snarking in the face of oppression

January 26, 2018 10:03 AM

Let us celebrate, too late, the winners of the 2017 Wypipo Awards.

Black Twitter's 'wypipo,' is slowly entering the lexicon of daily use. But hey, don't y'all start appropriating it now.

In Defense of 'Wypipo'

I have been assumed thug, robber, dangerous, stupid, poor and pitiful because of the color of my skin. That is the exact reason it’s funny to me. It is funny in the same way a person with a bullet wound laughs at someone crying about a paper cut. Because a jumbled cacophony of six letters can trigger real cases of butt-hurtedness. Because I imagine the disgust on the faces that hate it. Because ... fuck it, why not?

see also:

What is 'white fragility'

White fragility is what allows white Americans, for example, who represent 76% of the country’s millionaires, 84% of its professors, and 96% of Fortune 500 CEOs, to react defensively whenever they are presented with [information about race], and so to believe that they are systematically victimized because of their racial identity. White fragility is dangerous precisely because it allows individuals with more power to reframe discussions about justice in a way that will only reinforce the power that they already have.

Cause Reminder: There is No Such Thing as Reverse Racism

We all have hardships, but as the demographic that has historically held all the power—and whose power has dictated the oppression of others—white people simply can’t be victims of racism. The idea of reverse racism is just a white person’s response to the threat of lost power—not real oppression. The fact that so many in this country still cannot grasp this is bewildering.

previously

posted by runt (52 comments total)

From the comments, by the author:

Technically Bernie’s tears are Jewish tears.

Wait, what?

This has been a weird, unnerving year to be Jewish in the US, but I'm pretty sure I'm still white. And if I'm white, so is Bernie.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:34 AM on January 26, 2018 [16 favorites]

> White women [...] co-opted the #MeToo movement

yep it's a really serious problem in our culture rn, how racist women and women in particular are. it's good and funny that a woman lost to a rapist in the 2016 presidential election, because white women are the worst and worse than trump, who is also their fault, and also they supported the loser woman hillary clinton too. women, amirite. ha. ha. ha.

really sticking it to em here

perhaps the man who wrote this article should check his own male privilege instead of trying to fight racism with sexism? maybe that kind of inclusive, intersectional approach to inequality would be more good and productive than acting like an asshole on the internet
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 10:46 AM on January 26, 2018 [26 favorites]

age-old ceremony called the Catching of Hands

genuine white lolz here
posted by lalochezia at 10:49 AM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

I was just about to post about the Catching of Hands, so instead I'll add Seriously, I know a couple of women who say if they see her, they will throw a water balloon filled with cat pee in her face. Neither of those women has good aim, so Omarosa will be missed.
Heeee.

And getting all up in arms about the calling out of white women in a Root post... well, it sounds exactly like all of the whining about the "white vote" for DJT/Republicans in general and how unfaaaaair it all is.
Signed,
a WOC
posted by TwoStride at 10:53 AM on January 26, 2018 [21 favorites]

Whenever the 'poor white people' issue comes up, I ask people to guess how many black women have served in the US Senate... and so far even the very progressive people I hang out with have guessed like ~10 ... which is the total number of African Americans who have served, including during Reconstruction. The number of women on that list is..........2. And right now the number is 1. Watch out, white people.
posted by Huck500 at 10:56 AM on January 26, 2018 [21 favorites]

I thought Luvvie's take on why we tend to go after white women specifically was hella on point. (Hint: it's because white men, however shitty, are voting for their own self-interest, while white women are letting racism, and the devil's bargain they've struck with the patriarchy, blind them to the fact that they're voting against their own interests.)

I said it in the Aziz Ansari thread and I'll say it again here: women of color get this shit from both directions. I don't agree with everything this guy wrote (particularly the stuff about Hillary), but if you're willing to mow me down to get at him, I don't owe you shit.
posted by sunset in snow country at 11:00 AM on January 26, 2018 [33 favorites]

To avoid a derail, let me clarify that in the above comment I mean "white men who voted for Roy Moore (and Republican politicians/policies in general)" and white women who voted for same. #notallwypipo
posted by sunset in snow country at 11:01 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm really happy to see Michael Harriot being recognized more in 2018. I first encountered him through Atlanta's slam scene (I think he actually lives in Alabama) and that dude is a monster on the mic.
posted by Maaik at 11:01 AM on January 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

From the second link: "Yet, a white male in a dark parking lot or unlit alley doesn’t engender nearly as much fear as a black male. That’s the immunity of whiteness."

