bourbon and water . . . and get that douche bag down there whatever she'd like to drink," motioning toward a young woman sitting on the other end of the bar.

"Listen, buddy," says the bartender, "this is a family place, and I'll thank you not to use that sort of language in here."

"Okay, okay," says the guy, "just get me a bourbon and water and get that douche bag a drink too."

"That's a perfectly nice young lady," sputters the bartender, "and--"

"I'm getting thirsty," interrupts the guy, "and you better hurry up with the douche bag's order."

The bartender gives up and moves down the bar, rather shamefacedly asking the woman, "The gentleman at the bar would like to offer you a drink--What'll you have?"

"Vinegar and water, thanks," she replies.
**

So in this context--was it more common than we think for women to have been called douche bags as a pejorative, and then it transferred over to men as a sexist reference?
posted by dlugoczaj at 7:57 AM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


A note, not a derail: in a het, vaginal-sex context, yes, the douchebag is a "totally useless sexual tool." However it is a common piece in the kit of those (straight or gay) who uh prefer the retrograde maneuver.

Cis-het vaginal sex, aye. For many trans women, however, douching is actually medically advised because of the absence of vaginal mucosa in most surgically constructed vaginas.

The more you know!
posted by Dysk at 8:16 AM on October 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Cohen is lecturer on African-American Studies and American Studies at UC Berkeley

Granted that Berkeley has had more shining stars in science than in the humanities, but even so, it has since 1914 hosted the Sather professorship of Classical Studies, which gave rise to the Sather lectures, which have seen important work done in the field of humanities.

From that to this is just sad.
posted by IndigoJones at 8:21 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


From Archer
Ray Gilette to Cyril Figgis: You want a drink? Not even a little water and vinegar??
posted by Room 641-A at 8:21 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Cis-het vaginal sex, aye. For many trans women, however, douching is actually medically advised because of the absence of vaginal mucosa in most surgically constructed vaginas.

They can't possibly mean douching with commercial douches of flowery filled, non-medical scented water stuff! They probably mean douching with some solution that is therapeutic and not meant to make your vagina smell like Glade.
posted by discopolo at 9:29 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Racial epithets for Whites in America are rare.
I won't use redneck as an insult because of the Battle of Blair Mountain.
I and Mr. Roquette however * do * use 'hillbilly' sometimes. He does more than I do.
'Honky' does refer to a rather specific European origin bunch.
Originally it was 'bohunk' which meant Central Europeans from either Hungary or Bohemia. Ultimately I guess non- Austrians but from the Austro - Hungarian Empire.
Way to know your geography Americans of the early 20th century!
In fact coming down to it, most racial slurs aimed at Whites are really referring to specific ethnic groups within the White 'race'.
There's always, 'peckerwood' and 'cracker' but again, specific geographic, class origins may be assumed.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:22 AM on October 20, 2014


Just chiming in to support the idea that "douchebag" is already taken. It's generally a fratboy or bro who generally travels in packs, is obnoxious in public, sees sexual encounters as a numbers game and treats the idea of a relationship with a woman as laughable. As noted above, it's not necessarily racial, as Tiger Woods is certainly a douchebag.

I would also agree with @schyler523 that calling a white person "racist" is probably the closest thing there is in terms of social stigma, though it obviously has a completely different meaning than a racially derogatory term.
posted by cnc at 10:28 AM on October 20, 2014


They can't possibly mean douching with commercial douches of flowery filled, non-medical scented water stuff! They probably mean douching with some solution that is therapeutic and not meant to make your vagina smell like Glade.

I gather that the important thing is the water, really, but I fully agree that there is unlikely to be any medical science backing the idea of making your vagina smell like Glade, mucosa or no.
posted by Dysk at 12:03 PM on October 20, 2014


My understanding of what my friend was going through the first couple of weeks we were in Thailand after her surgery was that she was douching with some kind of antibacterial solution to prevent infection, and then with water just to flush out the crud of healing incisions. After we got home for a while she douched with water after dilating because otherwise the lube just kind of chilled out in there or leaked out at bad times. I'm not sure if she still does it at all. Different surgeons recommend different things, different methods produce different results, and some people seem to develop typical vaginal microflora and some people don't. Sorry for contributing to this weird derail, but yeah, douching isn't literally always wrong for all vagina-having people.
posted by Corinth at 12:57 PM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Different surgeons recommend different things, different methods produce different results, and some people seem to develop typical vaginal microflora and some people don't.

Given the recent success of those fecal transplants, is there any work being done on transplanting vaginal microflora from cis women to trans women?
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:02 PM on October 20, 2014


Ok, but when was the last time you heard douchebag applied to someone who wasn't white?

I hear it used all the time to describe primadonna pro athletes and celebrities who are black. It's always a man, and I think that the article makes a better case for its use to describe someone who is useless and sexist.

