What is White Culture?
| September 26th, 2009Glenn Beck doesn’t really seem to know, despite saying Barack Obama has a “deep-seated hatred” of it:
(Via Andrew Sullivan)
32 Responses to “What is White Culture?”
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September 26th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
i’m really not at all surprised by his evasion…he often says things and makes claims without having the substance to back it up.
i must admit that i did enjoy watching him squirm.
This comment was written by FilthyGrandeur.Report this comment to the moderators
September 26th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Fanny packs are an important feature.
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
September 26th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
obama hates seinfeld, the boston celtics, california rolls, and andrew sullivan
This comment was written by Manju.Report this comment to the moderators
September 26th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
“I don’t know how to answer that that’s not a trap.”
Bingo. That’s why he can’t answer it. He said something, and now he can’t answer the simplest of questions about it without looking like a bigot.
“But why am I the target?” (or words to that effect; I’m not going to re-play it).
Because you said something public on a public stage, and someone who heard it asked you to define one of your terms. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Jackass.
Grace
This comment was written by Grace Annam.Report this comment to the moderators
September 26th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Fanny packs are an important feature.
In The History of White People in America, Martin Mull visited the White People’s Culinary Institute, which featured the many impressive culinary additions white people have made to the American culture. You know, like macaroni and cheese, mayonnaise, white bread, and processed cheese food.
Because you said something public on a public stage, and someone who heard it asked you to define one of your terms.
How unfair, asking Glenn Beck to answer for words Glenn Beck said.
Incidentally, I hear some black person somewhere said something dumb. I, for one, expect Barack Obama to issue a statement on it immediately.
This comment was written by Jeff Fecke.Report this comment to the moderators
September 26th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
“What to do, what to do?” Clearly the answer is to stall by acting like an asshole.
This comment was written by Doorshut.Report this comment to the moderators
September 26th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
That reminds me:
“I’d like to know what he thinks of OJ Simpson, for example…More importantly, will Obama repudiate the misogynistic undertone in rap music”
–Nina Burleigh
Heh.
This comment was written by Manju.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Did he make himself look far worse just then than he could have with any answer to the actual question? I mean, Pat Buchanan said white people built this country, and he still has a job. Given who his audience is, would he have had a lot to lose?
Also interesting to me, as a reporter, is how incredibly sensitive and delicate these guys are when they’re on the other side of it. See also, Bill O’Reilly on Fresh Air.
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Pat got a bum rap here. When asked why virtually all scotus Judges have been white he replied with a demographic argument—whites were 90% of the population in 1960 and the other 10% (blacks) were discriminated agaisnt. That’s just about right. demographics and discrimination.
This comment was written by Manju.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Manju, I saw the whole clip. It wasn’t a bum rap. I remember from the other thread - you have a soft spot for Pat - but you’re really stretching here.
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Considering that Buchanan recently expressed disappointment that “Old heroes like Columbus, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are replaced by Dr. King and Cesar Chavez,” I don’t think it’s unreasonable to refer to him as racist. He’s the kind of man who would rather honor confederate commanders (who just happen to have taken up arms in defense of slavery) than civil rights leaders (who just happen to be people of color).
Of course it is unsurprising to me that such a man has his defenders.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Oh, what’s the trap Beck? To get you to stop mincing words and just say what you really meant? To get you to be clear about what you really believe?
Quite a trap there, giving you a national stage to express your personal opinions. Unless you are afraid for people to know what you really feel about race.
This comment was written by Havlová.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
And, of course, Beck is playing the game. In fact, he’s following rule #1: “The first rule of white club is you do not talk about white club.”
(h/t Lemons’ Black Male Outsider: Teaching as a Pro-feminist Man)
This comment was written by Jadey.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Oh, good one Jadey. I will be using that in the future!
This comment was written by Havlová.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
[...] After Glenn Beck’s accusation that Obama hates white culture, coupled with his refusal to explain what he means by “white culture”, [...]
This comment was written by If You Are So Proud of Your Racism, Why Do You Get Mad When People Call You A Racist? « The Czech.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Not to excuse Glenn Beck - if you use a term, you ought to be able to define it - but I seem to recall that there’s been quite a debate on here as to what “white culture” means. If Beck wanted to say that the President had a deep-seated hatred of American culture as Beck defines it, then you could have a debate. Or a shouting match, or whatever. But I haven’t seen much success in getting any reasonably diverse group of people to agree on any common elements of what “white culture” means.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Right, Ron, that’s the point. Beck was using it to mean, loosely, ‘whatever is most threatening to the listener,’ but couldn’t come right out and say that, so when asked to define, ran into trouble.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Also, of course, if actual definitions were offered, then Obama’s purported deep-seated hatred for the various elements could be tested and considered empirically individually.
“Okay, so you say NASCAR is part of white culture? Fine. Do you believe the president hates NASCAR? Do you have any evidence to support this?”
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Well, except that people can and do have different opinions of things en masse, right?
If Joe Schmo hates white culture as a whole, that does not require that Joe hates Nascar even if he considers it part of white culture. Just as saying that Joe hates white people doesn’t mean he needs to hate every single white person.