I beg to differ. That's male privilege speaking - I'm more afraid of the white guy.
posted by diane47 at 11:04 AM on January 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

I thought Luvvie's take on why we tend to go after white women specifically was hella on point.
Relatedly, my favorite sign from last weekend's Women's Marches was one (held by a Black woman) that said, "White Women: I love y'all... but what you NOT gon' do, is eff up these midterms! #WomensMarch, #PowerToThePolls"
posted by TwoStride at 11:12 AM on January 26, 2018 [12 favorites]

The #MeToo Movement Looks Different For Women Of Color. Here Are 10 Stories.

Many women of color have been vocal about the fact that #MeToo hasn’t represented their stories, even though the movement was founded by activist Tarana Burke, who is black.

Me Too Creator Tarana Burke Reminds Us This Is About Black and Brown Survivors

I guess that’s my point about it being complicated and nuanced because I don’t have an expectation of media—White media—to pay attention to us, but I do have an expectation of us to take care of us. So, it’s going to take other me toos and Just Be’s and grassroots organizations, which exist across the country, committed people who are focusing on the health and well-being of Black and brown girls, the most marginalized of us, queer children and trans.

It’s going to take us making sure that we are taken care of. I have a girlfriend who always says, “We all we got.”

Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color

The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite- that it frequently conflates or ignores intra group differences. In the context of violence against women, this elision of difference is problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is often shaped by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class. Moreover, ignoring differences within groups frequently contributes to tension among groups, another problem of identity politics that frustrates efforts to politicize violence against women. Feminist efforts to politicize experiences of women and antiracist efforts to politicize experiences of people of color' have frequently proceeded as though the issues and experiences they each detail occur on mutually exclusive terrains. Although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices. And so, when the practices expound identity as "woman" or "person of color" as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling.

emphases mine
posted by runt at 11:12 AM on January 26, 2018 [17 favorites]

A little while ago, I was having dinner with a friend and he was telling me about a work trip to Europe shortly after Nov. 2016. He mentioned that the first topic of conversation (naturally) was "how did you guys elect this bozo?" and he expressed a lot of frustration at being lumped in there with all of those voters and had to repeatedly emphasize that he himself was certainly not one of those. I commented that, of course, he felt a lot of annoyance about that because, as a white man (straight and cis as well though I didn't mention that), he's rarely if ever lumped in with anyone else. I thought this observation would warrant a quick "oh yeah, that's right" response. Instead, he reacted like he was the astronaut at the end of 2001 getting his mind blown by the enormity of the universe or existence or whatever. My friend had clearly never in his 40+ years on this planet even considered this aspect of society that basically everyone who isn't a member of a dominant majority experiences.
posted by mhum at 11:18 AM on January 26, 2018 [41 favorites]

> (Hint: it's because white men, however shitty, are voting for their own self-interest, while white women are letting racism, and the devil's bargain they've struck with the patriarchy, blind them to the fact that they're voting against their own interests.)

I don't believe in this devil's bargain, though. Are we blaming women for sustaining the patriarchy, now? That seems backwards. And, yeah, all white people are racist but white men obviously vote and act shittier than white women. Singling out women seems like a weird, counterproductive thing that just lets men off the hook for both racism and misogyny.

Saying that women are "striking a bargain with the patriarchy" amounts to victim-blaming. Men act shitty because they're shitty and our society is shitty and favors men. It's not because women are enabling them. Women are being victimized.

I regret the way I wrote my comment, though. I did that thing where I criticized a position by ironically imitating it. I hate it when people do that, and I've slammed people on Metafilter and elsewhere for doing it, and doing it myself was a mistake.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 11:20 AM on January 26, 2018 [9 favorites]

This is a nice followup to Harriot's The 2017 World Wypipo Tournament: Who Is the Worst?.

