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The morning after last week’s awful and violent KKK and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, I opened up the paper, seeking some tidbits of solace and counsel from the opinion pages of the NY Times. Studiously avoiding David Brooks, and while searching for the character and wisdom of Charles Blow, I— unfortunately for me—came across Frank Bruni’s column.
Oh, yeah, I usually like Frank Bruni. He’s smart. He cares about progressive issues. Let’s see what he has to say.
Well, he didn’t have anything to say about Charlottesville that morning.
Instead, he wrote a wrong-headed column complaining about how his white-maleness is an unfair handicap in matters of social justice. His column that morning was entitled, “I’m a White Man, Hear Me Out,” and carries the sub-heading “The legitimacy of my voice shouldn’t depend on the degree of my oppression.”
Seriously? Et tu, Frank Bruni? Before I even read it, I had a feeling this was going to be a cringe-worthy column…and I was right.
First off, you have to be kidding me with the timing of this column. You think that MAYBEJUSTMAYBE this morning might not be the best time for this whiny column telling us that the real big problem with the world is that we are preventing white male voices from being the leaders and the center of attention on all issues?
(Then again, to be fair, when is the right time for that?)
But the even bigger problem than the terrible timing was the terrible substance.
Bruni opens his screed by mocking “liberal” “social justice warriors” who have apparently hurt his feelings by making him feel that—DESPITE HAVING A MASSIVE PLATFORM AS A COLUMNIST FOR THE NEW YORK FUCKING TIMES—as a white man he has “no standing” and because he is white, we “should listen to absolutely nothing” he has to say:
I’m a white man, so you should listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters of social justice. I have no standing. No way to relate. My color and gender nullify me, and it gets worse: I grew up in the suburbs. Dad made six figures. We had a backyard pool. From the 10th through 12th grades, I attended private school. So the only proper way for me to check my privilege is to realize that it blinds me to others’ struggles and should gag me during discussions about the right responses to them.
If it’s supposed to be funny, it’s not.
And if it’s supposed to be persuasive? Again, no dice.
In the case of this Op-Ed, we shouldn’t listen to anything Frank has to say. But Frank will be relieved to know that it’s not because he’s a white male.
It’s because he’s self-centered, offensive and has revealed himself to have no understanding of or interest in learning what it means to be an ally. Apparently, Bruni would rather score snarkiness points than do the work to understand that it truly isn’t always about you, Frank.
Onward he plunges:
“But wait. I’m gay. And I mean gay from a different, darker day. In that pool and at that school, I sometimes quaked inside, fearful of what my future held. Back then — the 1970s — gay stereotypes went unchallenged, gay jokes drew hearty laughter and exponentially more Americans were closeted than out. We conducted our lives in whispers. Then AIDS spread, and we wore scarlet letters as we marched into the public square to plead with President Ronald Reagan for help. Our rallying cry, “silence = death,” defined marginalization as well as any words could.
So where does that leave me? Who does that make me? Oppressor or oppressed? Villain or victim? And does my legitimacy hinge on the answer?
To listen to some of the guardians of purity on the left, yes.”
Oooh—so clever! This rhetorical construct touches on the concept of “intersectionality,” another key piece of the puzzle that Bruni would rather mock than understand.
Next, cue the whining: “The Left” is being mean to me! As proof, Bruni turns to the criticism heaped his buddy, Professor Mark Lilla: ‘Mark wrote a piece on identity politics and everybody yelled at him!’ #sadface:
“Mark Lilla, a Columbia University professor, got a big, bitter taste of this late last year when he wrote, in The Times, about the presidential election and “identity politics,” which, he argued, had hurt the Democratic Party. He maintained that too intense a focus on each minority group’s discrete persecution comes at the expense of a larger, unifying vision.
Many people disagreed. Good. But what too many took issue with was, well, his identity. “White men: stop telling me about my experiences!” someone later scrawled on a poster that was put up to advertise a talk, “Identity Is Not Politics,” that he gave at Wellesley College.”
“But I wasn’t talking about their experience or my experience,” Lilla pointed out when I spoke with him recently. “I was talking about an issue.”
Gee, I wonder why they got mad at Mark? He was just “talking about an issue.”
Well, allow me to answer that. People got upset at Mark Lilla because his column was a tone-deaf piece of garbage. Specifically, Lilla’s piece focused on champions of diversity as the enemy, rather than racism. His ‘why-ya-gotta-be-talking-about racism/sexism all the time’ thesis is morally offensive—itself centered in privilege—and a peak exemplar of why he elicited such a strong reaction, particularly from non-white males. He also ignores that all politics are identity politics; it’s just that the identity we have been focusing on for so long is that of the white male. Other voices and other perspectives are important to make sure that everyone’s rights are considered and protected.