I really think that BinGregory nailed it. Whiteboy has long filled this role.
posted by snottydick at 1:11 PM on October 20, 2014


Douchebag has long been one of my go-to epithets. I said it so many times during the Bush administrations, I might have broken it. Eventually I had to branch out, into:
- douche canoe
- head paddler of the douche canoe
- twat waffle
- fucktard
- douche nozzle
- rusty douche nozzle
posted by Groovymomma at 1:14 PM on October 20, 2014


This is a very disturbing slur for me, and when I hear it used, I first cringe and then ask the person if they know what a douche is.
The vast majority have no idea. So I tell them.
For older women like me, that have used a douche at their male doctor’s recommendation, this slur will never mean anything more than “it’s funny that we can make products for women that will be harmful and shaming.” The word will always spark memories the “treatments” that I endured.
Would it be ok to call a man a used tampon? A Brazilian wax? An episiotomy?
Could you call a man a septic back alley abortion wound?

This term will always be based in male control over a female’s dirty body. Please stop using it.
posted by littlewater at 3:34 PM on October 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Elliot Rodger was Asian American. His mother was Malaysian. Oops. I guess he can't be a douchebag. Nor can Charlie Sheen, who's birth certificate reads Carlos Irwin Estévez.

Writing a screed labelling a long list of famous and infamous people as douchebags, using the fact that they are white as a defining part of what makes them douchebags, but somehow not bothering to check to make sure every one of them was white... That's kind of a douchebag move.

This is just more of the same from a well treaded trend of radical leftists mistaking being a polarizing jerk for activism. It's reading Saul Alinsky and mistakenly believing his tactics are universally applicable, when in fact they only work in very specific circumstances.

It's frustrating for me because I have leftist politics. I'm not about to label somebody a "social justice warrior" for this because social justice is something worth going to war for.

Back in the day, we used the term "self righteous blowhard" instead. And the great thing about that term: it can be applied to anyone, of any race, gender, or even any political persuasion.
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 12:28 AM on October 21, 2014


Writing a screed labelling a long list of famous and infamous people as douchebags, using the fact that they are white as a defining part of what makes them douchebags, but somehow not bothering to check to make sure every one of them was white...

Whiteness isn't quite that strongly or rigidly defined, though. "Is Charlie Sheen white?" is not as simple as a yes or no answer, in this context. He certainly has access to many of the benefits of white privilege, which seems to be where the article's definition of douchebaggery situates itself as arising from.
posted by Dysk at 3:41 AM on October 21, 2014


Whiteness isn't quite that strongly or rigidly defined, though.

Declaring other people's race for them is douchey. Declaring other people's privilege for them is douchey.

It also gets us into the absurd complexities of race in America, and how it isn't rigidly defined, at which point this entire douchey idea falls apart.

If this douchey author gets to unilaterally decree that Elliot Rodger, who was half-malaysian, is white, does some other douche get to say the same about Bill DeBlasio's kids? What's the difference? Is there a difference?

If there is a difference and douchey academics can decree it, at what point are they gonna be running around holding pantones up to the faces of mixed race people, consulting a chart, and issuing or revoking privilege cards?

I read this piece and most of what I see is Gawker/Jezebel-esque. It's celebrity culture obsession-meets-entry level college course on race and class. It masquerades as social criticism, when it's not much more sophisticated than US Magazine or Perez Hilton. Kind of explains why Gawker reposted it so quickly.
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 6:29 AM on October 21, 2014


For reference, I don't agree with the thesis presented in the article. But the notion that someone categorically cannot be white because they were born with a name like Carlos Irwin Estévez? That's just silly. It's also an example of you declaring other people's race for them - after all, what was there to 'check'?
posted by Dysk at 6:41 AM on October 21, 2014


If there is a difference and douchey academics can decree it, at what point are they gonna be running around holding pantones up to the faces of mixed race people, consulting a chart, and issuing or revoking privilege cards?

There is a difference, and academics can recognise it (and then make whatever declarations they damn well please). It's primarily white people who, in aggregate, decide who gets accepted into their club.

Now, whether a given academic is correct in a given declaration? That's certainly open for debate. But the notion that it's absurd to talk about certain individuals or groups not traditionally thought of as white gaining access to whiteness? Well, I'm sure both the Irish and the Italians would have something to say about that.
posted by Dysk at 6:44 AM on October 21, 2014


It's also an example of you declaring other people's race for them - after all, what was there to 'check'?

Fair Enough. Now back to Elliot Rodger, who self-identified as Asian...

