By David Futrelle
Australians learned a bit more today about the motivations of Michael James Holt, a wannabe mass killer who appeared in a New South Wales court for a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to an assortment of weapons charges. Holt, a Hitler-loving white supremacist obsessed with guns, admitted to planning a mass shooting at an Australian mall.
One of the sources of Holt’s murderous rage? According to a text message from Holt that was read aloud in court today, he was angry that he couldn’t get a date.
“Gonna have to just start killing people if I don’t get laid soon,” Holt wrote. And he apparently meant that quite literally. In another message, he declared that “my hate increases every day, my anger exponentially so.”
It would be nice if we could dismiss Holt as little more than a weird aberration — an neo-Nazified Australian wannabe version of Elliot Rodger, the self-pitying misogynist who murdered six people in Isla Vista California in 2014 as an act of symbolic “retribution” against the women of the world for not spontaneously offering him sex.
But unfortunately, as long-time readers of this blog know well, there’s an entire movement of men out there who think like Holt and Rodger — men who lash out at the world because they feel that women are unfairly denying them sex. In online forums like the Incels subreddit, these self-professed “involuntary celibates” nurture their resentment against women and stoke one another’s rage.
More than a few incels have embraced “Saint” Elliot Rodger as an incel martyr — thought some don’t think he killed enough people to be a true hero — and it’s probably only a matter of time until they embrace Holt as one of them as well. Indeed, a handful of Reddit incels already have.
For more on Incels, check out my numerous posts on the subject in the We Hunted the Mammoth archives. I’ve also written more than a few posts on Elliot Rodger and incels’ posthumous embrace of “Saint Elliot.”
H/T — Raw Story
This is important. I was a sex worker briefly a long time ago (and in NSW) and the client base is thoroughly mixed, but we knew the misogynists when we got them! They tended to behave themselves reasonably well on premises, but I knew a woman who started dating one she had met on premises. Turned nasty very quickly.
THAT is the kind of client this arsehole would be – so yes, do NOT think that regular visits to brothels will make this man or others like him be any less horrible.
Also, women who work on the street are VERY MUCH more vulnerable to attacks, and this is EXACTLY the kind of man who wants to hurt women, so no, please do not think that a rental is the answer to ANYTHING.
Well; I guess I’ll use “Racism”, then.
My reasoning was that, since Race is a made-up construct and seems to inadvertently denote “subspecies” or something, that changing the language to a different term to distinguish between ethnicities and colors would help mentally change everyone’s mental paradigm and as a result, decrease that sort of bigotry in the long run. It’s less easy to regard different colors as “subhumans” if everyone is clearly human.
I feel….I FEEL….you don’t have to agree….that people should see skin color and “racial” features the same way they see hair color, freckles, eye color, nose size, etc.
“She’s a brunette….He’s blonde….they’re freckled….that guy’s black….that other guy has big meaty hands….”
I figure Colorphobia/Colorphobe would be a good new alternative term for racism based on well RACE/COLOR (Black, White, etc.) rather than ethnicity (Whites who are Poles, Slavs, Roma, Anglican, Celtic, etc.; Blacks who are Tutsi, Ethiopian, Khoisan, Black American, East Indian, etc.).
I’m not against the terms “Race” and “Racism” and will gladly use them if I have to. That said; I am a big believer in the concept that language has power and can even affect perception and beliefs. I feel it’s important that….while “colorblindedness” is ludicrous….people should truly feel that there’s literally only ONE Human Race.
We can still acknowledge differences but we should KNOW in a deep level that were all one single species of hominid….the only living one….homo sapien sapiens.
That was my reasoning….but I will be fine with using the terms “Race” and “Racism” if I have to.
Race may be a social construct, but that doesn’t make it any less real to people. People perceive race, therefore there is racism. Not using the word “racism” is not going to make these perceptions disappear and arguing that the word shouldn’t be used is just arguing that people shouldn’t have a clear and concise way to describe an oppression that is happening to them.
