WMP

The notion of white male privilege is something that I find irritating from time to time. Not because I don't believe it exists but because people tend to boil down to fortune cookie wisdom what tends to be more complex than people realize. Scalzi (as he is apparently wont to do from time to time) posted a piece entitled 'Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.' He's not wrong. But I don't think his metaphor is as sturdy as he'd like to think it is and I for sure have issues with how little he takes into account socio-economic class. A straight white male born into a middle class family in Iowa, for instance (such as myself) is in a far different position than a straight white male born into a middle class family say in West Virgina, for instance.

But leaving that aside (and Scalzi handles the usual array of comments in this piece) in general, I find it irritating to be categorized and labelled and blamed for the wide array of woes that society grapples with on a day to day basis. It's like the slogan 'Men Can End Rape.' Fantastic. But in my book, real men DON'T rape and I'm irritated by the implication that just because I share the same biological characteristics with the scum-sucking assholes of the world that rape/beat women that it's somehow my fault just because I have a penis. In general, being a straight white male is easier. But everybody else gets to shit on you for it. And maybe that's just the way the cookie crumbles and I'm OK with that. But please don't ask me to join a discussion where my role is to be at the bottom of the Porta-Potty of Oppression where all the finger pointing, victim-blaming shit lands on my head. You want to know where I stand? Fine:

Racism is bad.
Sexism is bad.

And I do my utmost to be neither of those things every single day and if see someone being openly racist or sexist I like to think I treat them with the contempt that they so richly deserve and call 'bullshit' on their 'bullshit.' I could probably do a better job of that from time to time, no doubt, but I try. Which is more than a lot of people do. But understand that it cuts both ways: being, well, an asshole is something that cuts across creed, color and gender. And if you're being a true asshole about something please don't expect me not to call you that. And please don't tell me I'm oppressing you when I do.