Pax Dickinson tweeted a link to a link from National Review Online in which ol’ Hugs Schwyzer is given a platform to spout his argument that white male privilege is responsible for white men engaging in mass shootings (nevermind Cho, Jiverly Wong, Colin Ferguson, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo, Omar Thornton, Hasan, etc.)
As I pointed out in the aftermath of the Aurora shooting, Schwyzer’s characterization of these acts being the result of “white male privilege” ignores that fact that none of the white men who committed these crimes seem to have been the beneficiaries of privilege:
I don’t believe that schizophrenics and psychopaths like James Holmes, Jared Loughner, Charles Whitman, or George Sodini were privileged in any sense of the word. Anders Breivik was supposedly well off, but he also had a sordid childhood which we can assume incubated his insanity. Schwyzer takes what does seem to be true – that if anyone is going to be the most well off in this society it would most likely be a white person and perhaps a male – and assumes that this splashes on every other white male like holy water. This is a very bulky understanding of privilege and pieces like Schwyzer’s show that the concept is in need of more rigorous thought. It doesn’t even pass the sniff test to say that there is one quality from which all members of a race uniformly benefit from. Some white men may benefit from their particular demographic (politicians or business executives) while some others may actually suffer from it (those pushed out by affirmative action).
If the topic is going to be discussed, the word “privilege” is the wrong word to use. Or the concept must be fleshed out by someone who does not have a feminist or liberal agenda.
The face of white privilege
Was Adam Lanza privileged? Not in any of the ways that matter. He lived in a very nice house and his father seems to have been a wealthy executive with General Electric. But we’ve been taught the very important lesson that “money isn’t everything”. Lanza was disprivileged. He lived only with his mother – a woman who seemed a bit off-kilter. He reportedly hadn’t seen his father or brother in two years. That is either a function of the mother or a distant and cold father and brother. He had mental problems or was raised in such a way that he was isolated from his peers and the rest of society. If he was mentally ill, being that way erases any of the privilege that may have been waiting for him.
It is hard to look at any of the mass murderers on down from Charles Whitman in 1966 as having been the products of privilege. Privilege may have been in their vicinity, but it seems to have missed them.
Blogger nydwracu touches on the same topic but addresses the trope that virulent masculinity was responsible for Adam Lanza’s shooting and those of many other young men:
What, for example, are we to make of American masculinity? Are we to assume, contrary to all evidence, that Adam Lanza was a paragon of it, a modern-day Al Jolson, flaunting his rippling masses of Twilight flesh in the cafeteria and making all the girls swoon, and this is what led him to kill his mother and twenty random children? Valenti’s rat-king “we” certainly ought to talk about it, but a relevant and reasonable discussion would more resemble that of Roissy than anything regurgitated from the reeking latrines of the internet liberal-feminist set. Valenti wants to relate Lanza to American masculinity—but how is he to be so related? Was he a Trayvon Martin, an average male member of an American community, acting on his masculinity in the events that propelled him to the status of a national story? Of course not! The relation of our Lanzas, our Harrises and Klebolds, to American masculinity is one of absence: they lie asocial and sexless at the bottom of the masculine hierarchy, unable or unwilling to learn and accept the rules of the game and too unlucky to win without playing. Where then is the value of Valenti’s implication that the blame should be placed on the game?
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Yeah, such arguments are pretty ridiculous; to the extent the stereotype of mass killers being white is true, it’s merely a logical manifestation of the white-vs-black class disparity: whites, relatively better enough in the aggregate materially are more likely to be disturbed along ‘missionary’ or ideological lines, with petty gain a secondary or non-existent factor.
But my people, lacking in the aggregate among those lower-pyramid cornerstones, have much fewer qualms about combining their homicidal rages with predatory concerns and gains.
Yep, we’re much more practical in our felonious actings-out!!!
Yep, we’re much more practical in our felonious actings-out!!!
Not to mention far more prolific.
Who? Whom? What fake sociological topic can we shoehorn into a tragedy to try to sway the public towards our goals? This is also a moment where the 24-7 instant analyssi of the net and cable news hurts to idea of discussing an event that might offer a deeper view into the soul of the nation. How different do a lot of people feel about this now with a couple weeks in the rearview mirror compared to that first weekend? The Faceborg zombies have changed a bit as more now seem to realize Lanza was ‘off’ and influenced by an odd mom.
