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The Wide Reach of the Blame-and-Shame Industry… or, How to Stop Waiting for Deus-ex-Machina Solutions to Unfairness and Inequality, Part 2

December 5, 2018 No Comments

Wednesday, December 5th

Delray Beach, FL.- Aiden, a reader from South Africa, wrote recently, taking me to task for the essay I wrote about the very hot (in certain circles) topic of white male privilege. https://www.markford.net/white-male-privilege-where-do-you-stand-on-the-social-justice-scale#more-4272

(Aiden – thanks for the letter.)

The idea is not complicated: Historically, white men have benefited from being at the top of the pecking order in most modern societies. Some activists argue that this advantage became institutionalized in the economic, political, and cultural experience of people as paternalistic hierarchies — and that this is responsible for most of what is bad in the world. In particular, the grossly unequal distribution of wealth and power that hampers (if not actually prohibits) the advancement of all women and every other ethnic and racial group.

Their argument is, in other words, a philosophy of blaming.

Aiden’s letter was, in part, a reiteration of their stance that since white males are to blame, the solution is to knock them out of their privileged positions and replace them with women and people of color. Once that is done, the equality of not just opportunities but outcomes will be possible.

In South Africa, he says, “white male privilege is real.” And 24 years after apartheid was abolished, it is still “glaringly obvious” in every corner of the country, from “the boardrooms of large corporate companies to the dusty streets of the townships.”

“As a colored man from South Africa,” he says, “I live in a world that is unfair, unequal, and scaled on gender-race privilege.”

He challenged me: “Now ask yourself, how is a black child who is undernourished, uneducated, and displaced supposed to raise themselves out of poverty and into a world where they have more than enough?”

Here is my answer:

From My Work-in-Progress Basket

The Wide Reach of the Blame-and-Shame Industry… or, How to Stop Waiting for Deus-ex-Machina Solutions to Unfairness and Inequality, Part 1

December 3, 2018 No Comments

Monday, December 3, 2018

Delray Beach,FL.- One of the first things a copywriter learns about selling diet products is that it is very important to say, at some early point in the sales message, “It’s not your fault.”

This does several good things.

It makes the targeted customer feel good to have the burden of responsibility lifted from his shoulders.
It relieves, to some degree, the shame of being overweight. (“If it’s not my fault, why should I be ashamed?”)
It creates a sympathetic bond between the person delivering the message and the targeted customer.

Now if you know anything about obesity, you know that there is sometimes some truth to the not-your-fault statement. Some causes of obesity are genetic. Not all. But some. And it is perfectly fair to assert that one of the reasons Americans are so fat is because they’ve been given incorrect information about healthy eating since they were children. The widely held (and then dispelled) idea, for example, that eggs are both fattening and also a danger to heart health. So you can imagine that the copywriter with a conscience might want to mention facts like these in his copy to support the much broader claim that obesity is not the fat person’s fault.

Bad eating habits are, of course, the primary cause of obesity. But the intelligent copywriter knows he’s not going to sell any diet pills by pointing that out.

We do the same thing when we are selling wealth-building products. Recognizing that our targeted customer feels angry and/or ashamed because of his lack of financial success, we can offer him some immediate relief by telling him that it is not his fault – even though some part of it probably is.

How I Learned to Avoid Shame by Blaming Myself

Many years ago, when I first began to study advertising, the gurus at the time pretty much agreed that the most effective ads were those that appealed to the prospective customer’s emotions – in particular, to his greed or fear. I launched an argument then that continues today: those hidden emotions, like shame, are much stronger. And that indirectly addressing those emotions is a much better way to gain and keep customers.

From My Work-in-Progress Basket

White Male Privilege: Where Do You Stand on the Social Justice Scale?

November 1, 2018 No Comments

Thursday, November 1, 2018

New York City.- “That’s because you are a privileged white male,” she said.

She was explaining why my perspective on… I don’t remember what… was wrong. Not just wrong, but invalid.

White Male Privilege. A catchy phrase, to be sure. But what, exactly, does it mean? The more I thought about it, the less logical it seemed. So I looked it up.

Most of the sources define it as “institutional” or “social” advantages available to white men that are not available to women and people of color. Like Jim Crow laws in the South… apartheid policies in South Africa… and some Muslim and Jewish religious traditions.

But in contemporary Western societies? In the USA today?

I could find no laws, regulations, or policies that favor white men. I could find plenty that gives preference to women and/or minorities. But none for white men.

But this belief in white male privilege isn’t going to go away. There’s a lot of emotional force behind it. I’m guessing it has something to do with two ideas, incubated for decades in academia, that are now spreading like wildfire:

Entitlement– As a living being, I am entitled to everything the world has to offer. I don’t have to earn it. If others have it, I should have it too.
Dependency– I am not responsible for my own wellbeing. Someone or something has that responsibility.

If you buy into these ideas, it makes perfect sense to say that if there are inequalities in the world they are inherently wrong and necessarily the fault (and the responsibility) of whatever group or person is at the top.

This, of course, is not just idiotic. It’s dangerously destructive. We all know this in our bones, even if some of us don’t know it in our heads.

My friends that believe in white male privilege wouldn’t allow their adult children to act on the basis of such beliefs. They tell them, “Hey, the world isn’t fair. And although I might not have been the perfect parent in your estimation, it’s up to you to solve your own problems.”

This sort of hypocrisy is lost to proponents of white male privilege. And you can forget about pointing out the irony that, by definition, the phrase “white male privilege” is both sexist and racist.

But perhaps this will work. It’s a very simple test. And it is not in itself a refutation of the concept of white male privilege. Quite the contrary, it begins with the assumption that there is such a thing.

And it is very simple. Just two steps. Here they are:

Step One. Put white men at the top of the privilege scale.

Step Two. Fill in the rest.

(Note: For simplicity sake, we are going to take the very white male perspective that there are two genders and four racial groups. Feel free to make your list longer.)

For my first attempt, I’m going to assume that gender trumps race, but that race still counts. With that as a guiding principle, the privilege scale might look like this:

* White Men

* Asian Men

* Hispanic Men

* Black Men

* Asian Women

* White Women

* Hispanic Women

* Black Women

But hold on. That would indicate that all white women are less privileged than all black men. With even a very successful white businesswomen being less privileged than an unemployed black man.

Hmmm. That doesn’t work.

Let’s try giving priority to race, with white at the top and then Asian and Hispanic and black. Like this:

* White Men

* White Women

* Asian Men

* Asian Women

* Hispanic Men

* Hispanic Women

* Black Women

* Black Men

But that puts white women nearly at the top of the scale. We can’t have that! It would mean that they can no longer be considered to be oppressed. They would be the oppressors.

I’m sure there is a way to do this that would work. It wouldn’t be the same for everyone – but you could do it your way, and I could do it my way, and Uncle Ted could do it his way. But what good would it do the social justice movement if everyone had their own idea of privilege?

It would be tantamount to suggesting that, yes, we live in a world that is unfair and also unequal and that we can’t agree on a scale of gender-race privilege. And if that is true, what then? We’d have to get to work on improving our individual situations. On getting more of everything we want by working against the obstacles, whether they are racism or misogyny or our personal limitations. Limitations like each individual’s health and intelligence and ability to acquire financially valuable skills and willingness to work as hard as it takes to be a success.

But then we would have to give up the happy notion that we can do it by blaming white men.