Friday, April 19, 2019

White Guilt


In the previous post I recounted the tale of a young woman who had been beaten down by therapy. But, she was also, I suspect, beaten down by the American university system. It has turned her into a bundle of white guilt… and she is not just guilty about being white.

Soon thereafter I ran across this satirical piece by one Jarvis Dupont. To be fair I do not think it the most successful piece of satire I have ever read, but still, it’s somewhat amusing to read about Dupont’s description of how he awakened to his white guilt:

I remember that first wave of White Guilt washing over me. It was like an epiphany. I bathed in it, swam in it. Immersed my disgustingly pallid complexion in it until I was spent. Looking back, I’m not ashamed to admit it was an almost erotic experience. From then on, I was transformed. I found myself telling people to ‘educate themselves’, and would begin conversations with ‘FYI’, or ‘Dear fellow white people…’. I was using the word ‘problematic’ at least three hundred times a day, and it was wonderfully cathartic. The first time I called Father a ‘bitch-ass white cracker skank’ was an incredibly liberating experience.

And also:

I’ve taken surprisingly well to my self-inflicted destitution and university life has proven to be ideal for my new found woke lifestyle. Many of my student chums are also aware of their White Guilt, and we regularly meet up to admonish those who do not acknowledge theirs. Only last weekend we berated a white homeless man sitting outside Taco Bell for his appalling lack of self-awareness regarding not only his own privilege, but his flagrant disrespect towards cultural appropriation. Eventually he became so violently agitated the police came along and forcibly removed him and his filthy blanket from the pavement. Of course, if he were black the police would have shot him dead, so I hope he realized just how privileged he is.

1 comment:

Sam L. said...

I identify myself as plaid.