Race is a construct, but that doesn’t make it any less real or its effects any less potent. Ignoring racism because race is “made up” doesn’t actually solve the racism problem, it just buries it under a rug. That’s not constructive.
There is already a color-based term: colorism. But colorism isn’t the same as racism and isn’t a substitute term for it. It refers to a wider discriminatory trend wherein people who are paler in complexion are preferred over people who are darker in complexion. You will sometimes hear this explained as a holdover from white supremacy and colonialism, but that is ahistorical; the real root of colorism is the fact that the wealthy can stay indoors and be paler while the poor have to work out in the sun and get darker as a result. Paleness is therefore preferred over a darker complexion as a proxy for the way wealth and higher status is preferred over poverty and lower status. You’ll find colorism in, afaik, every culture.
Racism also emcompasses more than external features. Food, language, specific ways of speaking, music etc are also rolled into it. Basically, it includes culture, and thinking that PoC cultures are less good than white culture.
For instance, here is an article about how the author’s Cantonese food went from ‘smelly’ to trendy.
So basically they suck until white people see something cool, and then they steal it and now it is cool. See any kind of cultural appropriation, basically.
I agree that ‘race’ is a bullshit, made up term. Humans are human, with very small differences between them. However, it is also a real thing in our cultural framework, and we need to work through that.
@Spuki
You may @ me again, it’s only fair 🙂
Incorrect. Black, White, Yellow, Red, Brown. The words for racial classifications were rooted in color. It’s why 2 of them are slurs. Color was the go to tool to express racism in the first place. This stuff is inseparable
Indeed. Except 1)hair color, eye color, etc is and has been used to oppress groups and 2)you can’t make that happen by logicking it away with diction. Also, who do you think is gonna disagree with you on this? Not a rhetorical question
Colorism is already a thing that already refers to an existing axis of oppression that’s different than what you’re describing. Using a very slight variation on the same word for something entirely different is erasing the language of the marginalized. Don’t do that
ETA: ninjad by @PoM
Thanks… I suppose? We’re not forcing you on threat of torture to call racism racism. This really shouldn’t be some great imposition on you. Just let it go…
Okay; I’ve seen all the arguments and they make sense, now. I’ll just K.I.S.S. and say Race/Racist/Racism from now on.
POC have, despite all the forces that have tried and continue to undermine and destroy every bit of hard-won no matter how brief or how small moment of not straight up suffering in life, kept moving forward.
We (white people and especially white straight feminists) have to accept that we represent a group (if only in our whiteness) that made promises and failed to honor them, we demanded their efforts in our fight while promising we would “help them next”, and betrayed them once we got what we wanted – the vote, pants, a broader selection of career options…forgetting that for POC and other marginalized groups, the fight was built on NOT BEING KILLED for daring to want to be seen and treated like (white) humans took/take for granted. So to expect them to know which one of us isn’t intending to murder them no matter how good intentioned we might superficially seem, is simply not going to work – maybe over time when they see us listening and not telling them what is and isn’t racist, what has and hasn’t happened to them that makes them afraid for their communities when white people show up, and pushing back against…ourselves…when we’re doing that thing again – the thing where we assume only we can properly help save people who are marginalized, the thing where we get quiet around racist and hateful talk because it’s coming from our family, peers, even leaders at work and in the community – maybe many decades from now enough of us will have demonstrated that we understand where we’ve failed and left so many human beings carrying crushing burdens for us with the weight of their own upon their shoulders. I think that if we can establish with just one marginalized individual, that we are earnestly working to change ourselves because it’s the right thing to do, that we aren’t out to cause/bring harm, and after ten or fifteen years they start to believe us – mind you I mean one to one interaction – and it will be one of the hardest things we do in life, we’ll be closer to being on the right track.
The problem I see with the word “racism” is that the traditional meaning has been “bigotry”, and that is still the primary meaning for most people. However college-educated (younger) progressives, like most of the people who post here — I am one of the few exceptions — tend to use it to mean a structural aspect of society, a sort of invisible hand which systematically advantages white people whether or not individual white people approve of it.
