Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "louis-c-k"
Mad Men: Do White Men Need Affirmative Action?
I've been engaging in a relatively friendly social media debate with a white man named James. James, who lives in Florida (why am I not surprised?), thinks that we blacks are "hypersensitive," that Obama is the worst President in a century, and that he has contributed to "the minor racial conflict" in America by talking about it. He also thinks that we shouldn't blame the Founding Fathers for having slaves and failing to include blacks and women among those who were created equal because they lived in a different time. When I pointed out that America was built on racism, mentioning Native Americans, Japanese, Chinese, and even white ethnic groups like the Italians and the Irish as oppressed groups, James rejected my argument because people are treated worse in other countries.
I enjoyed debating James because his arguments were so easy to attack and because I have spent my life thinking about and discussing race. At one point during the debate, I pointed out that I would never try to tell James what it was like to live in a foreign country (he lived in Asia), but he thinks he can tell me what it's like or what it should be like to live as a black woman in my own country. I wasn't certain whether that was a difference between white men and black women or just between James and me.
Since he either didn't carefully read or didn't remember all of my admittedly rather lengthy arguments (the longest chapter in my memoir was on race), James at one point accused me of sounding angry. I quickly reminded him that I had embraced the stereotype of the angry black woman. As I said in my second book, white people would be angrier if they were treated the way we black women have been. Try cleaning white folks' houses, go home to clean your own, and then be accused of being lazy, and see how you feel. Try reaching middle age without having stolen anything and still be treated like a thief in stores, and see if you don't get a little pissed. And if white men pawed you on buses and in movie theaters and offered you money for sex when you were makeup free and not wearing provocative clothes while white women acted as if they were scared of being raped by your brother, father, or son, how would you feel?
I told James that I thought he also sounded angry; he, of course, denied it because why would he be angry? I can explain why I, a black woman, born in the Jim Crow South in 1949, am angry, but what is the white man's beef? As my new favorite comedian, Louis C.K., has pointed out in my new favorite comic routine, white men can go back to any time and still be treated well. They can go back to the year 2 and get a good table. But no black woman in her right mind would want to go back to the 19th Century or even the middle of the 20th Century. Louis C.K. thinks we blacks don't want to go back past the eighties, but I prefer the seventies (before Reagan, "reverse racism," and jericurls) when black was cool, we wore big Afros, and gave our children African names. I think the white man's anger started around that same time and has grown since Obama took office.
When we hear Mitt Romney complaining that he could be elected President if he were Latino (although we have yet to elect a Latino President) and when he snarls at our President that he is entitled to his own plane and his own house but not his own facts, what he's really saying is I should be elected President and have the plane and the house because I'm white, and you're not. White men are angry because they are no longer the only ones entitled to ride on Air Force One and live in the White House. They are also no longer the only ones entitled to serve as governors, Senators, and U.S. Representatives. Most of these angry white men remember when only white men had those jobs. Some are old enough to remember when only white men could serve as jurors. And these angry old men want to go back to those days. That's what they mean when they say that they want to take their country back. Sure, they think the country is theirs, but they also want to go back to the days when white men ruled. Sorry, James, and all of you other angry old white men, but we are not going back. We have entered a brave new world, where white men are no longer entitled to the best things in life.
In some ways, I feel sorry for these poor old white men. It must be hard to lose privileges that they expected to enjoy all of their lives. And as I said when discussing the differences in the way the public perceived and treated John and Elizabeth Edwards, white men don't have generic pity cards to play. We feel more sorry for women when they lose a child, and we're more bothered by a white male teacher who has sex with his underage female students than by a white female teacher (those "hot" blondes featured on Fox News) who has sex with her male students. We can also say just about anything about a white man (we can call Edwards a Ken doll, Chris Christie fat), and the politically correct police will not come after us, but let an old white man say the wrong thing, let him call a black man "articulate," or a woman "beautiful" or "sexy," for instance, and he's labeled "racist" or "sexist."
It's so hard out here for the old white man in the 21st Century that I'm beginning to think he might need affirmative action. Nah, he just needs to accept his new reality.
I enjoyed debating James because his arguments were so easy to attack and because I have spent my life thinking about and discussing race. At one point during the debate, I pointed out that I would never try to tell James what it was like to live in a foreign country (he lived in Asia), but he thinks he can tell me what it's like or what it should be like to live as a black woman in my own country. I wasn't certain whether that was a difference between white men and black women or just between James and me.
Since he either didn't carefully read or didn't remember all of my admittedly rather lengthy arguments (the longest chapter in my memoir was on race), James at one point accused me of sounding angry. I quickly reminded him that I had embraced the stereotype of the angry black woman. As I said in my second book, white people would be angrier if they were treated the way we black women have been. Try cleaning white folks' houses, go home to clean your own, and then be accused of being lazy, and see how you feel. Try reaching middle age without having stolen anything and still be treated like a thief in stores, and see if you don't get a little pissed. And if white men pawed you on buses and in movie theaters and offered you money for sex when you were makeup free and not wearing provocative clothes while white women acted as if they were scared of being raped by your brother, father, or son, how would you feel?
I told James that I thought he also sounded angry; he, of course, denied it because why would he be angry? I can explain why I, a black woman, born in the Jim Crow South in 1949, am angry, but what is the white man's beef? As my new favorite comedian, Louis C.K., has pointed out in my new favorite comic routine, white men can go back to any time and still be treated well. They can go back to the year 2 and get a good table. But no black woman in her right mind would want to go back to the 19th Century or even the middle of the 20th Century. Louis C.K. thinks we blacks don't want to go back past the eighties, but I prefer the seventies (before Reagan, "reverse racism," and jericurls) when black was cool, we wore big Afros, and gave our children African names. I think the white man's anger started around that same time and has grown since Obama took office.
When we hear Mitt Romney complaining that he could be elected President if he were Latino (although we have yet to elect a Latino President) and when he snarls at our President that he is entitled to his own plane and his own house but not his own facts, what he's really saying is I should be elected President and have the plane and the house because I'm white, and you're not. White men are angry because they are no longer the only ones entitled to ride on Air Force One and live in the White House. They are also no longer the only ones entitled to serve as governors, Senators, and U.S. Representatives. Most of these angry white men remember when only white men had those jobs. Some are old enough to remember when only white men could serve as jurors. And these angry old men want to go back to those days. That's what they mean when they say that they want to take their country back. Sure, they think the country is theirs, but they also want to go back to the days when white men ruled. Sorry, James, and all of you other angry old white men, but we are not going back. We have entered a brave new world, where white men are no longer entitled to the best things in life.
In some ways, I feel sorry for these poor old white men. It must be hard to lose privileges that they expected to enjoy all of their lives. And as I said when discussing the differences in the way the public perceived and treated John and Elizabeth Edwards, white men don't have generic pity cards to play. We feel more sorry for women when they lose a child, and we're more bothered by a white male teacher who has sex with his underage female students than by a white female teacher (those "hot" blondes featured on Fox News) who has sex with her male students. We can also say just about anything about a white man (we can call Edwards a Ken doll, Chris Christie fat), and the politically correct police will not come after us, but let an old white man say the wrong thing, let him call a black man "articulate," or a woman "beautiful" or "sexy," for instance, and he's labeled "racist" or "sexist."
It's so hard out here for the old white man in the 21st Century that I'm beginning to think he might need affirmative action. Nah, he just needs to accept his new reality.
