Tim Wise Profile picture
Oct 2, 2018 21 tweets 5 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
1/ So the right bemoans folks of color 'playing the race card' or claiming to be victims of racism (even when they are), then insists (#TuckerCarlson) that criticism of #BiffKav is little more than 'anti-white' racism & proof we don't want white men to have nice things...
2/ Aside from the blinding hypocrisy (which is typical: right-wingers play victim better than anyone...victims of big gub'mint, and Muslims and gays and humanists and feminists and immigrants, etc), note the simple factual absurdity of the argument...
3/ First off, white men have lots of nice things. Like most of the executive positions in the private sector and a disproportionate share of wealth and the vast majority of tenured faculty gigs and government contracts and Senate gigs...
4/ And white men have half the unemployment rate of black men, even at the same level of educational attainment, and white households headed by these white men, even w/only a high school diploma, have more wealth than black households headed by college grads...
5/ So the notion of white men as victims is absurd. Although there are many white men hurting in this country, they are not hurting because of people of color, or because we've pointed out that BiffKav is a real asshole...
6/ If anything, those white men are hurting because of guys like BiffKav: Rich white dudes who support tax cuts for the wealthiest, who oppose wage hikes for working class folks, who would gut the retirement programs relied upon by working people, or health care programs...
7/ ...or who see no problem with companies crossing borders in search of the highest rate of return on investment, but reserve their love for borders only for labor, whom they don't think should be able to go in search of the highest wage...
8/ If those white men think BiffKav is on their side they are fools. He wouldn't piss on them to put out a fire, and he surely wouldn't waste his precious beer on them to do so (oh and fellas Biff doesn't drink PBR either, so don't think he's just one of the boys)...
9/ As for white victimhood and how the left just doesnt want white men on the court anymore (an argument Bill Sexual Predator O'Reilly also made when Justice Sotomayor was up for confirmation), a few thoughts...
10/ First, no one is saying that. What we are saying is: 1) White men groomed by the Federalist Society and who went to prep school are not necessarily the best candidates, and those who think they are are guilty of crass class (and race) bias...After all...
11/ The mathematical odds that 2 of the 9 justices would both have graduated from Georgetown Prep (Gorsuch and Kav) because of merit (rather than grooming and connections) are so astronomical as to defy logic...
12/ And then 2) We have no problem with white men on the court per se...indeed most of us would have been fine with Merrick Garland, even though he was much more to the center than we leftists are...
13/ It isn't about being white or male. It's about whether a person's whiteness, maleness and class position blinds them to their own privilege, entitlement and the experiences of others unlike themselves...
14/ In #BiffKav's case, it clearly has. He insists he got to Yale bc he "busted his butt," but while he may have been a good student, he also was a legacy there bc of his grandfather....
15/ And having parents who could send him to G'town Prep didn't hurt either in terms of getting into Yale undergrad (which then helped get him to the law school)...his lack of humility and utter sense of deservingness is the problem, and a problem with lots of white men...
16/ bc the society has told us we deserve the best for a very long time, and so sharing power is hard when you're used to hegemonic dominance. Make no mistake though: white men who demonstrate some human empathy are more then welcome...oh and who DON'T ASSAULT WOMEN...
17/ On the left, the court, in the Senate, or wherever. It isn't white men who are the probem, but whiteness & the mindset of superiority it engenders. Not all white folks have to accept whiteness, and sadly, some folks of color (see Kanye on SNL) have done so proudly...
18/ The problem with #BiffKav is his mentality, his treatment of women and his dishonesty about those actions. He lied about his drinking and behavior when drunk. He acted belligerent many times when drunk according to many witnesses...
19/ That he would lie about those things begs the question why? Why not admit, OK I had a drinking problem in high school and college but now I don't, and my contemporaries can attest to that? Lots of people grow out of heavy drinking in college after all...
20/ The only reason you try and downplay your drinking in those days is because you know that your behavior when drunk was less than exemplary, and to admit the drinking and belligerence would raise questions about what you did to Dr Ford and others...
21/ 21/ THAT is the issue. Not being white or a dude, unless one believes the very essence of whiteness is sexual predation & drunkeness. And no one on the left is saying that. The only ones implying it with this line of defense, ironically, are white dudes themselves...END