I noticed this when I started visiting here about three years ago — people here were using “racism” in a different way from what I was accustomed to — and it seemed to be based on things that they had studied in college. Basically, what seems to have happened is that a word that most older and non-college-educated people regard as an accusation of a personal failing has become a term for describing a malfunction in the entire system
The problem this has led to is that when progressives talk about something like “institutional racism,” a lot of older and/or less-educated people hear an accusation of personal bigotry. The Republican’t Party has very deftly exploited this to make many white people feel that they are being unfairly accused of active bigotry when in many cases they are simply rather mindlessly going with the flow in the way that they were raised — and need to be educated in the way things really are, how ingrained social attitudes do real harm to real people.
The GOP has marketed a white persecution complex while we on the left have helped them by appearing to condemn the mass of white people rather than trying to persuade them. Persuasion was making a lot of progress — white people’s attitudes toward non-whites were steadily improving — until the Limbaugh/Fox/Coulter propaganda machine with its massive funding got into high gear trying to instill a sense of angry grievance in “Real American” white people, making them believe that they are the real victims of racism.
Ignorance leads to fear, and fear leads to bigotry. The Republican’t Party has survived having an economic agenda that hurts at least 70%-80% of the population by cultivating evangelical Christians and people who feel that they have been denied the success that was their birthright as White Americans, and persuading them with every sophisticated marketing technique available that it’s really libtard elites that have spoiled their lives by giving their birthright to the undeserving Other. Luckily the millennial generation seems to be far less susceptible to these ideas — the problem is, that unless we progressives try harder to persuade those who currently don’t agree with us, we may find that court-packing and voter-suppression has blocked the millennials from achieving much progress. Hurling accusations of racism, no matter how well justified, tends to put people in a defensive crouch and harden their commitment to undesirable views. We progressives already have the disadvantage of not being able to tell outrageous lies with no pangs of conscience — we have to use our greater commitment to rationality to create more persuasive arguments.
Regarding “America”: If you regard civilization as an ongoing process, the establishment of the United States was really a giant step forward. Certainly when Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” most people understood “men” to mean “white male property owners,” but the ideas they had and the structure they established were capable of being expanded to provide the basis for a far more just society than they had envisioned. It is far from a perfect system: slavery is the most obvious defect (but one with an equally obvious cure), but I tend to feel that we (especially from the point of view of the left) would have been better off with a parliamentary system, and some of the compromises made to get smaller states on board (two senators for each state, large or small, and the electoral college, for examples) don’t work out so well in the current situation. But if you take a long view it was a giant step in the direction of equalitarian society even if the Founders didn’t see it that way, and even though we are very far from the goal of a truly just society. Progress has always been and will always be difficult, but every advance that has been made since 1776 is the result of people working to make things better one little tiny piece at a time. There will never be a perfectly just society, but that is still a worthwhile goal.
It’s more complicated than that. The history of feminism in the abolitionist movement and early civil rights (~1860s and 1870s) is considerably more complex. Early feminists, including non-white feminists, were incensed that black men went “fuck you, I’ve got mine” after the Civil War Amendments were passed that gave black men the vote but women still didn’t have it. Feminists were, by and large, abolitionists and had expected black men to back them up after the Civil War Amendments, and that didn’t happen. White feminists never stopped being racist, and they weren’t innocent of fault by any means, but this was perceived as a massive betrayal and that’s a valid interpretation of events.
It’s important to remember that at that point, it wasn’t at all clear that Jim Crow lay in the future. Most people thought that true legal and social equality for black people was imminent. Freedmen were running for office and getting elected, starting businesses, and were protected from retaliation by Union occupying forces. The Radical Republicans were in charge and had a pro-equality agenda that they were pushing hard. It seemed like black equality had been attained and it was time for female equality to follow, but black men didn’t want to give up control of black women and didn’t line up the way feminists had lined up for abolition.
The only people who didn’t behave badly were black feminists. White feminists had their racism, and black men had their misogyny, and white men had both. Black feminists were given a terrible choice of being either black or female, but they weren’t allowed to be both. That’s on both white feminists and on black men, not just white feminists. I’m not going to make any excuses for white feminist racism, but to imply that white feminists are the only party at fault is overly simplistic.
