The Roots of White Anxiety

[Bob]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/opinion/19douthat.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage .....This breeds paranoia, among elite and non-elites alike. Among the white working class, increasingly the most reliable Republican constituency, alienation from the American meritocracy fuels the kind of racially tinged conspiracy theories that Beck and others have exploited ? that Barack Obama is a foreign-born Marxist hand-picked by a shadowy liberal cabal, that a Wall Street-Washington axis wants to flood the country with third world immigrants, and so forth.

 

[scooterbug44]

I found that rather heavy handed and questioned a couple of the conclusions and assumptions.

I would agree that race does give some an advantage in the admissions process (and the scholarship offers that poured in when my name got misspelled in some database would support that - Papa Scooterbug thought I should have accepted the one from the NAACP and then claimed discrimination if they took it back).

But I don't think you can boil down the entire college admissions process down to race and elitism. Scholarships have to narrow the field somehow - nationality, memberships in clubs etc. are a way to do that.

 

[30ashopper]

Barack Obama's not a foreign-born Marxist hand-picked by a shadowy liberal cabal?

 

[futurebeachbum]

A couple of things that are interesting from the article:

which whites were most disadvantaged by the process: the downscale, the rural and the working-class.

This was particularly pronounced among the private colleges in the study. For minority applicants, the lower a family?s socioeconomic position, the more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualifications.

At one time, those working-class whites were the heart of the Democratic party. They elected Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, etc.... Have they been left behind by their party's values and just don't realize it?

A decade later, the note of white grievance that Buchanan struck that night is part of the conservative melody.
...
It was sounded last year during the backlash against Sonia Sotomayor?s suggestion that a ?wise Latina? jurist might have advantages over a white male judge
...
To liberals, these grievances seem at once noxious and ridiculous.

I'd be interested in the reaction of those same liberals if someone intimated that a wise white, male Supreme Court Nominee of European ethnicity might have the advantage of thinking more like the framers of the Constitution did, since they were wise, white males of European ethnicity. The left's reaction would be immediate, vitriolic and over-the-top to such an occurrence.

Yet, such as statement would be in the same vein as and just as insulting and just as racially prejudiced as Sotomayor's statement. (For some reason, her statement appeared to draw no liberal backlash. )

There's apparently no place for rational thought in our political processes anymore.

 

[idlewind]

Rational thought is boring, uncool and does not sell books and airtime. Plus rational politicians are generally unelectable.

 

[AlphaCrab]

It never fails, white people constantly amuse me these days. Take Mel Gibson, ...no, you take Mel Gibson!

 

[ugabuga]

At one time, those working-class whites were the heart of the Democratic party. They elected Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, etc.... Have they been left behind by their party's values and just don't realize it?

Lyndon Johnson got a majority of the white votes cast; Jimmy Carter didn't.

It's been 30 yrs since a Democratic presidential candidate got a majority of the white votes cast.

I am a white anglo-saxon protestant male. I think the "roots of white anxiety" are the realization that our tribe, which has held power for so long is slowly but surely losing that power to other tribes, or coalitions or other tribes.

If Eleana Kagan is confirmed to the Supreme Court, there will be NO white anglo-saxon potestants on the court, male OR female. There will be 4 Jews & 5 Catholics; no protestants.

I personally am not uncomfortable with this trend or this situation, but, again, I think it is the root of white anxiety.

 

[idlewind]

White have anxiety about lower opportunites for good jobs, higher taxes and out of control government debt. What religion the Supreme Court Justices are or what tribe is in control are not issues. In fact I have never heard either mentioned in discussion and did not even know the court makeup until I read this post. Who says you can't learn anything on sowal.

 

[scooterbug44]

I guess my lack of anxiety is due to me not thinking that anyone of a different ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexuality automatically thinks differently from me and cannot represent me properly.

And any photo of the Supreme court still looks awful white to me - protestant or not.

 

[ugabuga]

I guess my lack of anxiety is due to me not thinking that anyone of a different ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexuality automatically thinks differently from me and cannot represent me properly.

Kumbaya, brother, Kumbaya!