Thursday, April 19, 2007

Decent White Men

My earlier musings led me to browse back to my thesis notes on Derrick Jensen. He uses the expression "decent White men" and arguest that this group of people commit the most horrific destruction on the planet.

This also reminded me of Howard's comments soon after being elected, that the era of PC was over, now people could "reasonably and moderately and decently" talk about subjects that were formerly taboo. In other words, so long as one adopts middle-class manners, it's ok to be mean-spirited, oppressive, prejudiced ... you name it.

And to go a further step in my train of thought, it brings me to Eli Clare's comments about "rednecks", about how middle-class progressives believe that social prejudice is most concentrated amongst the (white) rural, working class. I've read other accounts by working class women who point this out.

To me, this is symptomatic of the desire to locate social problems in others, rather than exploring lines of power, lines of complicity, lines of symmetry.

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