(I also enjoy whypipo because a lot of the time white nonsense makes you go omg whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.)
posted by elsietheeel at 11:21 AM on January 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

Saying that women are "striking a bargain with the patriarchy" amounts to victim-blaming.

that's not what he's saying. he's saying that white women have a habit of centering their perspectives while ignoring/talking over all other conversations especially in the context of sociopolitical discourse (for example, this derail in a thread about the slang term wypipo). and he's doing so in context of those instances and that conversation that I've outlined above
posted by runt at 11:28 AM on January 26, 2018 [15 favorites]

white nonsense makes you go omg


As a white guy I don't know why this is the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV but it is...

I mean I like the Kimmy Schmidt character but that show will always be The Titus Andromedon Show to me.
posted by Huck500 at 11:30 AM on January 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

"striking a bargain with the patriarchy" amounts to victim-blaming.

I think in the context it has been deployed here it's actually calling attention to the ways in which white women have often been the beneficiaries of imagined victimhood... while simultaneously taking credit for things like special elections they didn't really swing or, say, the #MeToo movement.
posted by TwoStride at 11:35 AM on January 26, 2018 [24 favorites]

I don't believe in this devil's bargain, though. Are we blaming women for sustaining the patriarchy, now? That seems backwards. And, yeah, all white people are racist but white men obviously vote and act shittier than white women.

I wasn't talking about who sustains the patriarchy, I was talking about who sustains a racist system and why they might do that. One reason some white women do it is to maintain their comfortable, though subordinate, position in a white supremacist patriarchy. That doesn't make them architects of the patriarchy that oppresses them, but they're absolutely responsible for their own racism.
posted by sunset in snow country at 11:36 AM on January 26, 2018 [43 favorites]

Very few things have changed my feminism and my approach to racial justice as much as reading When White Women Cry: How White Women's Tears Oppress Women of Color [pdf]. Understanding how white women use being a woman to deflect criticisms of them centering and uplifting white supremacy is so important and it's not victim blaming to talk about.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 12:06 PM on January 26, 2018 [36 favorites]

76% of the country’s millionaires, 84% of its professors, and 96% of Fortune 500 CEOs

These numbers need to be taken in context of demographic fractions, otherwise they can be somewhat misleading. Given that 70% of the country is white, these percentages are less surprising than the raw numbers appear to suggest.

Also, millionaires, professors, and Fortune 500 CEOs are mostly (though not exclusively) middle-aged and older. Given the age distribution of demographics - younger groups are more minority-heavy, and older groups are more white - these percentages are even less of a surprise.
posted by theorique at 12:08 PM on January 26, 2018

white nonsense makes you go omg
As a white guy I don't know why this is the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV but it is...

As a white Native chick, this was the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV, but agreed that it's the Titus Andromedon show.

(And now let's stop the Kimmy Schmidt derail because Tina Fey's irony does NOT deal with race well. She tries, I guess, but she usually manages to make things worse. See re: sheetcake.)
posted by elsietheeel at 12:53 PM on January 26, 2018 [9 favorites]

(I think I meant satire, not irony. Now I know how Alanis Morissette felt. Is that ironic?)
posted by elsietheeel at 12:59 PM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Women are being victimized.

It's a depressing tradition for oppressed groups to throw other even more oppressed groups under the bus to gain ground. You can be victimized while simultaneously participating in the victimization of others, and white women are no more exempt from this than anyone. We do benefit from whiteness. And we do not have not the best record regarding the many claims of women of colour to sisterhood alongside ourselves, even as we take credit for and benefit from their labour.

I appreciate people who point this out and the snark helps me personally confront parts of my mind that I'd prefer to pretend didn't exist.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 1:53 PM on January 26, 2018 [23 favorites]

Thanks for the explainer. I was wondering how the term had gotten traction and what exactly was meant by it, other than an alternate spelling. I see "yt" or "whyte" a lot too on Twitter. I don't know if it's the same context or not.
posted by AFABulous at 3:09 PM on January 26, 2018

Yt and wh!te and things like that are sometimes in a similar context as wipipo, but are often just used to get around Facebook's tendency to ban POC (or people that FB's algorithm has determined are POC *waves!*) for saying white people (not even necessarily negatively).

