Here is the latest of the many letters I've received from white males who feel the pendulum has swung so far that it's slamming them in the chest:Hello Mr. Nemko,
Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, my open attitude is being returned less and less often.
At first, I thought I was at fault, but with time and awareness, I have come to realize that the white middle-aged male is now the low person on the totem pole and everyone, including many white men, seem determined to keep it that way.
I have experienced racism and sexism. I have been ignored, berated, and ridiculed. I have been passed over for jobs and promotions that have been given to people with less experience and fewer abilities. Unfortunately, when I bring up these realities, people seem to look at me as if I were speaking a different language.
For a while, I was angry. At this point, I simply feel resigned. I’ve been around long enough to understand that a pendulum always swings and now, white males are the victims of that swing. I sure do feel sorry though for the young white men out there.
Sincerely,
David Dickson
whynotnow@mail.com
5 comments:
Intriguing but vague. How do we know that any of these supposed inequities ever took place? How can we be sure that Mr. Dickson is not simply blaming personal failure on amorphous cultural forces? His charges will remain unfounded without more detail.
We don't know that they take place. But when women or minorities assert prejudice, we tend to accept it on face value. Why do we apply a double standard and raise the possibility only that the man is misguided or lying?
Hey, I just wanted to express my admiration for your courage in advocating this extremely unpopular cause. I'm a young Asian male, so I can't completely empathize with the white male plight, but I too am sick of all the pussyfooting and apologizing men have to do about women. And to even suggest that men and women are not interchangeable and completely equal is modern-day blasphemy (even though there is plenty of scientific basis for it). I think Nietzsche said it best: "Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained..."
Marty,
I understand how white males can feel the anger and frustration of what they would experience as sexism.
But I truly feel theirs is a watered-down version of the sexism and anger that women experience almost daily. For example, this morning as I'm reading through the news online I came across an article about an obscene high-school rivalry T-shirt depicting a woman (cheerleader) being raped by two horses (http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/so-when-do-these-kids-get-a-mtv-dating-show-26363). Then if you read the comments from this site they're alarmingly misogynist. Statements such as "she's asking for it" show up.
This led to another site for a burger add where a woman is depicted as sectioned into meat parts (http://grindburgers.com/index.html)
Marty, you talk about anger. These types of sexist (violent) images are all over the place, some subtle some not so subtle and they make me angry. They represent what society thinks of women.
I feel for the gentleman who wrote the letter and his frustration of being overlooked. But I also think we need to put things into perpective. Sexism is when you're looked at as a meat-byproduct. I don't think he woke up today feeling as such.
I truly believe that the examples that the most recent Anonymous raise are so atypical and that the rampant ill-treatment of men is rampant: in health care funding, in reverse discrimination hiring and promotion, divorce proceedings, how they're treated in the school and college curriculum, and in media portrayals. I've written widely documenting the severity and pervasiveness of this and invite you to, for example, click on "Men's issues" in this blog's tag cloud for some examples. Also, go to orgformen.org.
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