Of course it’s complicated, like people. But my part in the present circumstances, I believe, involves pressing white feminist women (not specifically those here) and white women in general (also not specifically those here) to understand we have a spectrum of problems to fix and this time we don’t get to put that emotional labor and process onto anyone but ourselves. I’ve seen too many cop-outs from white feminists and I had to gut check myself when I realized I had been musing what it would take to get the trust of POC (generally) would anything be ‘enough’.
@GrumpyOld SocialJusticeMangina:
That was an excellent breakdown, I think, of how the word ‘racism’ is seen and perceived. Mind if I share it on Facebook?
One point to throw into the discussion, that helped me make sense of the fact that both “race is a social construct” and “race is a very, very real thing in people’s lives in our society (and many other societies)”:
Money is also a social construct. There is no inherent biological basis to money; slips of paper or the piece of plastic in my wallet have minimal inherent exchange value – money is 100% a construct of our society.
And yet money affects us all in very, very real ways. Having it, or not having it, makes an enormous difference to how all of us get to live our lives, and simply saying “it’s just a social construct! it’s not really real!” isn’t going to make that go away.
(And much like with race, those in more privileged positions regarding money can more easily overlook just how important it is in their everyday lives, while those in less privileged positions are very acutely aware of it every waking moment of their lives.)
There are a number of ways in which it is important and relevant to consider the fact that race is a social construct and not in some inherent way based on some sort of biological reality. (Examples: the way racial boundaries and definitions have shifted over time; why mixed-race people frequently are treated as – and often self-identify with – the non-white parts of their heritage, even if “biologically” they may have as much or more “white DNA”; the ongoing question over whether Jews “count” as white; etc.) But as for the way race is a real factor that massively affects people’s lives – for that aspect saying “it’s just a social construct” is pretty much irrelevant.
The sex is about domination, so they would rather have a woman crying and begging them to stop than have a woman willingly oblige for money.
Relevant to the discussion:
Why I Stopped Talking about Racial Reconciliation and Started Talking about White Supremacy
@Grumpy
As the article I linked to mentions, a big part of the problem with this discourse is the insistence in US discourse on treating absolutely everything as being about specific individuals and their specific decisions and moral character. There’s a strong unwillingness (especially but not only on the part of conservatives) to acknowledge that systemic problems even exist. And thus, any discussion of systemic problems is taken personally and white people get all pissy and storm out.
Because they were raised as white supremacists in a white supremacist system. We (white people) all were. It’s not about you, or me, it’s about the systemic problems that need to be changed, and won’t be as long as white people keep hurting their own feelings and then holding a grudge about it.
Which has been the modus operandi for American conservatives for centuries, and it keeps fucking working because white people keep fucking eating it up with a fucking spoon.
you’re a damn fool.
In what sense? As I pointed out to Spukikitty earlier, it was founded on genocide and slavery; this is not a fucking step forward in my book, or the books of anyone worth a damn.
he wasn’t writing a legal document. The Declaration of Independence HAS NO FORCE OF FUCKING LAW, AND MEANS PRECISELY JACK AND SHIT REGARDING THE OPERATING PRINCIPLES OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES!!!!!!!!!!!! Fucking HELL I am tired of hearing that fucking quotation in this fucking context.
And yet, strangely enough, they haven’t actually done any such thing. Possibly because the ACTUAL LEGAL STRUCTURE that they established is in fact not nearly as well-founded as their worshipers insist.
How about the FUCKING GENOCIDES?
Which was nevertheless not implemented…
They didn’t work very well then, either, but the Constitution was written by and for slaveholders, and they didn’t actually care how well it worked for anyone else.
Horseshit.