Also let's talk about privilege for a minute. Michael Mark Cohen is a white, highly educated, upper middle class man. He gets to decree what the slur for white people is? Talk about privilege! We get to make up our own slurs? Who else gets to do that?! He just expanded white privilege, he didn't put a check on it.
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 7:34 AM on October 21, 2014


Again, you seem to be taking me to task for a belief I don't hold. I agree that Cohen comes out of this looking like a dick, and having solved none of the problems he claims to. I just disagree with the premise that race can meaningfully be conceptualised in the neat and tidy way both you and Cohen argue within.
posted by Dysk at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2014


He starts out saying that racial slurs are hurtful because they imply that every member of that race is the same. The slur is in being denied your individuality, dismissed as one more widget in a pile of widgets. If "redneck" and "white trash" aren't good enough white slurs because they really point to a subset of whites, then how is "douchebag" any better? It implies a certain sort of white person, and while it is certainly insulting, it doesn't have the dehumanizing effect of implying that you're both worthless and interchangeable with everybody else who has your same skin color.
posted by vytae at 10:14 AM on October 21, 2014


I have to admit, Douchebag is a favorite term of mine -- however I NEVER thought of it as a racist term.
posted by Sara_NOT_Sarah at 10:27 AM on October 21, 2014


Nor can Charlie Sheen, who's birth certificate reads Carlos Irwin Estévez.

Charlie Sheen is Spanish and Irish. As well as wherever Janet Templeton's family came from. He's white, which is also something that could have been confirmed by Googling.
posted by maxsparber at 10:32 AM on October 21, 2014


I love all this arguing about who is "white". I can't define "white" but I know know when I see it. Charlie Sheen? Yes. Elliot Rodger? Ehhhh....
posted by MikeMc at 10:44 AM on October 21, 2014


It's a useless argument anyway, as the original article mentions the possibility that non-white people can be douchebags, which was actually quoted right at the start if this thread.
posted by maxsparber at 10:51 AM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Elliot Rodger isn't a douchebag by any definition, anyway, so this is a huge ridiculous rules-lawyering derail. He's a murdering misogynist sociopath, not a douchebag.
posted by dialetheia at 10:53 AM on October 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


I have to admit, Douchebag is a favorite term of mine -- however I NEVER thought of it as a racist term.

Because you always thought of it as a sexist term?

It's so excellent this term is both racist and sexist and is so easily bandied about.
posted by littlewater at 11:17 AM on October 21, 2014


Declaring other people's race for them is douchey. Declaring other people's privilege for them is douchey.

What the hell? This is literally the entire point of race. And the second sentence is nonsensical.
posted by deathmaven at 4:11 PM on October 21, 2014


Just because "the entire point" of race may be to tell other people what they are does not mean that is a value-neutral point or a point we should endorse without criticism.
posted by corb at 4:18 PM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's pointless to pretend that race is some tool of self-actualization, or anything else other than a system of social stratification controlled by society at large.
posted by deathmaven at 4:35 PM on October 21, 2014


I just disagree with the premise that race can meaningfully be conceptualised in the neat and tidy way both you and Cohen argue within.

My entire point is that race can't be meaningfully conceptualized in a neat and tidy way. But I also think that as such, Cohen is a particular douche for saying Rodger was White, when Rodger was half Malaysian and a part of all his pathetic ragey ranting was about the fact that he felt disempowered by not being White.
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 5:38 PM on October 21, 2014


And the second sentence is nonsensical.

How? Declaring anything about someone you've never met and/or know nothing about is douchey. Celebrity gossip culture is douchey.

The fundamental problem with contemporary radicalism's privilege narrative is that it inevitably descends into using privilege as a weapon of accusation instead of a tool for understanding. I blame that on the people who do that, like Cohen, not on the concept itself.

The concept is sound and a valuable teaching tool. Cohen is a tool who happens to be a teacher.

That said, his rant exposes another problem with contemporary radical race theory: the Racism=Predjudice+Power construct that basically says that white people can't experience racism is invoked most often as an excuse to be a jerk to white people.

Yeah, I know, cry me a river. It doesn't compare in any way shape or form to being actually oppressed. But that doesn't mean it's not jerky behavior. And Cohen's assinine rant illustrates the path from Racism=Predjudice+Power to "I get to be a jerk because I'm on the good guys side and you're on the bad guys side". It's an obstacle to progress, not a path forward.
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 5:50 PM on October 21, 2014


And Cohen's assinine rant illustrates the path from Racism=Predjudice+Power to "I get to be a jerk because I'm on the good guys side and you're on the bad guys side".

But Cohen is on the bad guys side. He is one of the "bad guys" and will be until the day he dies. Nothing he has done, or ever will do, can change that.
posted by MikeMc at 6:39 PM on October 21, 2014


Whiteboyz: they dreamed of the ghetto, they woke up in Iowa.
From the talented Danny Hoch.
posted by BinGregory at 5:03 PM on October 22, 2014


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