A Class-Driven Society

I was having a good day. Still am, really, but in going over the morning news I
happened upon a couple of articles that kind of pissed me off. So now, instead of ranting in my mind and repressing it, I'm going to let it out and rant on the Internet. Such is the joy of having a blog.
I want to get into the subject of race. The hard part is, I'm a white, middle-class protestant (I would dispute that last one, but so says society) with a college degree. Apparently, my "people" (in this sense) are somehow responsible for everything bad that has ever happened in history. Or so says popular sentiment in today's P.C. world. And really, I'm not going to dispute that assertion for the most part. Many, if not most, of the social/historical cancers that have plagued mankind have come at the hands of white, middle-to-upper-class protestant males. To name a few:

1. The Spanish Inquisition (all right, they were Catholic technically, but still white men)
2. (tie) Michael Bay movies and the Fox Network
3. Cultural and geographic imperialism
4. Slavery
5. Mayonnaise
6. The KKK
7. Sexism
8. *NSync
9. The Holocaust
10. Madonna

As horrifying as that list must surely be to you, though, does that mean I should be marginalized by association simply because of the color of my skin and my socio-economic strata? I honestly believe that the noble quest for colorblindness has rendered our society so color-conscious that we place more importance on race/gender/sexual orientation now more than ever, when the idea is to relegate it into nothingness. The sad, twisted result is that we give so much preferential treatment to so many "protected classes" and call it "promoting equality" that it has essentially become socially and legally acceptable to discriminate against the white male. At the same time, we've given license to any minority class to cry foul at their pleasure for anything at all. Take the picture above. Some say it makes black people appear King Kong-ish. Does it really? I figure it was just a famous basketball player and a hot supermodel on a magazine cover. Who would've thought?

A skit by a North Dakota State University group portrayed a white guy in blackface (playing Barack Obama) receiving lap dances from the girls from the Obamagirl YouTube videos while two cowboys did the "Brokeback Mountain" thing while holding up an Obama sign. Several students called it racist. Tasteless? Definitely. Political statement? Obviously conservative. Racist? I fail to see how.

Seriously, can you think of another class that hasn't gotten a piece of the protective-legislation pie? We have hate-crime and affirmative action laws applying to most classes these days--African American, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, and gay, to name a few. But where's the "racist outcry" when groups of black youth in Baltimore roam the public transportation system assaulting white people? Neither of these Baltimore incidents has been classified as a "hate crime" to my knowledge, but I can guarantee you Sharpton would be marching his butt off all over Baltimore if the races had been reversed.

Then there's affirmative action. You know, that law that cost my buddy automatic acceptance to all Texas universities because his B+ average didn't get him in the top 10% of his high school class (which guarantees acceptance by legislative mandate). The law is there so that universities can fill their diversity quotas easier. In central or south Dallas, where the schools are predominantly minority populated, relative performance is often lower (not necessarily for racial reasons, but socio-economic and cultural ones too, conceivably) than it is in the predominately white suburbs. Thus, while my friend and his 3.2 GPA doesn't get that automatic ticket to UT or Texas Tech, the kid in downtown Dallas with the 2.5 GPA does. And why? Because of where he comes from? I'll admit that it's noble to try and extend a helping hand to the less privileged, give them an opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty and what not. However, this sort of legislation definitely walks the line between helping someone out and giving them a free pass. And, from my experience in South America and Dallas, the poorer/marginalized classes often aren't willing to take the steps to break out of the cyclical lifestyles that keep them down, preferring instead to whine and moan and perversely revel in the "woe is me" refrain. Don't get me wrong--while I might not be a fan of affirmative action, I'll admit that enough bigotry still exists that some sort of stopgap is warranted. Affirmative action isn't a perfect solution, but I think it's the best we can do for now where everybody seems to be holding a grudge and whining.

An interesting development that has come of this cultural condition is the advent of the white apologist. The white apologist hates the color of his skin and constantly feels guilty for being white, and usually for being male and heterosexual as well. He feels the need to show the world that he is, indeed, extremely tolerant of everybody else by nature and principle, to the point of debasing himself.

Take, for instance, the group of Stanford law students who have begun rating law firms on the basis of diversity, assigning them grades A-F. The more diverse your firm, the better your grade. The idea here is that they won't work for you if you're not diverse enough, and they're encouraging others to do the same. So I guess it's bad if your law firm is primarily white and male, never mind the fact that the majority of law school students at every grade level are also white males. In an ideal world, the top law school graduates at every university would be a heterogeneous mix of races, sexes, and sexual orientations. The reality, however, is decidedly different, forcing law firms to either hire the best people they can find and run the risk of winding up with a bunch of white guys, making them "racist" or "intolerant" to kooks like the ones at Stanford, or possibly sacrifice quality in the name of diversity. Again, this is not to say that white guys are in any way smarter or more capable than other races/sexes. I know plenty of minorities and women who kick my butt in Con Law. For whatever reason, it just seems that most law school graduates are white males. Maybe not enough minorities apply to or finish law school. Who's fault is that? Should law firms be called out for a lack of diversity because of this?

The word "racism" has become a buzzword, a touchstone of sorts, escalating any issue and relegating white people like myself into silence. Not because we as individuals are guilty, mind you (although some admittedly are), but because we fear being labeled. People like myself have tried extremely hard to accept all kinds of diverse people--we're all human, after all, right? So some races might have stereotypical features that are different from others. Maybe they act a little differently than others do (this goes for white people too, by the way). Maybe we even crack jokes every now and then about it. That doesn't mean we hate these things. We just enjoy poking fun at absurd stereotypes, even when they're our own (by the way, if anybody has any good white jokes, I'm dying to hear one).

I am disappointed in my country, however, when everybody can openly discuss racism, sexism, and all those other "-isms," except for people like myself, even though we might often be marginalized as well. Slavery is not my fault. Sexism is not my fault. I have never committed a hate crime. I would love to be treated that way instead of relegated to silence because of my Y chromosome and the color of my skin.