It’s no wonder that folks reacted so negatively and strongly to Mark Lilla’s essay. And that strong reaction doesn’t prove that the problem is the one Bruni wasted my time writing about; rather, the problem is Bruni. As Damon Young put it in his rebuttal piece: “Diversity isn’t why the liberals lost. It’s because of bubble-wrapped White men like Mark Lilla.”
Indeed, the New York Times own book review of the book that Lilla wrote based on his column, concluded that it was ‘trolling disguised as erudition’:
“As it turns out, Lilla himself could have used more rather than less introspection, a healthy dose of examining his own contradictions and biases. He laments that ‘American liberals have a reputation, as the saying goes, of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’ If so, he has proved his bona fides as a member of the tribe. ‘The Once and Future Liberal’ is a missed opportunity of the highest order, trolling disguised as erudition.”
Bruni laments that the movement he criticizes “has no bridges,” but it’s up to him to help build them.
Again citing Lilla, Bruni next blames “identity politics” and the exhortation of “checking your privilege” for creating a dynamic with separation and no hope for connection, essentially saying that these are divisive, rather than unifying.
“That kind of thinking fosters estrangement instead of connection. Lilla noted that what people in a given victim group sometimes seem to be saying is:
‘You must understand my experience, and you can’t understand my experience.’
‘They argue both, so people shrug their shoulders and walk away,’ he said.”
To blame those seeking equal rights and treatment for black people or women for creating divisions and destroying bridges is intellectually lazy and untrue.
It reminds me of people who dare to say that Barrack Obama was “a great divider” and racist because he was black and spoke out about racism.
It also reminds me of notions of “white fragility” and a discomfort that leads to victim blaming, rather than open dialogue and active support on topics that are uncomfortable to talk about and learn about.
Don’t be a Frank. Be an Ally. That involves learning and listening.
You may be shocked to hear this, but guess what? There is another choice, rather than walking away!
Listen.
Learn.
Defer.
Support.
Understand why the lived experiences of black people or women make them uniquely suited to be the leading voices in addressing issues that are intimately tied to racism and sexism.
This is not to say that white men have no voice. Just that theirs is not the only voice. And that when addressing issues like racism or sexism, they aren’t the first or primary voices that we should be listening to. Speak and question, but be self-aware, and be prepared to learn about yourself and others.
It’s like that picture of a bunch of rich seventy-year-old white men getting together in a back room to make decisions as to what is good policy for women’s reproductive rights or women’s healthcare.
.
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If you can’t see a problem with that, you’re willfully blind.
We sure as shit aren’t going to end racism without white people, just as we aren’t going to end sexism without men allied to the cause.
But this movement will not be led and is certainly not helped by people like Bruni, smart people who somehow still cannot understand what it means to be an ally, or people like Mark Lilla who deride “identity politics” as the problem rather than racism or sexism. Their perspectives do a great disservice to anyone who wants to genuinely address racism or sexism in our society.
I Don’t Want To Be a Frank. I Want To Help. But How?
If you do want to help, I’ve found that the Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies to be a useful resource. (Another good one is this Checklist for Allies Against Racism)
Some “tips” include: “don’t take it personally,” “listen,” “don’t make assumptions,” “find out about us,” “don’t assume you know what is best for me,” and “don’t take over.” This doesn’t mean white men have no role or no voice. Rather, the guidelines ask allies to “speak up,” “talk to other white people,” and “stand by my side.”
When white men like Frank lament about not having a role or a voice, what it seems like they are saying is that they don’t like having to listen to other voices or that they don’t like to not be leading. They seem to be saying they don’t want a role supporting others with crucial and relevant lived experiences.
There is a large and critically important role for white men in leading on social justice issues like combatting racism and sexism. But if they remain fueled by their own fragility into feeling rejected and sitting on the sidelines, rather than learning how to act as strong active allies, it will not be “The Left” that is burning down the bridges to a better America. It will be the Frank Brunis and Mark Lillas.
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Photo Credit: Author
Love this paragraph:
“This is not to say that white men have no voice. Just that theirs is not the only voice. And that when addressing issues like racism or sexism, they aren’t the first or primary voices that we should be listening to. Speak and question, but be self-aware, and be prepared to learn about yourself and others.”
Michael, read your own CV at the base of this article and ask yourself if the desire to lead and be heard is really so unusual. Are you really so different to the author you are critiquing or have you simply found a more ‘acceptable’ way to lead, a way to be a loud voice thats ok for a middle aged white man? A way of being in front but using better language to describe that fact? Im not being critical of you specifically because I feel (fear?) I do the same myself all the time. Perhaps the problem is… Read more »
Is your horse also white, white knight?
There is so much truth to this. As a white man I have no right to whine about being treated unfairly. But, I can listen, learn and try to help. In fact, I feel obligated.
As a white man, you have every right to complain about unfair treatment if you are, in fact, treated unfairly. Your superficial Intersectionality Traits do not disqualify you from a right to fair treatment.
When is a white man ever treated unfairly?