“White People Are Sh*t”

Here is the central anecdote of the Guardian Comment piece that caused so much discussion over the last few days:

At the Sydney writers’ festival on Sunday, editor of Djed Press, Hella Ibrahim, relayed the final minutes of a panel on diversity featuring writers from the western Sydney Sweatshop collective. One of the panellists, Winnie Dunn, in answering a question about the harm caused by good intentions, had used the words “white people” and “shit” in the same sentence. This raised the ire of a self-identified white woman in the audience who interrogated the panellists as to “what they think they have to gain” by insulting people who “want to read their stories.”

Isn’t that curiously worded? I thought so. I went looking for a transcript of the panel in question. I couldn’t find one, but I did find this tweet thread. The author is being intentionally misleading by saying the other panelist “used the words “white people” and “shit” in the same sentence”. For instance, she didn’t say “white people can be difficult sometimes, oh look I have some shit on my shoe”. She said “white people are shit”.

The article continues:

In other words, the woman saw a personal attack where there wasn’t one and decided to remind the panellists that as a member of the white majority she ultimately has their fate in her hands.

The article avoids explicitly quoting “white people are shit” because it reveals more than incivility. It makes the subtext text; you’re not supposed to say it out loud. The “Whiteness as Pathology” Social Justice approach functions best when it’s central tenet is unspoken. Everything white people do is inherently evil and reflects their desire to belittle, torture, enslave and destroy people of other races. White people carry this desire in their souls, so whiteness is a stain that won’t wash off. No positive behaviour on their part will solve this problem. Behaviour that would be normal in any other race is poisonous and terrifying in white people because whiteness is toxic and incurable.

The whole anecdote reflects this. If I tell you “you are shit”, you should sit there and take it. If you object to being told you are shit, you are being hysterical and vindictive, and you are exercising your power over me by objecting. Because you are white, the normal positions of who is being obnoxious and who is not in this situation can be reversed. So it might seems that I am attacking you, but in fact the reverse is true. It could not be otherwise.

Once you understand the “Whiteness as Pathology” approach, it comes as an immense relief. The academic language of Social Justice can be refined, impenetrable and intimidating. You thought you were looking at a complicated device whose workings were a mystery to you; but it’s a Rube Goldberg Machine. You don’t need to understand, because there isn’t anything to understand. What we have here is not a system for critically interpreting the world, but a revealed truth around which all other truths be arranged even if it means turning them upside down. It’s a magic mirror.

For instance:

That the voices of “women of colour” are getting louder and more influential is a testament less to the accommodations made by the dominant white culture and more to their own grit in a society that implicitly – and sometimes explicitly – wants them to fail.

So it might appear that you are living in a society that permits you to assert your minority identity, volubly and critically. That, imperfect as it is, societal tolerance of dissent and difference is the basis of any other freedoms you win for yourself and people like you. That the status of minorities who volubly assert their identities in countries without a “dominant white culture” is much worse. But these are all illusions – a glance in the magic mirror reveals that the opposite is true.

This is from the section that specifically refers to the tears of white women:

“White women tears are especially potent … because they are attached to the symbol of femininity,” Ajayi explains. “These tears are pouring out from the eyes of the one chosen to be the prototype of womanhood; the woman who has been painted as helpless against the whims of the world. The one who gets the most protection in a world that does a shitty job overall of cherishing women.”

In an 85% to 90% white western country (like Australia), isn’t it logical that the most common “prototype of womanhood” would be a white woman? Who else would it be? And isn’t the accusation that women use their tears to manipulate just a weary sexist canard? All you have to do guess the liberal identitarian position is assume limitless malevolence and bad faith on the part of white people, and then invert or reverse any elements that are inconvenient to your point.

I don’t resent attempts on the part of any minority to expand their cultural or political power, to think of themselves as the good guys and to relentlessly advocate on their own behalf. What would you do in their position? I absolutely do resent that a key principle of your approach is that it would be immoral of me to do the same. Especially since, if one “side” in a cultural contest is playing Power, then in practical terms I have to play Power too. Ironically doing this would possibly lead to more compromise and accommodation, since at least two nations consciously at war with each other can agree a peace treaties, neutral zones, rules of engagement and so on.

You cannot be allies with, or make accommodations with, someone who subscribes to this philosophy or a variant of it, and then assume that gesture will be reciprocated or appreciated. My main feeling when reading an article like this is to feel sorry for the liberal women I know, who are averagely flawed human beings but unfailing kind and thoughtful, and who have put consideration of the feelings of other groups at the centre of their political beliefs in a way that is admirable (but horribly misguided in my opinion). I don’t doubt some of them are aware of how crazy all this is but are afraid to talk about it for fear of a backlash. My feelings towards those women are akin to those you would have for a female friend in an abusive relationship. When he lashes out at you he’ll either pretend to be sorry or say you deserve it, and that you goaded him into it, so really it’s all your fault. He doesn’t love you, you can’t make him happy, he’ll never change. Don’t waste your tears. Why not just leave?