Spanking One’s Own Arse
Robert Wargas on letting others know you’re insufficiently black:
Since progressivism is largely a status game, in which people compete for social prestige by repeating a set of approved phrases and opinions to other status-seeking mandarins, it’s not surprising that some will go to sado-masochistic lengths to remain part of the alpha group. By now, the increasingly creepy tendency of using the word ‘white’ as a glib insult has become well established in left-wing commentary… One must continually prove oneself to be part of the correct crowd. Purity, you see, comes from ritual self-abasement, from flogging oneself in columns and blog posts and from swearing through gritted teeth that you love every minute of it.
See, for instance, our thrilling series Agonies of the Left. Or this. And yes, it can get quite heated and competitive. In the process, some will indeed tie themselves in rhetorical and emotional knots. And so we learn that the way to get past small differences in physiology is to continually fixate on small differences in physiology. And those who choose not to do this and aren’t terribly interested in a person’s pigmentation are to be denounced as “neo-racists.” Because “to ignore race is to be more racist than to acknowledge race.” It’s very clever. Guilt in all directions. Why, it almost sounds like a trap.
But as illustrated here some time ago, pretentious guilt must be cultivated if you want to get ahead, at least in certain circles:
One needn’t be a cartoon Tory to marvel at Decca Aitkenhead’s classic Guardian piece, Their Homophobia is Our Fault, in which she insisted that the “precarious, over-exaggerated masculinity” and murderous homophobia of some Jamaican reggae stars are products of the “sodomy of male slaves by their white owners.” And that the “vilification of Jamaican homophobia implies… a failure to accept post-colonial politics.” Thus, sympathetic readers could feel guilty not only for “vilifying” the homicidal sentiments of some Jamaican musicians, but also for the culpability of their own collective ancestors. One wonders how those gripped by this fiendish dilemma could even begin to resolve their twofold feelings of shame. It’s important to understand these are not just lapses in logic or random fits of insincerity; these outpourings are displays – of class and moral elevation. Which is why they persist, despite getting knottier and ever more absurd. Crudely summarised, it goes something like this: “I am better than you because I pretend to feel worse.”
Self-exaltation via ostentatious self-abasement. Even self-emasculation. It’s not for everyone, I know, but it is very often the progressive way.
It would of course be a pity to let all that pretentious guilt go to waste. After all, it can buy you so much leverage over idiots. Why not memorise – then accuse others of using – an ever-growing catalogue of new racial code words? A subject on which Mark Steyn offers to act as guide:
On MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared this week that Republicans use “Chicago” as a racist code word. Not to be outdone, his colleague Lawrence O’Donnell pronounced “golf” a racist code word. When Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell observed that Obama was “working to earn a spot on the PGA tour,” O’Donnell brilliantly perceived that subliminally associating Obama with golf is racist, because the word “golf” is subliminally associated with “Tiger Woods,” and the word “Tiger” is not so subliminally associated with cocktail waitress Jamie Grubbs, nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, lingerie model Jamie Jungers, former porn star Holly Sampson, etc., etc. So by using the word “golf” you’re sending a racist dog-whistle that Obama is a sex addict who reverses over fire hydrants.
If you’re still unclear on this, Michelle Malkin has a list.
And don’t forget this master class in hallucinating racism.
You may find this tumblr site interesting. It would appear not all the young folks are on board with this kind of self-flagellating silliness and posing.
If you can hear the dog whistle, it means you’re a dog.
Wombat-socho,
Thanks for that. Variations of this one are a standard ploy among many Guardian readers and contributors. Hence, “being heard” equals being obeyed, and it “isn’t real violence” when they do it. Claiming to be oppressed, based on bugger all, is apparently an excuse to steal, bully and vandalise, and generally be a tosser to random strangers. It also leads certain idiot academics to claim that riot gear somehow makes a police officer impervious to all harm, like a magic force field, and that therefore any mob’s attempt to injure or kill them is “trivial.”
It’s one of the more malign aspects of progressive psychology – the attempt to make others absurd and dishonest too. And so, for instance, the mob holding this disabled woman captive are supposed to be the victims. They are the ones being “oppressed” and therefore they must be righteous and heroic. By definition, they can do no wrong. It’s “social justice,” see?
Does Greg Dyke still think the BBC is ‘hideously white’?
Is Decca Aitkenhead on crack cocaine?
There is no way that someone who isn’t high can type that shit.
How about a fun game! See how many tenuous connections it takes you to blame a cosy middle-class Guardian reader for something exceedingly unlikely. I’ll start.