The first time I got banned was for saying "All white people are racist" in the middle of a comment about systemic racism and how reverse racism can't exist. I got banned another time for commenting "I hate white people." in response to a troll. I have friends who've been banned for far far far far less. Thus yt and whyte and wh!te and wh te, etc.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:33 PM on January 26, 2018 [15 favorites]

From the second link: "Yet, a white male in a dark parking lot or unlit alley doesn’t engender nearly as much fear as a black male. That’s the immunity of whiteness."

I beg to differ. That's male privilege speaking - I'm more afraid of the white guy.

And so am I. But you and I are only two white women out of millions (assuming that you, like me, are in fact a white woman). How many white women do you think exist in this country who are the opposite of us? Say... maybe 53% or more?
posted by palomar at 3:55 PM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Actually, you know what, race doesn't matter in my comment above, at least in regards to fear. So, to take another pass at that: I am more afraid of white men than I am of black men, but I am also aware that there are millions of people in this country, of all genders and races, who are the opposite of me in this regard. So before we trot out the "well, not ME" stuff, let's think for a second about how there's no need to take personal offense to something if it doesn't apply to you, and how there's millions of people in this country that don't think exactly like us.
posted by palomar at 3:59 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, sorry, I kind of want an explanation of that “Jewish tears” thing too.
posted by Yoko Ono's Advice Column at 8:54 PM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think it was in the Aziz Ansari thread where a woman said that she doesn’t trust any men at all. Not even (or especially not) progressive or self-proclaimed “feminist” men. I’ve seen similar comments in other threads. As a man, I didn’t argue with those women. I don’t comment in most of those threads. I read the comments and the links and think about my past actions and how I’ve been complicit or have been the problem. I think about how I can be a better ally. I empathize with that position because I’m basically at the same place with regards to white people at this point. Look at this thread. Heaven forbid that American POC don’t trust white people to have their back. Heaven forbid rhat someone suggest that even white women are a part of white racism.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:02 PM on January 26, 2018 [21 favorites]

I've been reading Harriot for a while, even though more often than not I end up wishing I hadn't. This kind of thing is misogynist as fuck:

All Beckzillas know that white womanhood is a credit card with an unlimited balance. After all, if you are born with the ultimate privilege of white womanhood, why not use it to your advantage?

See, I'm trans. Reading lines like the above, I can relate to the resentment, this feeling like the world is full of spoiled, pretty princess Beckys who sit atop thrones made of privilege and whine about how hard they got it. But I know I have to fight that kind of thinking, because it's extremely unfair, reductive bullshit. There are some people who more than live up to the Becky stereotype (Ivanka Trump is a Barbie doll come to life) but most people are a hell of a lot more complicated than that. I don't know their lives, and I can't let myself hate them based on how they look.

I am hearing white feminist women "called out" so often, you'd think they're the ones who got us into this mess. They're not. That woman who became a folk hero for showing up at the 2017 Women's March with the WHITE WOMEN VOTED FOR TRUMP sign wasn't doing anybody much good, because the women at that march, white or not, sure as hell weren't the ones who voted for Trump. That stuff only divides us further, which is precisely what the conservative piggies want:

“The Democrats,” (Bannon) said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about racism, or sexism. I'm saying that guys like Harriot aren't contributing anything actually helpful. Empathy is essential, especially now. Anytime you let your hate do the talking, you're just helping the Steve Bannons crud up the world.

There's no such thing as reverse racism, or reverse sexism, because that assumes that any one race or sex is the norm. There is only racism, or sexism, but it is indeed quite possible to be racist or sexist against a group even if that group holds disproportionate power. If you hate any ethnicity, you're racist. If you hate any gender, you're sexist. One of the problems with the left is that more and more people seem to feel that they're entitled to hate certain ethnicities, or certain genders, and it doesn't make them racist or sexist. But that's not how hate works. As soon as you're lumping millions of people into strawgirl "Beckys," you've become one of the oppressors. I should know, because every fucking day I struggle to not become a person who does that to anybody.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:58 PM on January 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

76% of the country’s millionaires, 84% of its professors, and 96% of Fortune 500 CEOs

These numbers need to be taken in context of demographic fractions, otherwise they can be somewhat misleading. Given that 70% of the country is white, these percentages are less surprising than the raw numbers appear to suggest.