@Dali
I don’t think you mean to pull rank on these things, but it sorta seems like you were pulling rank on these things. Responding to someone who says slavery is bad with ‘the genocides were worse’ 1)is unproductive to say the least and 2)ignores that chattel slavery was also a form of genocide. Maybe I misread, but, yeah, that sounds suspect…
Slavery was mentioned, genocide wasn’t; They’re both pretty fucking blatant, and I’m chronically annoyed by people eliding the latter in the process of downplaying the foundational atrocities of the nation. It’s much easier to find white people who will acknowledge that a) slavery happened and b)was a bad thing than white people who are willing to face up to the hundreds of genocides, attempted and completed, that provided the ‘land of opportunity’ that patriots on both right and alleged left tout incessantly. Possibly this is because white people can look at e.g. the Civil Rights act, Voting Rights act, etc. and pretend that hey, all that shitting on black people is over now, so we can just apologize and be done with it, while there’s never once been any major political act of reconciliation towards any of the First Nations.
Back to the subject of the article (the incel-Nazi), I wonder if this would be a good time to bring up Stefanie Rabatsch? Allegedly, Hitler had a pathological obsession with her as a young man. In some ways, it almost seems as though the young Hitler, himself, might have identified as an incel if the term had existed back then.
@Dali
Uh huh. Just watch how you say things, OK? Cos that shit matters. There’s better ways of bringing up the genocides of the First Nations than by whatabouting the genocides of black folk to do so. See where I’m coming from?
Indeed; I will work on my phrasing in the future.
@Dali
Swell! Thanks, love ❤
@spukikitty
I get where you are coming from, I think. As a white person, when you first start becoming politically aware it is fucking awful. “White guilt” is a real thing and should be a real thing.We have to own slavery and oppression the way the Germans have to own the Holocaust and at first I was looking for a way out, a way where I could still hold on to the people and ideas I loved and had been taught to believe in without facing the fact that I had directly benefited from the pain and death of other people. And by virtue of the colour of my skin I was still benefiting from it, every day, even though I didn’t want to. And you do look for someone who will tell you you’re okay, and – failing that – that there’s a way for (in my case) England to still be a “good” place and for the people I love to be “good” people.
I have since had to acknowledge that it’s more complicated than that.
However, the thing about privilege is you can use it in a positive way. You can listen, be self aware, advocate, and most importantly tackle racism and white supremacists.
Racism is a white people problem. It is constantly – and wrongly – framed as the problem of people of colour. No. The problem they have to deal with is the *actions* of racists, the results of racism.
The actual racists – their attitudes, their background, their shitty jokes which are only made when it’s all white people in the room – that’s all ours, and we are the only ones who can shut them up. By definition they are not going to listen to anyone else and it is utterly wrong to expect anyone of a different race to sort them out. WE have to.
@Dali:
That’s neoliberalism at work. One of its proponents even claimed “there’s no such thing as society”. Sadly, that idea seems to have taken root in way too many minds, and it’s hurting not only anticapitalist efforts but also antiracist and feminist ones, as you’ve just described.
Hep. I wasn’t here for most of the conversation and I don’t want to intrude, but I just thought I’d throw in my two cents on the ‘white guilt’ situation.
Here’s something I don’t think is said often enough, but is common (at least among the indigenous social groups I run in): we don’t expect white allies to agree with us on every single thing. You’re your own human being with your own life experiences which might be very different from ours. That perspective can certainly be valuable.
For example, when I explain to an ally why I sometimes refer to the US government as ‘the white occupation of North America’ I don’t expect them to nod along and start doing the same. (Actually, that would be kind of weird, especially if they’re a white person living in the US.) I just expect them to listen to my perspective and understand where I’m coming from. When I talk about the harm that capitalism has done to our communities, I don’t expect to turn an ally anti-cap, but I do expect them to retain that information and consider how to address that situation, both in their ideal world and in the real world today.
It seems to me like at least some ‘white guilt’ comes from wanting to entirely agree with minority groups on everything, when you really don’t agree. There is no real world where everyone agrees on everything, and you don’t have to feel awful for having a different point of view. Just listen well when people disagree, because we sure listen to you all a lot!
Elliot Rodger may have also been “neo-Nazified.” His search history shows that he made searches about Hitler and other Nazis.