Only white men cummit atrocities like this
The world will be beter off when white “men” are extinct
White women know this, which is why they crave Cock of Color
Anti-Racist. We think you helped bring extinction of white at that school. Did you Sir?
Blacks commit crimes due to being underprivileged.
Whites commit crime because of privilege.
The solution to both is to reduce white privilege and increase black privilege.
Anti-Racist:
‘Only white men commit atrocities like this.’
Visit Rwanda for a second opinion.
‘The world will be better off when white men are extinct.’
As proof of that, look how much it’s improved since our numbers have been declining—NOT.
‘White women know this, which is why they crave Cock of Color.’
White women don’t know anything—except how to chase thugs. Which is really why they crave ‘cock of color’ (provided that colored cock comes with a lengthy criminal record, mental instability, and a history of violence. Yes, decent black guys are invisible too white women too).
Eric: Yes, decent black guys are invisible too white women too).
Yep. Witness the charming harmless black guy trope you’ve seen on chick TV sitcoms and chick movies since forever. To be seductive, a guy needs to at least front being dangerous somehow.
Except that this is not true. Whites are at worst proportionally represented among mass killers. That’s only assuming that you hold them to the standards of present demographics when looking into the past. The reality is that like all types of crimes whites are underrepresented.
I think your assessment that Hugo Schwyzer has done some pretty bad things, and deals with it by trying to collectivize his personal pathology as some particular evil of white men, is accurate. I suppose it fits a little bit into the liberal self-annihilation/self-abasement trope.
The generalized “white” and “male” “privilege” theoretical edifice, though, is just critical theory being applied to its usual use as a wrecking ball. Schwyzer just latches onto it as a form of absolution.
ivve:
thanks for clicking through to read that post. i felt i have him nailed dead to rights on that.
Indeed. You need to look at all those sub-Saharan African mass killers and those in SE Asia, Mao, Stalin (although perhaps he counts as white.)
Not to mention all the mass killings by blacks that the MSM simply does not report.
Maybe all the terrible things the Hugo Schwyzer and Noel Ignatiev’s of the world say about whites has an affect. But of course their dehumanizing comments are completely justified.
I think that for something to be considered a privilege in the sence of critical theory, it must be: 1. Unearned and 2. A definite advantage that the vast majority of people woul;d either want or, at the very least, not object to having.
For example, I have super healthy, perfectly functioning eyes that see farther and more clearly than 20/20, and the family members whose eyes look identical to mine, generally, don’t need any type of glasses until way into their 60s. It’s a train/condition that I have by pure luck, and I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to have eyes as healthy and powerful as mine. It’s a clear advantage.
Another example would be an above average athletic ability. I don’t have it, and, frankly, I don’t care much for sports. But if someone could wave a magic wand and grant me this trait, I surely wouldn’t turn it down. There is no disadvantage to being athletically gifted, no matter how you spin it.
Extremely attractive appearance (having enough of the objectively attractive traits like symmetry, correct proportion and clear skin to be able to earn a living off of them), perfect mental health, being born into a stable, loving home, above average IQ, unearned wealth and perfect pitch are all examples of privilege. Obviously, most people are both privileged and underprivileged at the same time, and in many ways. Some people clearly luck out in any of the observable areas that we consider most important, and some just as clearly seem to have the worst luck in everything, but the vast majority of people aren’t such clear cut cases, and its extremey presumptious for anyone to proclaim whether any given person is more or less privileged than average. The shooter WAS privileged when it comesto hisfamily’s finances, but it’s clear from the limitted description that we have of him that Adam Lanza had less than the average amount of privelege overall. The litmust test is; would most people prefer to be average in every conceivable way or to be Adam Lanza?