Also, millionaires, professors, and Fortune 500 CEOs are mostly (though not exclusively) middle-aged and older. Given the age distribution of demographics - younger groups are more minority-heavy, and older groups are more white - these percentages are even less of a surprise.



Families of color will soon make up a majority of the population, but most continue to fall behind whites in building wealth. In 1963, the average wealth of white families was $121,000 higher than the average wealth of nonwhite families. By 2016, the average wealth of white families ($919,000) was over $700,000 higher than the average wealth of black families ($140,000) and of Hispanic families ($192,000).

Put another way, white family wealth was seven times greater than black family wealth and five times greater than Hispanic family wealth in 2016. Despite some fluctuations over the past five decades, this disparity is as high or higher than was in 1963.


The racial wealth gap: How African-Americans have been shortchanged out of the materials to build wealth

Whites Have Huge Wealth Edge Over Blacks (but Don’t Know It)

I'm sorry , this isn't a deep dive. This is just the first 3 Google results I got for, "US wealth white black." Taken in context of demographics your point seems misleading and less surprising than the raw numbers appear to suggest.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:16 PM on January 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

“The Democrats,” (Bannon) said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about racism, or sexism. I'm saying that guys like Harriot aren't contributing anything actually helpful. Empathy is essential, especially now. Anytime you let your hate do the talking, you're just helping the Steve Bannons crud up the world.

Your heart's in the right place, but we should never listen to the Steve Bannons of the world. I mean, you heard the rest of what he's said, right? Under his regime, you'd be killed out of hand. Not my go-to for advice.

No.

We need to have all these talks even though they suck for all of us right now, because that's how empathy happens. It's only through hearing each others' stories that we come to understand how we're hurting each other and what we have in common. They're scared of us talking, at least the Nazis who are smart enough to understand what it means. Silence divides us. Silence maintains the status quo.

As for this sucking presently... we have all been damaged by the system in various ways, but one of the worst is self-expression. A lot of us here are marginalized in some fashion. You're trans. I'm POC. Loads of women here, and POC women and so on. The thing we all have in common is that we have to hold our real opinions in check for most of our lives because if we speak freely, we could suffer all sorts of unfair consequences up to and including being killed. This comes up in threads about structural sexism all the time, and like ActingTheGoat touched on above, I can totally relate after a lifetime around white people.

Anyway, stuffing down all of those feelings isn't healthy, and when we do finally let them go, rhetoric can get pretty heated and unreasonable, and that's... just human. People who repress a lot have a lot of feelings to get out, and people who can't express themselves maybe never have a chance to learn how to do it well. Things come out wrong, and other bad ideas we hold get mixed in, and it's... messy and unpleasant and imperfect.

It's important not to shy away from this because of that, or to let that imperfection get in the way of the legitimate feelings behind it. Harriot's stuff here... parts are wrong and distasteful, but the anger behind it is real, and the system behind it is too.

This is the stuff that I think about when women talk about how bad men are. I push away 'but not me, right?' and focus on 'things must be shit for them to feel that way, what can I do?'

Also, about hate... I get deeply suspicious when I see that word. I know you, and I know you're not like this, but generally? That's a way shitty privileged people shut down discourse: marginalized folks have grievances, and the criticism is framed as hate both due to fragility and because it's a good deflection technique.

Like... BLM wanted cops to stop murdering black men in the street, and plenty of white people decided that meant they were a hate group. Or... women wanted equal rights, and a good chunk of men decided they were feminazis. It happens over and over.

