Guardian UK: Shrinking white men

Shrinking white men
A belief that white men are the rightful inheritors of America lies at the root of the anger against Obama's presidency

Megan Carpentier
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 September 2009


White men are a minority in the United States. The difficulty is that they've been a minority here for more than 200 years, and it's taken the election of an African-American to the presidency for them to even start to notice. And it turns out that many of them don't like it so much.

Demographically speaking – barring one-child policies, sex-selective abortion and widespread female infanticide – women have always made up slightly more than half of the population of any given country. In a country like the US where, from the moment the first Europeans set foot on the continent, there have always been people of colour, white men were always in the minority.

And yet, due to social structures privileging men over women and those of European ancestry over people of colour, the "default" in America has remained white and male to this day – especially in politics. Men outnumber women in every legislature, state and federal (with the single exception of the New Hampshire state senate), in the judiciary and among appointees in every executive branch. People of colour comprise 25% of the population of the US, but make up 4% of the Senate, about 14% of the House of Representatives and 6% of state governors. Even in political punditry and among those who serve up the news, women and people of colour provide the "minority" perspectives on an issue while white men stand in for the default position of Americans. White men are the default "majority" and women and people of color are "minorities" despite dwarfing white men in terms of population – but not in terms of visibility in politics, media or daily life.

But today, a person of colour leads the most powerful country in the world, and somehow, for some people, this represents something less than the America they were brought up to expect – possibly because there are places in this country where you can still grow up and rarely, if ever, see a person of colour, let alone interact with someone of a different race or be somehow subordinate to a person of colour. Racial segregation – whether self-selected or not – pervades neighbourhoods, school halls and office hierarchies throughout America, and it allows people of the dominating race and religion to continue to believe that white (and male-dominated and Christian) America is "the Real America". ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/18/race-colour-barack-obama

said of Britain, save the whole person of color leading the country thing.

nt

Usually, the writers are British, and they are all too happy to berate US racism while conveniently dancing around UK racism and former colonialism. Not much is said about British oppression of South Asians, about the BNP, about slave ships leaving the dock at Liverpool, about Benny Hill in blackface, about how the Falkland Islands are supposed to be las Islas Malvinas.

Not all, but many, Europeans seem to posess a seriously hypocritical streak at times- or at least, a very blinkered and self-serving understanding of world history.

..... Just because it appears in the Guardian, it's not any less true. ...... European hypocrisy on race is another issue for another article, n'est-ce pas?

there is a white male political perspective in this country, you denigrate Britain. The British do have a queen. Elizabeth has been queen since WWII. I didn't like her but Britain did have a woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Prior to Queen Elizabeth, the British had several other queens, back when queens had more power than Elizabeth II has today. Remember Queen Elizabeth I? Women have been mostly ignored in political America.