COSY MIDDLE-CLASS GUARDIAN READERS ARE GUILTY OF THE BIG BANG
1. Cosy middle-class Guardian readers and the politicians they vote for are implicit in the culture of late capitalism that has devastated the environment.
2. One product of this culture of late capitalism is the Large Hadron Collider.
3. Unbeknownst to Cosy middle-class Guardian readers, the Large Hadron Collider is just about to cause this entire portion of the galaxy to go fall into a black hole, go back in time, and explode in a Big Bang.
4. Cosy middle-class Guardian readers are responsible for the Big Bang.
Sackcloth,
Ms Aitkenhead is quite fond of logical contortion. But again, for her it’s not about being coherent; it’s all about display. She spies some unattended potential blame and quickly slides her rear over it – on our behalf, of course – as if it were an egg. When not denouncing “neocons” (i.e., anyone who disagrees with her in any way on foreign policy) and sneering at proletarian readers of the Sun, our egalitarian overlord busies herself writing books. Like The Promised Land: Travels in Search of the Perfect E – a “travelogue about visiting poverty stricken locales and dropping ecstasy in search of the perfect clubbing experience.” It’s what class warriors do.
And don’t forget this master class in hallucinating racism.
I’m actually speechless. That’s insane.
Sam,
“I’m actually speechless. That’s insane.”
Well, as noted at the time, it isn’t clear to me whether Ms Hatley and her colleagues are delusional or just opportunist and shockingly dishonest. What is insane, though, is the reaction of those around them – the journalists, etc., who don’t challenge the absurdity. Why does no-one even dare to laugh at the obvious deception taking place right in front of them?
Spanking One’s Own Arse
You’re going to get some very strange visits from Google searches.
It’s worth reading or recalling these gems from a couple of world-historic intellectuals, who haven’t a racist, bigoted or anti-white bones in their bodies (honest):
Joseph Harker: Of course all white people are racist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/jul/03/raceintheuk.comment
Priyamvada Gopal: Yes, poor white Britons suffer discrimination. But not racial
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/03/poor-white-britons-discrimination-not-racial
And this is the Steyn line on Decca:
For example, last week the Guardian forced itself to consider the awkward fact that many young black males are “homophobic”. This would be a disadvantage if one were hoping to make a career in the modern Tory party, but, on the other hand, if one’s ambitions incline more to becoming a big-time gangsta rapper, it’s a goldmine. Don’t blame Jamaican men, though.
After all, who made them homophobic? The “vilification of Jamaican homophobia”, says Decca Aitkenhead, is just an attempt to distract from the real culprit: “It’s a failure to recognise 400 years of Jamaican history, starting with the sodomy of male slaves by their white owners as a means of humiliation.
“Slavery laid the foundations of homophobia,” writes Miss Aitkenhead. “For us to vilify Jamaicans for an attitude of which we were the architects is shameful. Jamaicans weren’t the architects of their ideas about homosexuality; we were.”
I should have known. It’s our fault: yours, mine, the great white Queen’s, for all her shameless attempts to climb aboard the diversity bandwagon.
If we hadn’t enslaved these fellows and taken them to the West Indies to be our playthings under the Caribbean moon, they’d have stayed in Africa and grown up as relaxed live-and-let-live types like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who’s accused Tony Blair of a plan to impose homosexuality throughout the Commonwealth; or Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi, who attacked the “gay scourge” sweeping Africa; or Zambia’s Frederick Chiluba, who has said gays do not have “a right to be abnormal”; or Namibia’s Sam Nujoma, who accused African homosexuals of being closet “Europeans” trying to destroy his country through the spread of “gayism”; or Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who proposed the arrest of all homosexuals, though he subsequently moderated his position and called for a return to the good old days when “these few individuals were either ignored or speared and killed by their parents”.
But no doubt Decca Aitkenhead would respond that African homophobia is also the malign legacy of British colonialism. Who taught them to spear gays, eh?
By refusing to enslave them and take them to our Caribbean plantations and sodomise them every night, we left them with feelings of rejection and humiliation that laid the foundations of their homophobic architecture. The point to remember is, as the Guardian headline writer put it, cutting to the chase, “Their homophobia is our fault”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3614135/Britain-has-been-in-denial-for-too-long.html
Chris Matthews types with such a highly evolved state of racial consciousness that they reflexively hear “watermelon” instead of the word “pensions.”
Still laughing. Hail Steyn.
mlrosty,
“…such a highly evolved state of racial consciousness that they reflexively hear ‘watermelon’ instead of the word ‘pensions’.”