Above all else, it's just wrong. Anger's not hate. Anger is fire, anger is action and anger is temporary. Hate is preventing people from getting married. Hate is withholding health care. Hate is letting children starve. I'll believe we're full of hate when those are the goals. Right now, I mostly just see a lot of people who are tired of being afraid, and angry at the people who shrug it off.

tl;dr: Harriot's not a perfect victim, but he is a victim. Most of us are. We shouldn't look at what he said as the final word about this, so much as one round in an ongoing discussion wherein we figure out how to make things better for all of us, one that will be filled with unfortunate missteps but must be had all the same.
posted by mordax at 1:42 AM on January 27, 2018 [18 favorites]

Also: I realize you weren't calling for silence, but it's important to get all the feelings on the table, not just the ones that can be expressed politely or appear the most helpful. Just letting everybody have a say is critical here so we can better understand one another. Yours too - your reaction to what he said is as important as what he put out.
posted by mordax at 1:50 AM on January 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

If the word "hate" has become too loaded, how about contempt? It's OK to have contempt for people's actions, but once you're expressing contempt for people based on how they were born, over things like their ethnicity or gender, I think you've become part of the problem. And I think a lot of the contempt directed at feminist white women is really about misogyny. I've read plenty of Harriot columns (although certainly not all of them) and he really goes after feminist white women over and over again. He strikes me as being a bit like George W sending the troops into Iraq to take down Bin Laden. They're not the real enemy here, and those bombs you're dropping are only making things worse for everybody.

At this moment in history, with that sexist, racist orange beast ruling the land, it annoys the hell out of me to see white feminist women constantly being trotted out as the bad guys. (And not the white women who voted for Trump! It's those pesky white feminist women.) But the left is eternally sabotaging itself with vicious infighting, and misogyny is always a thing, so here we are.

I wasn't "taking advice" from Bannon. I was saying that when we waste our time hating each other, instead of hating powerful and truly evil people like him, he has indeed got us right where he wants us. I'm not advocating silence. I'm advocating putting our damn pitchforks away... at least until we reach the Bastille.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:05 AM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

(That sounded more aggro than I meant it. I'm a peace and love hippie type, but if I'm not very careful I can be kind of a snarky asshole about it myself.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:07 AM on January 27, 2018

Yeah, sorry, I kind of want an explanation of that “Jewish tears” thing too.

I understood it to mean: in the US even fair-skinned, straight-haired, bob-nosed Jews are only conditionally White. There's still a lot of prejudice, and before the Civil Rights acts Jews could be (and often were) legally barred from clubs and housing developments along with other minorities. White Supremacists hate Jews even more than Blacks: there's a reason Charlottesville marchers had swastikas and chanted "Jews will not replace us". None the less, most US Jews are the recipients of White privilege most of the time and like other recipients they tend to ignore its existence.

There's an argument that reminding marginally-White people like fair-skinned Jews of their self-interest might persuade them to be better allies when empathy alone isn't sufficient. I don't know. But pointing out that Sanders shouldn't necessarily be considered White is consistent with that position.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:29 AM on January 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

Also, about hate... I get deeply suspicious when I see that word. I know you, and I know you're not like this, but generally? That's a way shitty privileged people shut down discourse: marginalized folks have grievances, and the criticism is framed as hate both due to fragility and because it's a good deflection technique.

Literally the framing being used by people with legitimate grievances is 'hate' now, though. "I hate men." "I hate Beckys." "I hate white people." (Or "wypipo," etc.) The discourse is now, literally, to use the term 'hate.' Harriot is by no means the only one who does this. Lots of people who, like Harriot, write for online publications or work on social media, need clicks. People feeling grievance or hate or the need to vent or the need to feel validated come to them and feel vindicated; people who feel targeted or hated (unfairly, out of fragility, whichever) come to them and also feel vindicated, feel they are hated, point to him and others working in the click economy to feed their anger and deepen that of others. And the world spins round, and everyone gets angrier.
posted by halation at 5:28 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yeah, we could do a Wypipo Awards just for Metafilter comments.
posted by TwoStride at 7:47 AM on January 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

If we’re going to cherry-pick quotes from Michael Harriot’s work to trash him, it seems only fair to pull quotes that add context that was not included in earlier posts. From the very beginning of one article linked above, somehow this part didn’t seem important to include:

Becky: (noun); a white woman who uses her privilege as a weapon, a ladder or an excuse. Ex: “A random Becky hit me up on Twitter to explain why not all white women are racist.”

What started as a controversial term for fellatio has blossomed into an all-encompassing term for a specific class of white women. Not all white women are Beckys, but all Beckys are white women.

