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Here's the thing about this line of making excuses for fascists -- are fascists, racists, violent insurrectionists, etc. the *only* people in this country who feel scorned, powerless, and angry?
Hardly. https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1349777587078389760
Hardly. https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1349777587078389760
After Trump won in 2016, there were millions of people worldwide who felt scorned, powerless, and angry -- we had marches. Peaceful marches. Remember that? Oh, so long ago it was. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/watch-samantha-bee-celebrate-womens-march-with-viral-quiet-choir-123417/
Name literally ANYTHING that white men name as a cause of their suffering -- everything from "can't get a date" to "lost my job, about to lose my house" to "I don't feel represented in government" -- and people who are NOT white men have that same complaint.
I mean -- just fricking look around, okay? All the heads of church, state, and industry are MOSTLY white men. It's not like you're underrepresented as a category.
We have this sort of mythology -- call it the Hillbilly Elegy mythology -- that the people who do horrible things in this world were *driven to it* by dreadful circumstance, which... is sometimes true & makes a dramatic story, but it's hardly the default.
Look, these people's hero, Donald Trump, has the exact same complaints! Nobody loves him, nobody respects him, he's been horribly mistreated, etc.
Trump is a wealthy international crime lord, he's famous, he's literally president of the United States, but the greatest outrage in the history of the world is that he lost his bid for re-election, like nobody's ever lost a presidential election before.
It doesn't matter how high you rise, to a certain kind of mindset, you're STILL scorned, powerless, suffering -- because not *everyone* likes you. Because you're not always allowed to commit crimes with impunity. Because you lose sometimes.
When your sense of entitlement is infinite, as Trump's seems to be, your sense of grievance is also infinite -- do you *genuinely feel* ill-used because that one lady reporter was curt with you that one time? Of course! Does that excuse your actions?
LOL, no.
LOL, no.
Any time we fetishize the suffering of white men as a justification for their bad behavior, we're basically perpetuating the idea that white men shouldn't HAVE to suffer, so of course it's natural that they can't handle suffering & lash out in destructive ways.
So much anti-feminist and Christian patriarchy stuff *literally* tells white men they're kings and gods upon this earth, and then... you know, life. They don't get to be kings. BECAUSE THERE'S ONLY ONE KING AT A TIME BRENT AND WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY ANYWAY SHEESH
It's not that I have some desire to "demonize" the men who do things like this -- I just think it's a bad way to look at the problem, because the difference between the men who invaded the Capitol building and the rest of us *isn't* that they suffer and we don't.
Everybody suffers, Brent.
That's why we write songs about it.
That's why we write songs about it.
Addendum: This article. https://jezebel.com/i-was-raised-on-the-lie-of-the-reluctant-rural-insurre-1846006392
Choice quote from the Duck Dynasty guy: "I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ - not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: ‘Were they happy?’ They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues"
Counterpoint:
"No one was singing the blues"
Like, LITERALLY your childhood was when the blues was being popularized, what the hell is wrong with you Duck Dynasty man?
Like, LITERALLY your childhood was when the blues was being popularized, what the hell is wrong with you Duck Dynasty man?
