It is White Male Rage, but we aint gon just stop there
It is most certainly White Male Rage on parade. With Brett Kavanaugh being simply the latest of those throwing some version of a tantrum when confronted with challenges to his privilege, and demands for accountability, and assertions of personhood from victims who inconveniently not White and male, simultaneously. My psychologist mind whirls.
While it is rage, followed by the essential and necessary acting out, it feels somewhat irresponsible to stop there, when we have already started to pull at the thread of this clue. I would caution that coming to and resting with this being yet another example of free range White Male Rage is us entering the echo chamber, when we can work further through what all, this is. And, it is a great deal.
What I see now, what those of us who lack the requisite birthright privilege have felt, and have lived under, is this chronic disregard for our ire. We have been subject to emotional and physical violence when we have raised our voices toward demands of dignity, and have been rebuffed, often violently, when suggesting that there be equity, unconditional and full, when challenging supremacy most White and male. We have been made victim to gaslighting, have had our ideas and traumas marginalized, and have been forced to see any belief in dismantling a supremacist, misogynist and racist system as antithetical to a functioning American way of life.
Many, moving parts, and perhaps we have become accustom to tethering our focus to shiny objects and throttling those, in hope of urging movement toward progress. Or shouting and raging, because that is what we need to see to our healing, and finding a reasonable target, one fixed above us, works to that end. And so, White Male Rage.
I would ask that we monitor our willingness to find and so name the evil, and so react to it. That only benefits the whole of the system by allowing to readjust. And that is truly at work here. White Male Rage, yes. But, what of that disregard, and outright shouting down, and coercion, and tiered violence? I see a partner to rage at work. I see White Male Disdain. I see disdain for our various persons, and for our perceived audacity in challenging the very natural order and rhythm of American life. We are being regarded as disrupters to be ostracized and stripped of our place in this society. We are being made to feel and believe that we are emotionally unwell, biased against White men, and anarchists. We are not yet that ambitious, not from what I have seen.
It is disdain. From the outbursts at being made to be accountable, to the catastrophizing at not getting what is wanted most, to the refusal to prosecute those of the White Male ranks who commit human crimes against all other humans. The approach and feel suggests that we are not supposed to raise our voices and person against this.
Women were supposedly never meant to attack this system. Women are not supposed to name their traumas, and challenge their station. They were never meant to demand accountability. Their thoughts, beliefs and assertions are being mangled, avoided, perverted and minimized. All disdain, all of the time.
People of color, immigrants, children, all reduced to numbers and lesser cogs in this system.
From the White House, our lead executive has demonstrated disdain for anyone not like himself, and has actively gone about the practice of inciting hatespeak and act toward those communities that challenge. He demeans whenever able. More disdain.
Ultimately, these confirmation hearings are more of the same, with regard to our nation family. These are more of an exercise toward White Maleness fighting some delusional and misguided sense of erasure and oppression. That particular infant of White Maleness has never been asked to share or consider, and so, the acting out. All of it.
The disdain has always been present, just behind and obscured, but present if you look, listen. It has impacted us all, completely compromising our credibility when we wish to consider whether a thing, or act, or person is racist, or rape trauma has occurred, or bias, or prejudice are at work. They always are. We breathe these daily. If we didn’t make the necessary deal to tolerate the disdain, and make functional room for the rage, maybe we could suggest reason when assessing these.
But, no. We have no credibility. And so, we should always believe the women who courageously step forward and share their traumas, and identify their victimizers, knowing what awaits them, and that we will fail to protect them. Only women are fit and suited to tell us what is rape, and consent, and what their traumas are. The rest of us are compromised. Only people of color can effectively identity the microaggressions, and racism, and tell of their traumas. No one else has demonstrated the necessary commitment to perspective and empathy and resistance to supremacy/rage/misogyny to question when these are happening or living with us.
We have raised this spoiled child of Supremacy and Rage and White Male privilege. We, as a nation family, are wedded to it. And all these many years later are demanding that it behave. We have a long way to go to get it to act right, but we will not get there by pointing our one single misbehavior at a time. We must be vigilant enough to call them all, co-occurring, all of the time. Each one. Intersectional, and whole. In full. Rage, with Disdain and Privilege also, and with supremacy and misogyny. We should remain ready to put the mirror up with all of these scribbled plainly on its surface.