We hate it when “not all men” is trotted out and as a community we no longer truck with that nonsense, so why is it cool to get all het up and wail about not all white women?
posted by palomar at 9:50 AM on January 27, 2018 [10 favorites]

And while we're at it, just because white women at the Women's Marches probably didn't vote for Trump, their actions can still miss the mark and offend WOC.
posted by TwoStride at 12:41 PM on January 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

..."Yet, a white male in a dark parking lot or unlit alley doesn’t engender nearly as much fear as a black male. That’s the immunity of whiteness."

... I'm more afraid of the white guy.

And so am I. But you and I are only two white women out of millions (assuming that you, like me, are in fact a white woman). How many white women do you think exist in this country who are the opposite of us? Say... maybe 53% or more?

Here's another white woman, so that's at least three. I wonder how many women in the aggregate are afraid of the white guy in the parking lot or the unlit alley, and terrified of the one in the White House.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:09 PM on January 27, 2018

It's not like black men have made up that white women cross the street, lock their car doors, etc when they walk by. I don't think a quick poll in a metafilter thread is enough to over come this widely talked about and observable fact that black boys and men are perceived as scarier, that the perception is strong among white women, and that it's deadly for black boys and men. White women's tears also cover the violence black boys and men endure for our supposed purity.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 2:22 PM on January 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

because the women at that march, white or not, sure as hell weren't the ones who voted for Trump.

I don't think this is the absolute certainty you're claiming. The Bradley effect extends beyond the voting booth, and I've learned not to underestimate white hypocrisy. For instance, "I'm not like most people, black men scare me way less" is not as soothing a comment as one may believe it to be.
posted by Errant at 2:53 PM on January 27, 2018 [8 favorites]

OK here's an article about race by a person of color and literally the whole thread is about oh the poor white women, and I'm just saying, maybe if we could NOT do that, like, on a grand scale, it could go a ways to solving this problem.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:55 PM on January 27, 2018 [22 favorites]

Here's another white woman, so that's at least three. I wonder how many women in the aggregate are afraid of the white guy in the parking lot or the unlit alley, and terrified of the one in the White House.

Okay, so the point that I made that we're just a few white women in a sea of millions who don't all think the way we do seems to have flown over some heads. But I'll try again by pointing out something I'm ashamed of: I HAD TO WORK AT BEING LESS AFRAID OF BLACK MEN. I'm not less afraid of black men than I am of white men because I'm pure of heart. I'm less afraid of black men than I am of white men because I became cognizant of a stress response to black men that I didn't have to white men... and yet a black man has never harmed me. Not once. Every man that has harmed me has been white. Yet I didn't get the stress response around the demographic group that actually caused me harm. I got the stress response around the men I had been taught to fear. Where did I learn that fear? From the society we're currently living in, y'all. And even though I've put in work to eradicate that fear, our society keeps trying to reinforce the fear in me, every single day.

Please don't tally me up to support your argument if you can't understand that basic information.
posted by palomar at 4:08 PM on January 27, 2018 [15 favorites]

I'm asking for people on the left to stop looking for reasons to hate each other and try to find some common ground before this fucking planet gets blown out from under us. We're in a truly desperate situation here, it's two minutes to midnight, and while we're sniping at each other the mean men are on the march.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:44 PM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

The first reaction I had when I read the article and got to the "white women" part was, "But I'm not..." and then I realized that was exactly what the article was talking about, and maybe I should take a step back rather than get all defensive.
posted by Daily Alice at 9:44 PM on January 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

And sometimes patriarchy and white supremacy collide and mix in different ways.

Yup, this. So much of white supremacy is about protecting white women's purity. That's why we get treated to benevolent sexism, and women of color get treated to really hateful and violent sexism of varying flavors depending on their specific intersection of race and gender (i.e., Latinx women are treated differently than black women are treated differently than SE Asian women are treated differently than et cetera et cetera).
posted by palomar at 10:02 PM on January 27, 2018 [10 favorites]

Mod note: Ursula Hitler, while I'm sure your intentions are good, the effect you're having is silencing people trying to talk about their lives and experiences of oppression, and it would be better if you left this thread alone now.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 10:27 PM on January 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