So although it seems ridiculous IMO to say that Obama hates white culture, from a logical perspective it’s hard to disprove.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Then the question could be, “Mr. Beck, when you said President Obama has a deep-seated hatred of white culture, what aspects of white culture do you think President Obama hates?”
Indeed, Beck could have just reconstructed the question he was asked into that, and then answered it. If he could.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Obama hates white culture? Black and white upper middle class midwestern culture are pretty damn similar. There hasn’t been a president/president’s family in the white house in my lifetime who so shared so much of my mom’s family’s (white, upper middle class, widwestern) culture; same taste, same values, even the same accent. I suspect that even the republican members of that side of my family are happy to have someone so culturally familiar in charge. It’s the southerners and upper class people that usually hold the presidency that we have trouble relating to.
and…
NASCAR is working class white culture. I’m guessing that the Obamas aren’t into it, but very few 2-attorney families would be. That’s about class, not race. The Obamas aren’t working class, but at least they’re familiar with blackberries, grocery store scanners and debit cards; they’re not so wealthy that they weren’t living like regular (successful) people before he ran for president.
Is “white culture” anti-intellectual; all about beer, NASCAR, and religious fundamentalism? If so, then we’ll be lucky if educated and thoughtful POC step in and take over the government.
This comment was written by Dee.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Sure, there can be exceptions, but I think you’d have a hard row to hoe if you were arguing that someone liked (for example) every individual thing about France, but nonetheless hated France in its entirety. Generally, there will still be individual parts that the theoretical hater has a problem with.
I mean, sure, “saying that Joe hates white people doesn’t mean he needs to hate every single white person,” is true, but if Joe in fact is fond of every single white person? If there are no examples of white people he dislikes? I think the ‘hates white people’ thesis starts to fall apart at that point.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Sure, I agree.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I can’t thank Myca enough for demonstrating both the proper wording and the proper use of, “a hard row to hoe.” I had long ago given up seeing it written properly on a blog.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Quite right, Myca.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Hell, I can’t stand NASCAR. Does that mean I hate white culture?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Jake Squid:
You know, the funny thing is that as I wrote it I thought to myself, “goddammit, someone is going to think I wrote this wrong and correct me.”
RonF:
I think that according to Beckian logic, that may mean, because of the transitive property, that you’re the president.
So … congrats.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Re: the difficulty of defining white culture/overlap between black and white upper-middle-class, urban culture.
Of course, the first thing I thought of was Stuff White People Like, and I’d bet money that Barack Obama likes far more stuff on SWPL than Glenn Beck does. Who’s the hater now?
This comment was written by chingona.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Maybe someone pointed this out already. I have been skimming the thread and I am sure I missed something (and I hope I’m not getting too academic about this), but it seems to me that there is a conflation of race and ethnicity going on here. White and Black are racial, as opposed to cultural, categories, and I think that not making that distinction forces us to adopt Beck’s rhetoric, implicitly agreeing that there is a white culture one can hate, even if it is damned difficult to define. In other words, Beck’s saying that Obama hates white culture (which is not really possible since there are so many different kinds of white people with so many different kinds of cultures) is code for Obama hates white people (which is possible), and when we talk about white culture as if there were such a thing, even to critique Beck, we implicitly support his framing of things, even though we don’t agree with that framing.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2009 at 6:55 am
RJN,
Given that Beck had already said that Obama hated white people, I don’t think “white culture” needed to be a stand-in for “white people” so much as Beck realized that claiming Obama hated his own mother and grandparents might have been dumb, so he tried to back away from that while still clinging to the underlying idea of SCARYBLACKMAN-HELTERSKELTER-RACEWAR!
So far as I can tell, inasmuch as an actual idea underlies Beck’s statement, it seems to be wholly based on Obama’s quasi-excusing his white grandmother’s negative reaction to black male strangers as being typical for someone of her background.
This comment was written by PG.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2009 at 9:37 am
oh yeah, the unfortunate “typical white person” line, that explains it. the right takes the goose/gander approach to racism: “if a white person had said typical black he ‘d banished, blah blah blah” or at least howls of protest would ensue like when ross Perot said “you people” that one time. but no howls of protest for obama since the left of course contextualizes everything within power relations (though this of course becomes problematic when the black individual of which we speak is the leader of the free world) so beck does the howling for them but they’re essentially crocodile howls, since when the left does howl he bemoans the howling.
impossible position to hold consistently and a few conservatives have come out to warn the movement about going down this path of hypersensitivity of which they normally decry…like after the pelosi incident when she trotted out the naacp to debunk a black conservative testifying and he then interestingly cried racism. some on the left actually defended him (classic pit black against black racism) and the right jumped into expose pelosi but then some on the right balked because this brand of racsim via code has long infuriated them.
obama has turned the world upside down. we’re definitely at some turning point here. what were turning into, i’m not exactly sure. but my guess is its going to be good.
This comment was written by Manju.Report this comment to the moderators
September 30th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Wow. I would almost feel bad for him about floundering so badly, if he didn’t act so damn smug about it. It’s like he just let off a rancid fart, but is pretending it smells like roses.
This comment was written by Robin.Report this comment to the moderators