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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWow! Wonderful and insightful thread on the cornered tiger (white conservative males)
Link to tweet
White men have long been a minority in US society (currently 29%), but until very recently, they controlled all the ladders of ascent into cultural, political, media, or economic relevance.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1520047160368287744.html
White men have long been a minority in US society (currently 29%), but until very recently, they controlled all the ladders of ascent into cultural, political, media, or economic relevance.
That doesnt mean that women and people of color werent visible in politics or culture. But it means the people who rose up the ladder into a position of influence generally had political beliefs that white men found tolerable, if not outright appealing.
Youre a woman or especially a minority, and you want to be a Times columnist, a judge, a congressional leader of note, a TV anchor?
If your ideas conform with the ideas of the white men who run these institutions, you can rise, rise, rise. If they dont you likely wont.
Now its important to switch perspectives and imagine what this system looked liked to white men themselves: consensus.
They could look out their window and see that almost everyone notable agreed with them on really divisive cultural issues!
Occasionally someone would break into the cozy unanimity with ideas that ran against the consensus, like a Jesse Jackson running for president. But even when this happened, all the major cultural and political power centers would reiterate that this was radical fringe politics.
Today this system mostly remains in place, actually! Most political, cultural, and economic institutions are still controlled by white men! Many nonwhite, nonmale people who advance in these institutions do so by being agreeable to white male gatekeepers! (No names, sorry.)
But cracks are starting to emerge. There are people appearing in politics and culture who do not appear to have really been let in by white male gatekeepers - in fact, who express ideas that the vast, vast majority of white male gatekeepers find incorrect or even annoying.
What are these ideas? It varies but generally they are, naturally, ideas that challenge the power structure itself, point out the ways in which white people and men hold disproportionate power, and point out the way that power is exercised, often unfairly.
Why are cracks emerging now? Partly its a cultural evolution. Partly its technological (Twitter plays a big role here). But I think most of it is just demographic. Americas white majority is rapidly becoming a white plurality. Total societal control just isnt sustainable.
And as this has happened, the world as experienced by white men (who, lets remember, do still control the vast majority of political, cultural, and economic institutions) has also changed: where they once saw consensus, now theres conflict.
For many white men, including many who hold vast power and influence, it feels like a bunch of malcontents - espousing ideas everyone previously agreed were radical, no less! - have forced their way past the gatekeepers, and are now making everything complicated and unpleasant.
The response of white men has varied. Some have argued that we need to restore the consensus of earlier years, unaware it was illusory and achieved partly by exclusion. Some have desperately kept trying to gatekeep.
And a whole lot of them have just gotten really, really angry.
And thats where we are now: a small but growing number of people with perspectives that are not agreeable to white male gatekeepers pushing into the public eye, and white men seeing it as radicals smashing a consensus they were told was shared by everyone worth listening to.
And I think it's not a coincidence that the figures and groups that attract the most obsessive ire, who are blamed for causing all the trouble, are also the figures and groups that seem to have most dramatically circumvented the gatekeepers: AOC. Nikole Hannah-Jones. BLM.
One last thing I'll say: in my experience, white men are skeptical of the idea of white male gatekeeping (which makes sense, because it's not like we all got together and decided to do it).
But women and people of color are often acutely aware that their ability to exist in elite circles depends on not challenging certain ideas, and not rubbing powerful people the wrong way. Where do those ideas come from? What do most of those powerful people have in common?
The cornered tiger is the moneyed, white male property owner
And its days in power are numbered and dropping fast
Fear motivates them to more and more drastic measures and furthering the claim that anyone against is even more extreme and crazy. Aka, projection
ret5hd
(20,482 posts)the cornered tiger would rather burn it all down, wreck it all into a cesspool of misery-for-everyone, then blame all those gatecrashers for the resulting chaos and hunger and death and even a completely failed country/civilization
rather than say Yeah, we can work together. Lets fix this and make it good for everyone.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)I_UndergroundPanther
(12,462 posts)uponit7771
(90,304 posts)... and he looked at me like I ate a puppy.
Asked him has he ever watched Living Single and he answered it as if he never heard of Juneteenth either.
ms liberty
(8,558 posts)llmart
(15,533 posts)If I remember correctly, the term "angry white man" became prominent during the 90's. I remember reading quite a few pieces about the question, why are white males so angry these days? This has been brewing for awhile, but I still believe that it will eventually die a natural death, though not in my lifetime.
I used to say that the reason they were so angry was because they never had to share the spotlight or power with anyone else except other white males and then along came women outshining them in school and jobs and making inroads incrementally and then dark skinned people did the same and they started being threatened by all that. They could not ever admit to themselves that they got where they were because they were white and men. They had convinced themselves they got where they were by working harder and being smarter which was flat out not true. That's what privilege is. I'm not saying that was true for all white men, but it certainly was true for the vast majority of white men.
hatrack
(59,578 posts)The whole RW talk radio phenomenon starting with Rush (who's still dead, BTW) and festering even today, was just a cheap and easy way to maximize profits for radio networks.
News programming? Expensive. Public affairs? Booooo-ring. Localized broadcasting? Atomized, market-specific, hard to standardize. Paid employees to do these kinds of programs? Fuck that, let's gut the system so we can make All The Money Right Now.
Every city, every town, every country crossroads has a crank or 10,000. They're angry, ANGRY, I tell you! This isn't the country they grew up in! Why don't they have any good shows on the Tee-Vee any more like Dobie Gills or Hogan's Heroes? What are these black people doing in my town??!! And whatever the problem is, it's certainly not THEIR fault. People who bitch and moan all day long, for whom the thought of their Very Important Opinions on the radio is pure catnip.
The rest is easy. Hire a glib, morally void host, a minimal production staff and call screeners and pay for some toll-free lines. Voila! Millions of reptilian cortexes just waiting to be stoked every single day, with money rolling in.
Best of all, once you've mobilized the raging cranks, you can use them for other things. Getting elected, for example, or holding rallies, or selling pickup trucks. Win-win!!
MagickMuffin
(15,933 posts)If white women won't have sex with us fine we'll make you have sex with us whether you consent or not.
Joinfortmill
(14,395 posts)Aristus
(66,294 posts)Im a white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-aged white male. And I oppose everything the white male establishment stands for.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,462 posts)These scared angry wealthy white people are nothing noble like tigers.
Duppers
(28,117 posts)Than are rethugians!
I cannot think of a critter lower than a modern rethugian.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,462 posts)Except for mosquitos,fleas,ticks they are about the same as a republican.
Demovictory9
(32,423 posts)topics are almost entirely ranting about the demographics of characters. they chortle with glee if the movie/tv show has poor ratings.