Yes, I think Mr Steyn captures the derangement of it:
But the relentless racial fixation has been extraordinary to watch. With a big enough thesaurus and enough imagination, it may be possible to connect just about anything with, well, just about anything. And given the extensive reliance on opportunism and bad faith, it must be quite exhausting to keep track of all these new and outrageous racist connections.
@ David:
“outrageous”
Hmm… “outrageous” sounds to me suspiciously like “rage”, which in turn raises images of the stereotypical angry and violent black man… Look, I’m not blaming you for your deeply-rooted unconscious fears of people of African ancestry, but for you to go around spreading these subliminal messages everywhere is absolutely outrageou– erm, sorry, inappropriate.
A couple of questions about the idea that Carribean blacks’ homophobia is white people’s fault.
Firstly, white people weren’t the first to systematically enslave the blacks of Africa. Islamic nations had been doing it for centuries before any European even knew the New World existed and in fact, still do so today in many parts of North and Western Africa. I don’t know how widespread the rape of male slaves was in the West Indies, but within Muslim nations, it was a common feature. Many attractive boys were captured specifically to serve as the catamites of wealthy perverts, and were castrated to boot.
So question 1: is it the Muslim world’s fault too that they’re homophobic? Did blacks not mind it when Arabs did the exact same thing, only worse and for much longer?
And second: Muslims didn’t confine their slaving to African blacks. Europe was also systematically plundered for slaves, from virtually the beginnings of Islam, right up until the early 19th century.
So question 2: is any failing of European’s behaviour the fault of Muslims? Did centuries of slave raids by Arabs, Moors and Turks leave white people so traumatised that they get a collective pass for any past or present transgressions? Or are white people given far too much credit by Guardian columnists to be afforded any such dodges of personal responsibility?
“Or are white people given far too much credit by Guardian columnists to be afforded any such dodges of personal responsibility?”
What use would they have for engendering and fostering an obsessive-compulsive attitude of original sin all the way out there be when the people they want to manipulate are here in Europe and North America?
To paraphrase a certain escapee of Soviet Communism:
There’s no way to rule innocent men and women. When there aren’t enough evils one invents them. One declares so many things to be sinful that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Just fabricate the kind of sins that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – or teach people to feel guilty for things they never even took part of, things that happened before they were even born. First you make everyone guilty, then you cash in on the guilt.
Squires,
Theodore Dalrymple:
Which may help explain why some young people are being told that “racism is an outgrowth of capitalism,” that “white people invented racism,” and that punctuality, grammar and long-term planning are “white values” and expectations thereof are “cultural racism.” It’s hard to see such prattle as empowering or liberating, or an act of kindness.
[ Added: ]
For example, it’s hard to see how any student will be helped by the race hustler and public money leech Dr Caprice Hollins. Hollins is a speaker on “multicultural issues” and was until recently the Director of Equity, Race and Learning for Seattle’s public schools, where she played the role of Racism Witch Finder. Hollins was paid $86,000 a year to hunt out “institutional racism” before finally, years later, admitting that no such problem could be found. At one point she was reduced to venturing beyond the school gates to “investigate” children’s school holidays, as this, she claimed, would reveal “systemic problems… within the school system.” Needless to say, it didn’t.
Hollins says she wants to “allow students of colour to see themselves reflected in a positive way,” yet she thinks they needn’t learn the grammar and fluency she herself employs – and which many employers will expect of job candidates – because those things are “white values.” Likewise punctuality, personal responsibility and foresight – these too, she says, are suspect and loaded with racial bias. She thinks it’s wrong to treat students the same regardless of their pigmentation because doing so doesn’t “acknowledge racial and ethnic differences” as defined tendentiously by her. We must, she says, see people as “racial beings” and “teach [children] to view the world through a racial lens.”
And so, black students needn’t learn to turn up on time or remember to bring the relevant books to class or finish homework by the given deadline. Nor, it seems, should they be expected to structure their writing – or by extension their thoughts. Instead, she wants teachers to fret about “white privilege” and “the dominant Eurocentric perspective.” How any of this will help black students fulfil their potential and earn a living is not at all obvious. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want them to succeed, possibly because their success would diminish her status and reduce her access to taxpayers’ money.
“How any of this will help black students fulfil their potential and earn a living is not at all obvious. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want them to succeed, possibly because their success would diminish her status and reduce her access to taxpayers’ money.”
True. But I’m sure that a few years down the line, when black children who have been told by her that they don’t need to learn anything do end up failing, she’ll be ready to point to white racism as the reason for this, rather than her own race-hustling. Then she’ll be employed at an even higher salary to investigate the problem of black underachievement. It’s a win-win situation for her.