4 Ways White People Can Process Their Emotions Without Bringing the White Tears: Below is a list of some of the ways that can help you to not center yourself in conversations about race and to process your own emotions.
1. Pause Before Contributing to the Conversation

White feminist women need to stop getting aggressive and treating WoC like argumentative derailers of the movement when we talk about race.
posted by TwoStride at 10:27 PM on January 27, 2018 [16 favorites]

I'm asking for people on the left to stop looking for reasons to hate each other and try to find some common ground before this fucking planet gets blown out from under us

As a trans person you should know better. Yeah, I fucking hate anyone who doesn't think I'm a full person who deserves rights. You know who those people are? Almost all of the right and a good portion of the left. The left will say "yes we love trans people" but out of political expediency and inertia, they mostly ignore our rights. How I handle this depends on context, but nothing will ever be gained by suppressing my own personhood for the greater... good? What good is fighting for a world where people are not free? What common ground can I have with people who say "not yet, wait a bit longer for employment rights, for healthcare, to not get assaulted and killed"? I may agree with the left on every other issue, but every time my rights are not addressed is a time I have to swallow a bitter pill and remember my place in the hierarchy.

Now replace trans with POC.
posted by AFABulous at 7:46 AM on January 28, 2018 [14 favorites]

Meant to come back here and keep talking, but it's been a lousy time.

Couple further thoughts I wanted to point out:
* There's no point in being fair and serious *over* lazy snark most of the time.

Harriot's pretty rough around the edges, but I can't blame him for that.

I spent a good chunk of my life amid fiery lefty politics. I have spoken about oppression to many people in many different ways. Most people with power - men, white people, whatever demographic you are trying to talk to about their privilege - all they're going to do is deflect, deny, minimize, nitpick and otherwise be horrible about it. There is no perfectly constructed argument that will make a sack of garbage magically listen.

So... why bother? And you know, since I'm bothering today, obviously there's a time and a place, but that shit's exhausting and I can't blame anybody for just... not doing it. Not assuming good faith. Not offering masterful rhetoric and skilled debate, because... fuck it, nobody cares anyway.

This is why I'm not too bothered by the form of Harriot's work in principle. I can understand discomfort around the Jewish tears thing and his focus on women instead of men, but the part where he's taking potshots at low-hanging fruit? I can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you that I personally see very little reason to aim higher with strangers anymore.

* This is not about personal virtue. Don't imagine it is.

Privilege is the informal, amorphous protection racket that accrues around consolidated power. It's the accretion disc of a black hole, clouds of people and influence that are drawn to the absolute darkness in the center of things. Any homogeneous group of people who amass enough economic and governmental clout create privilege passively, because they will select for people who are like them. They will minimize the misdeeds of people like them, allowing disaffected members of their identity group to enforce silence via terrorism (KKK, Gamergate/MRA, etc.). They will enact policies that favor their preferred identity and belief system, entrenching their attitudes as normal.

Basically, it's the logical endpoint of any insufficiently diverse leadership, and it's self-sustaining via all sorts of implicit methods.

So, you know, nobody means 'white people are morally inferior in some way.' Okay, maybe some people mean that, but I don't think it's the biggest takeaway, and I would never support that. Any governing body without diversity will end up shit eventually.

Don't take this personally, don't make it about your individual moral purity. These stories are cries for help. At the very least, understand that, even if you don't know if or how you could actually help. Just sit with it. The first step in getting past the horror of our current system is perceiving the shape of it, and that only comes by hearing stories from all sorts of people who've been crushed in its gears.

* It doesn't matter if it's all whites. It doesn't matter if it's not you, speaking from a practical standpoint.

#Notallmen, #notallwhites... these miss the point. It's never 100%. All that's needed is enough whites with clout that they can cover for each other, enough people who are willing to look the other way when dissenters are punished. White people in the US hold enough power to literally cover for murder in broad daylight. That makes any given white person Schrodinger's Nazi, (credit to the inventor of Schrodinger's Rapist).

This is the main reason arguments about 'is it me?' don't matter. A critical mass of bad actors exists, and that's the problem.

Anyway. I dunno if that helps anybody process anything, but I hope so.
posted by mordax at 9:22 PM on January 28, 2018 [12 favorites]