The Sound of Wringing
Some time ago, the estimable Scott Burgess remarked on the ability of some commentators to detect racism “in homeopathic concentrations.” As if to prove the point, the Guardian’s Zoe Williams, a hand-wringer of note, today detects something sinister in the word “hoodie”:
The term hoodie initially seemed racist to me, a way of saying “a group of young black guys”, without actually calling anyone black, and nobody could point it out, because the first person to say the racist connection would be the first person who made it. It never became necessary to protest over this sleight of hand, however, since the criminal connotation of the look was immediately subverted by that very association – all young people, of all races, of all classes, anyone under 25 who wanted to look a bit downtown, started dressing in this way.
Tom Paine comments on Ms Williams’ convoluted outpourings and outlines a phenomenon noted here once or twice.
We laughed at the obsessives on our university campus who could explain everything in terms of race, class or sexual orientation. University was such an exhilarating experience after the squalid anti-intellectualism of our comprehensive schools that we could not take seriously those who preferred such formulae to thought. Most hilarious of all were leftist students from privileged backgrounds who, on any logical application of their own formulae, were the enemy. They simply decided that holding with greater intensity the views that cast them as such would exonerate them. Indeed, in a classic piece of doublethink, heterosexual whites from wealthy backgrounds seemed to think themselves more virtuous for being leftist witch-hunters of racists and homophobes…
We should not have laughed. While those of us who were there to learn left university to get on with our lives, the class/race/sex retards stayed on as academics or left to go into politics, journalism or both. They would do anything to escape the need to think, it seems. Zoe Williams’ piece today is a case in point. I can honestly say that I had never considered “hoody” a codeword for black youth. Any mental images I had formed when I heard the word had involved the sort of pizza-faced yob who constitutes the main threat when walking the streets of my home town. In her warped view of the universe however, Zoe has scored bonus points for “discovering” concealed racism in public discourse. Sadly, she has more influence in the world than those of us who can see her for the obsessive thought-avoider that she is.
Mr Eugenides notes the same and adds,
Zoe inhabits a particular corner of London media life so insulated from the real world that she has to project all her own experiences onto the rest of us as a substitute for actually knowing what she’s talking about. A glance at any daily front page in the Independent gives you an idea what I mean. Mm, yes. Plastic bags. Something must be done. Food miles. Absolutely. A Chilean glacier retreating? Terrible. Terrible. Shit, we’re out of tapenade.
In a sense it’s classic Guardianista handwringing – Zoe hates herself for the slightly jittery feeling she gets when she sees a group of black youths on a street corner, and if her spider sense can detect lurking racism inside even herself, then it stands to reason that the rest of us, whose liberal credentials are far less impeccable, must be far, far worse, surely?
Bingo.
Tom Paine: “Any mental images I had formed when I heard the word had involved the sort of pizza-faced yob who constitutes the main threat when walking the streets of my home town.”
Exactly. It’s amazing how wrong one person can be – I also think exclusively of white kids when the word ‘hoody’ is mentioned. But maybe that’s because my son is white and wears one. Or because the gang of hoody-clad kids who hang out at our local shops are all white. Hey, but maybe all this makes me a racist though. Damn.
It’s fascinating, watching people trying to see just about everything through their received race-class-gender prism. I’m told some shops have, or have had, a “no hoodies” policy on the basis that they’ve been used to hide a person’s identity – i.e. while shoplifting. I’m guessing Ms Williams thinks that’s actually “sleight-of-hand” for a “no coloureds” policy.
One devout Guardian reader offers this:
“Most of these terms have at the very least classist connotations, as essentially most people see the world in shades of rich and poor… For all who use the term it means ‘people who are not like me’ and is a product of fear and superiority. It’s as bad as ‘chav’. If you don’t like poor people then say, don’t hide behind this ridiculous barrage of euphemisms. Poor is the new gay. Maybe there needs to be a poor pride march. Given the way the world is going I suspect that may soon be a well attended march indeed.”
A debate ensues about the class politics of casual fashion. It’s dizzying stuff.
Thus it has always been with human society: a particular virtue becomes popular, then everyone falls over themselves to master the virtue. Or rather, I should say, to be *perceived* as possessing more of said virtue than one’s neighbor.
I have no doubt that the legendary Victorian matrons who scrupulously covered the legs of their tables were not actually horrified by the tables’ immodesty but rather were eager to show their friends how much *more* chaste they were than the crowd.
Such vain creatures we humans are.
“Thus it has always been with human society: a particular virtue becomes popular, then everyone falls over themselves to master the virtue. Or rather, I should say, to be *perceived* as possessing more of said virtue than one’s neighbor.”
Di, I think the problem with Williams’ piece is, she comes off as a bit too solicitous of the “hoodies” criminal traits.
To me, Williams’ concerned essay reminds me of a length of course marine-lashing: it’s 20 feet of furry hemp-rope reaching to tie the flotsam left bobbing behind another, urbane clothing/crime-trend to “Racism’s” political dock.
Labor’s friends are casting a really wide net this year!
The word “hoodie” conveys to me a kind of crow that lives in the north and west of Scotland.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/h/hoodedcrow/index.asp
Of course it is part black, part grey. . .
If you squint and bear down really, really hard, I’m sure you’ll see just how racist ornithology is.
I don’t like “poor” people. In fact, I can’t stand them. They’re rude, crude, crass, vulgar, ignorant, arrogant, selfish, aggressive, cowardly and lazy. I know this because I grew up in a “poor”, dysfunctional, urban family who displayed all of the above characteristics guaranteed to doom each succeeding genration to failure, misery and poverty. All of our neighbors shared this mentality. It ain’t pretty. And on top of it all, their sense of fashion….
As someone with humble origins in a rough part of town, I can relate. And this, I suppose, is the thing. The typical Guardianista tends to have much more elevated origins and, perhaps because of this, a heightened sensitivity to perceived class issues. In order for well-heeled Guardianistas to follow their “class struggle” formulation – while deflecting attention away from their *own* comfortable place in the social hierarchy – conspicuous sympathy has to be expressed for the lumpen and unwashed. (Cue Polly Toynbee’s overwrought hostility to private education, high salaries, etc. “Privilege must be stopped!” she squeals. After all, privilege, high salaries, second homes and private education have brought nothing but dissonance and embarrassment to dear Polly and her family.)
Typical white people.
More racism detected! http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/tobyharnden/april08/monkeyracist.htm
Egad. I’ll remember never, ever, to use the word “monkey” when children are aping around in trees. I’ve updated my sensitivity files. Thank you.
At my own children’s junior school, calling each “poo” is treated as being racially insensitive.
That particular epithet was and still is extremely common, was never reserved for minority children and was also used by minority children against each other and the white children. The incident apparently occurred in a classroom where the two children were working together. Claims of meanness escalated into name calling. Both used the poo insult before one child told the teacher that X had called her a poo and that it was racist. Since the school had a racism and a bullying policy, the matter was escalated. Both children were told that name calling was wrong (no issue) and that poo could be offensive to black children. In other words the school never challenged the idea that the particular use was racist.
New Racist Word of the Day? “Hoodie”
Yes, a hooded sweatshirt. It’s a racial codeword, ya know. I guess the white racial codeword — to let you know I’m talking about “one of us” — is slacks. This is actually from some bint in the British press,…