Tom,
“It’s a win-win situation for her.”
But sadly, not for the kids. Viewed as an exercise in empowerment and liberation, it’s obviously absurd. Unless the way to empower black and Hispanic children is to assume they needn’t master the concepts of planning ahead or turning up on time. Maybe Dr Hollins thinks that not teaching children basic grammar, thereby making them sound like idiots, is a great way to ensure they get jobs and escape poverty.
“Viewed as an exercise in empowerment and liberation…”
Ah, but petitioning the government (at the behest of politicians in the government) to subsidize your existence at the cost of other citizens (assuming you even are a citizen yourself) is the new “empowerment”. Militant dependency is the new sovereignty.
See: Sandra Fluke, and the lauding of the recently enacted “free birth control” aspects of Obamacare. When this went into effect a female acquaintance posted the standard-issue poster graphic listing the “benefits”, and unabashedly waxed poetic over how wonderful it was that she would no longer have to pay $1,200 a year for the hormone treatments she needs to maintain her health.
Discretion being the better part of valor (and perceived self-interest the better part of willful ignorance), I held off on pointing out that she had sold her vote and accepted client-of-the-state status for something she was evidently already able to afford independently. Or that I myself suffered from an far more common, and even more expensive condition that required daily treatment to prevent a gradual physical and mental process of breakdown, eventually ending in organ failure and death… but that I wasn’t demanding anyone else pay for my groceries, nor would I support any political party that attempted to bribe me with such bait.
“But sadly, not for the kids. Viewed as an exercise in empowerment and liberation, it’s obviously absurd. Unless the way to empower black and Hispanic children is to assume they needn’t master the concepts of planning ahead or turning up on time. Maybe Dr Hollins thinks that not teaching children basic grammar, thereby making them sound like idiots, is a great way to ensure they get jobs and escape poverty.”
Come to think of it, the same template was followed by those keenest on a particular version of ‘multiculturalism’ here in Britain. And of course it led to similar problems further down the line for the people they thought they were supporting. I remember when Guardianista types shouted racist at people who merely *suggested* that learning English to a decent standard was the best way for immigrants to get on. Then a few years ago, when it was discovered that, for example, muslims had the worst jobs, the lowest average incomes and the highest unemployment rates, the same people blamed the institutional racism of British society for their problems rather than their own attempts to keep them in their own little monocultural box. (Though I’ve no doubt the Guardian did its best to put this right by employing lots of illiterate and innumerate immigrants as journalists and accountants, as I’m sure it would expect other businesses to employ the illiterate and the innumerate as a way of *fighting* this ‘racism’ and achieving the required quotas.)
Leftist ‘compassion’: financially rewarding and morally uplifting for those who espouse it; absolutely ruinous for those on the receiving end of it.
Tom,
This, by John Ellis, seems relevant:
“Disaffected radicals wanted to swell the ranks of the disaffected, not the ranks of the cheerfully upward mobile.”
Yes, spot-on. It’s always important to remember, when reading an article by the likes of Seamus Milne or Richard Seymour on, say, the state of the British economy, that they don’t actually *want* things to get better. They *want* everything to get much worse, presumably so that their own extremist politics (and therefore their lives) will be validated. And of course so that they can be in charge, telling us how to order society ‘properly’, when the revolution comes.
I feel so guilty I want to belong to the government.
Anna,
“I feel so guilty I want to belong to the government.”
It’s funny in that grim and rather scary kind of way. As is this: Hey, let’s ban profit.
Anyone still confused about what constitutes racism should watch this educational video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbULBAjstBA&feature=player_embedded
It helped me!
I was recently doing a search on Twitter and saw a tweet (that I think must have been from someone at school or university) along the lines of “Fantastic! I’m the only white person in my class!” There was no doubt, anyway, that to this person fewer white people was a Good Thing.
Now obviously that’s a kind of inverse racism – baseless intellectually. But I think that remarks of this kind come directly from the attitudes the children are surrounded by. In other words either from the parents, or more likely the kids (and teachers?) school.
It’s become a fashionable affectation – among some groups in the UK – to speak ill of whites and well of blacks. I found this in a couple of places of work where I felt I had to keep my mouth shut to some extent. There was, unquestionably, a certain social pressure on white males to generally bow their heads with shame and not talk too loud because of their skin colour and gender*.
This gets justified on the grounds of someone’s version of history, and what their great great great great grandparents may have done for a living (but probably didn’t)
It’s ‘equality’ innit 🙂
* you can see an example of this very clearly in the guy who tweets to Laurie Penny in one of the ‘agonies of the left’ pieces linked to above