White Pride in Plain Sight

I had been meaning to read this article for a while now. Given the provocative title “The First White President,” I was ready to immediately attack it for being yet another piece about the “forgotten men and women of America” and how the two-party system had abandoned them. I was pleased to see a powerful response against such rhetoric. I see friends and family being taken by a subtle and dangerous brand of white supremacy.  Millennials, minorities, and city-dwellers are called “cucks,” “snowflakes,” “thugs.” I see white people affectionately calling themselves “white trash” and “blue collar” to downplay their own privilege. I am not going to deny anyone’s experiences and struggles, but in this case, there is a malicious political charge to such statements.  Many progressives embrace and call upon their own whiteness as a way of recognizing their own privilege, but this behavior instead claims ethnic whiteness as pride.

            It is difficult to say that people we love participate in white supremacy, but consider some examples. Last year legendary Notre Dame football coach, who spent his career promoting his own Irish immigrant heritage, said that he did not want to celebrate immigrant holidays. He said, “I don’t want to speak your language. I don’t want to celebrate your holidays, I sure as hell don’t wasn’t to cheer for your soccer team.” [2] For the former coach of the FIGHTING IRISH that was an incredibly stupid and offensive thing to say. But it makes sense that he said it. In some historical joke, being Irish is American as apple pie, but being Hispanic is being an invader. This reminds of Coates’ book Between the World and Me (if you haven’t read it, you should. It’s really good) when he charts how whiteness is constructed in different ethnicities in America, with Poles, Irish, and Slavs becoming “people who think they’re white.” This example shows how deeply white supremacy is invading American identity. Coates points out more of these contradictions, such as how minorities are left out of the discussion of ignored working class voters.   He writes, “But the dignity accorded to white labor was situational, dependent on the scorn heaped upon black labor—much as the honor accorded a “virtuous lady” was dependent on the derision directed at a “loose woman.” And like chivalrous gentlemen who claim to honor the lady while raping the “whore,” planters and their apologists could claim to honor white labor while driving the enslaved.” [1]

            It is okay to celebrate where you come from and it is always wrong to dismiss the experiences and hardships of people of any race, but this trend of constructing white ethnicity to deny white privilege and politically oppose every other ethnicity is mainstream white supremacy.

1. Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The First White President”, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/

2. https://www.si.com/college-football/2016/07/19/lou-holtz-immigrants-quotes-comments-rnc

Pledged,

Matthew Coughlon