And the idea of white maleness as privilege is also obviously ridicuous. Most people who aren’t white men wouldnt want to be magically turned into white men. It’s not because being white or male is inherently distasteful, but because isn’t being one is not overall a negative thing. Depending on the situation and context, society both rewards and punishes all races, genders,ethnicities, ect, in some way, and each of us gets used to being in our own skin. If I were a black man as opposed to the white woman that I am, its not clear that I’d be markedly better or worse off based on this difference alone, so I’drather stick with the problems and advantages that I’m already used to. However, if I could get longer legs, above average musical ability or photographic memory, I’d trade my short legs, average musical ability andlack of photographic memory in a heartbeat. I’d become privileged for having these traits becausethey’dgive me immediate,identifiable advantages and no clear disadvantages. That’s not the case when it comes to hypothetical changes between races and genders.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/purged-from-the-good-men-project/
During the shooting spree, she killed two people and injured nine others at Cleveland Elementary School, which was located across the street from her home. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her full explanation for her actions was “I don’t like Mondays; this livens up the day.”[1] The explanation inspired the song “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Irish New Wave band The Boomtown Rats, which was a number-one single in the United Kingdom for four weeks in mid-1979.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer
she looks half-feminine too, valenti or marcotte like.
“The relation of our Lanzas, our Harrises and Klebolds, to American masculinity is one of absence:”
and thus it’s because they were not good enough to live upto the standards of masculinity.
And when they do, it’s because they are living upto the standards of masculinity.
it’s amusing watching valenti and the amerikan fem-left try to scrape the blood of those kindergartners off their hands
but the day will come when everyone will see exactly the chain of provocations, and exactly who benefitted from all the suffering
“The relation of our Lanzas, our Harrises and Klebolds, to American masculinity is one of absence: they lie asocial and sexless at the bottom of the masculine hierarchy,”
exactly
the truth is the OPPOSITE of the ideological lies of Valenti and the Vaginarchy, who MUST attach an oppressor-privilege to lanza that NEVER existed — except in their fevered little groupthink imaginations
the true privileged are Valentic and Co, — theyre the Entitled Group afraid to lose their UNEARNED and COERCED PRIVILEGES
they know exactly who is setting these boys and men off, whatta surprise, turns out it’s those who are persecuting them
not only must they endure bottomsucker position in the masculine hierarchy, they must do it in a nation that hates masculinity, and makes no secret of it either
the lanzas are reviled, disenfranchised, and preyed-upon by Valenti and the US matriarchate, who then rub salt into death by assigning motivation to “loss of White Male Privilege”
Valienti and Co STEALS their inheritances every day, rubs their faces in their impotence before the gynocracy, then plays Little Miss Innocent when the blood starts flowing
Well said ray.
We know where the blame lies,and it’s at the feet of those ideologues pointing the finger.
Heck,they are so complicit they almost HAVE to go on the attack as the best defense.
I imagine they dislike the innocent question:
“Where was the father in all this.”
Yes, WHERE WAS the dad,out on his ass from a no fault divorce from an Entitled American Princess.
Really, was WAS mom doing with that 200 grand/month?
It sure as hell as NOT looking after her son, a high school dropout.
What kind of neglect is that.
Entitled mom must have wanted more Shiney,Shiney Shoes.
Unable to see past her own cunt,just like Hugo.
I’m talking about just in the USA, not globally. Just in the USA white males are not disproportionately mass killers or mass shooters or serial killers.
Really? The blood is on feminists’ hands? Or liberals’? Are these deaths aresult of birth control pills/no fault divorce/women’s suffrage? Come the heck on. That sounds just as masterbatory as explanations suggesting male privilege and patriarchy as culprits.
Horrific things happen. They happen pretty rarely, thank God, but they do. All these people- Holmes, Lanza,ect.- were psychotic. Those of themwho gave liberaism, feminism or something similar as reasons weren’t driven crazy by these circumstances. They latched on and obsessed over these things to such an extent because they were already unwell. We’ve had violent libearal psychos too. The trigger doesn’t matter.
They are usually men because stabbing,hacking and shooting are preferred by men. Psycho women favor poisonning, drowning or putting a pillow over one’s face. It’s hard to put a pillow over20 faces at once, so psychotic men get to make the news more often with their mass shootings. Mass poisoning can be accomplished,but the psycho doesn’t get to see the results first hand, so these happen less often. Women sign up as foster mothers just so they could torture kids no less oftenthan men shoot up a schoo/theater/mall. Not because these women are oppressed by the patriarchy or let down byfeminism,but because they are sick in the head. Senseless acts of gruesome violence, both the masculine and the feminine types, have happened throughout history, in all kinds of social and political environments.