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Tim Wise

Tim Wise Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @timjacobwise

Aug 27, 2018
1/ It must b possible 2 say something abt John McCain that is neither hagiographic worship on the 1 hand nor 'fuck that war criminal' on the other. While the former is plainly unwarranted the latter is peak strategic ignorance 4 those who say it and think it'll help the left...
2/...it's the kind of performative radicalism that some affect to sound revolutionary, even though, ironically, it's the kind of rhetoric FBI plants used to use precisely to discredit the left for years. So ya know, by all means let's copy that. it's always worked so well...
3/...We can insist on a proper accounting of McCain's actions in an unjust war, as well as the awful things he said about SE Asians, among other things, while not using a rhetorical tone guaranteed to turn most folks off and do nothing at all to add to our base...
Read 4 tweets
Aug 21, 2018
1/ Perhaps the most maddening thing about the conservative/libertarian/"classical liberal" response to inequality is how utterly self-contradictory it is, and yet how rarely people acknowledge it. Please follow along...
2/ So, on the 1 hand, these folks say inequality is due 2 bad choices by those who are struggling or on the bottom of various heriarchies. Whether working class/poor, people of color, women as women, the explanation is: behavior, lack of responsibility, the wrong mindeset, etc..
3/ The implication being, by definition, that if these folks, individually and collectively changed their behaviors & mentalities (about work, education, etc), they could traverse the distance between themselves and the winners, and actually become winners themselves...
Read 22 tweets
Aug 4, 2018
1/ Following the white-wing hysteria re #SarahJeong's NYT hire is like listening to 7th grader complain 'There's Black History Month but no White History Month!' That's what it sounds like when they say "Put 'black' in any of her anti-white tweets and it's OBVIOUSLY racist!"...
2/ First, I've read the "offending" tweets (a hundred or more) going around and which some like @sullydish consider so damning. Before I respond to some of the key ones though, let me just say...
3/ ...Andrew Sullivan calling anything racist, considering he's the guy who thought it was a great idea to excerpt The Bell Curve in The New Republic, should seriously become the children's picture book definition of irony. But I digress...
Read 25 tweets
Jul 21, 2018
(1) What's amazing about the Trump/Putin meeting is how incredibly unintelligent Trump was to have no one in the room with him. He probably thought that would protect him from exposure, but actually it makes the risk of exposure and blackmail by Russia even greater...
(2) It means Putin could say Trump promised x, y or z thing, even if he didn't, just to sow more chaos in U.S. politics. While Trump thinks Putin really likes him & wants 2 protect him, Putin only seeks to promote political instability in America for his/Russia's own sake...
(3) If Putin said Trump made certain promises, Trump would either have 2 go w/that version (even if untrue & damaging to U.S. interests) or refute it. But refuting would show he had proved himself naive about being able to trust Putin, which would make Trump look like a fool...
Read 9 tweets
Jun 25, 2018
1/ So in no particular order, here are some examples of the 'civility' & 'kindness' Trump cultists' dispense on those they hate, largely ignored by the man in whose name they often do it, even as they lecture the left for being unkind to them. rawstory.com/2018/06/watch-…
Read 21 tweets
Jun 25, 2018
1/ I think everyone would prefer that the day-to-day political discourse in this country not descend into hostility and that people could speak rationally to one another about their differences. A few problems though...
2/ First off, these "differences" are not boiler-plate types, like disagreeing over tax policy or trade or the military budget or any number of other things. The differences now are quite literally about whether you support splitting families and denying them due process...
3/ They're about whether sending kids 1000s of miles from parents w/no clear plan 2 reunite them is 2b considered OK. Whether it's OK 2 say that some among the Nazis in C'ville were 'fine people.' or 2 call black/brown nations "shitholes" while calling 4 more Norwegians...
Read 17 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(