You guys remind me of my aunt when she got divorced. Everything had direct relevance to her divorce. Global warming, global cooling, my “C” on a calculus test and our neighbor’s dog needing to be dewormed all could have been explained by her ex being a monster. Many of the people around the conservative blogs are that way about women. You give feminism way too much credit. And the woman in this case sounds pretty sick in the head too, driven by paranoia rather than ideology and politics. What did she do with all that alimony? Maybe she used it to buid a device that would allow her to understand birds. Who knows? She was f-ed up.
“Many of the people around the conservative blogs are that way about women. You give feminism way too much credit.”
Touche, bay-bay!
Maya:
It’s been liberal/feminist academics who’ve been preaching for decades that Civilization sucks and is nothing more than an artificial construct of a supposedly oppressive patriarchy. Every aspect of Civilization is false, they tell us, because everything is morally relative.
Don’t be surprised when Civilization starts breaking down and things like this happen. The opposite of Civilization is Barbarism.
Ray & Freebird:
Right after the shooting, I heard a bunch of female hypocrites in Newtown crying hysterically over the deaths and wailing: ‘They were just babies!’
I wonder how many of them feel the same about abortion? Probably none. Some child-killings are more ‘socially acceptable’ (i.e. when the women choose it) than others!
freebird — “Heck,they are so complicit they almost HAVE to go on the attack as the best defense.”
spot on
attack is ALWAYS the tactic of women when theyre guilty
i note that anytime theres the slightest hint in congress that the trazillion dollar fempork industry might not be particularly helpful to the nation, out rushes the ssisterhood, instantly congealed, skreechin about some War on Women that never existed
the result’s always the same from the Chastised Manthings: silence, then back to business as usual
in order to deflect exposure of Der Matriarchy’s massive complicity in creating kleibolds and lanzas, even MORE shame must be heaped on the selected scapegoat
in a sense, all americans are complicit in sandy hook, b/c the matriarchate essentially conquered the world on our watch
i was around in the Fifties and early Sixties, and guys were NOT shooting up schools and offices every week, theres a resaon for that, b/c the schools and offices and courts etc were not persecuting them
i know i feel a sense of failure and shame, that women and weak males could have over-run the country while i was alive, and i wasnt able to stop it
‘I imagine they dislike the innocent question: “Where was the father in all this.”’
thats the FIRST question that would come to the mind of a sane person or nation
a decent dad at home, none of this happens — but Valenti’s Vaginocracy, even to the President of the United Sluts of America, takes great pride in berating, denigrating, and punishing fatherhood, and masculinity in all aspects
mom is a raving gun nut survivalist wackydoodle, with no adult male present to restrain or even mitigate her obvious psychoses, and her effect on an ultra-sensitive boy (aspergers)
i’ve lived with various types of autistic people, including an aspie boy, and they are LOST without their fathers — or at minimum, a present adult male with AUTHORITY over the family and household (as opposed to our wonderful gynarchy, where Mom is mom AND dad)
an aspie boy in such circumstances, already removed neurologically from social norms via his autism, has NO chance of healthy development, and as the past 50 years have proven, that’s what the u.s. wants — traumatized and alienated boys, who havent the faintest clue how to be men — and how could they, ’cause dad himself is always dodging the matriarchy’s hounds
a kid like adam, a “mother” like that, him growing up in a nation whose loathing for maleness saturates every aspect of culture and experience…. gee, no, i cant understand why he’d be angry or vengeful, how oh how could such a terrible thing happen boo hoo hoo, look at me pretending to cry, photos of weeping women in the media for days
b/c theyre the VICTIMS of all this, see?
further legislative and police-state reactionism from La Womans Nation will only worsen the resentment of millions of similar boys, betrayed by their country, and by their own mothers and sisters
Anti-Italianism
Wikipedio: Lanza is the surname of the following persons:
Beatrice Lanza – Italian athlete
Damián Lanza – Ecuadorian footballer
Francesco “Frank” Lanza – first crime boss of the Lanza crime family
Giovanni Lanza – Italian politician
Giuseppe Lanza – 17th century Sicilian nobleman
James “Jimmy the Hat” Lanza – Italian-American mobster and boss of the San Francisco crime family
Joseph “Socks” Lanza – New York labor racketeer and member of the Genovese crime family
Laura Lanza, – noblewoman in Sicily
Geography
Lanza is a tributary of the Olona river in Italy
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