I feel badly for my white male compatriots who feel so hurt these days because they are not being paid attention to. They whine that politics and society have left them behind. They grump about their lost opportunities, the ones their fathers had in such abundance fifty years ago, mostly in manufacturing. Manufacturing...that wonderful antique that these days in this country has come on hard times because of so much scientific ingenuity and genius invention in so many other areas of endeavor. They gripe that current immigration policies are allowing large numbers of others to come into the country who are not white and moreover not Christian, who are willy nilly taking plum jobs that my compatriots would love to have...like agricultural fieldwork, all night security posts in empty office buildings, making beds in hotels, et. al. I see white men hanging around those job sites all the time, grumbling about how they can't get hired on there.
Women, too, are part of this rigged system. Women working in law firms, banks, hospitals, universities, corporations and the like, taking jobs that were once filled by white men exclusively (although one has to remember that those jobs, even for the white men, required rigorous education or high-level training, of which so many of the fellows complaining just now seem to have little.)
Yes, education. These men have small regard for it, and have not sought it out. They resent it when states fund whole public education systems and then invite a bunch of black people (aided by that mean-spirited, rigged Affirmative Action), Asians of every sort, Indians from all over the sub-continent and, of course, women to get educated and then fill the jobs that these fellows feel are being stolen from them. Sophisticated high-tech engineering, which surely they could do, once they learn what a computer is. The defense of suits brought before the Supreme Court. New methods of manufacturing. The exploration of space and the universe beyond. New undersea discovery. Providing medicines for combating cancer, AIDS, heart disease. The ascension to the presidency of the United States...you name it. These guys could do all that, and they feel that, because the system is so rigged against them, they're being intentionally left out.
There was a Golden Age, when the system wasn't rigged, and these fellows could do what they wished. The years before the Civil War, for example. No pesky affirmative action then, that's for sure. And later, Jim Crow, which was likewise unfettered until the system-rigging of decisions like President Truman's integration of the armed forces, the Supreme Court's knocking down of the Chinese exclusionary laws, Brown v. The Board of Education, the Voting Rights Act of 1964, the strikes declared by the United Farm Workers Union (Latinos, for the most part) and many other mean-spirited plots intended to disenfranchise white middle-aged males.
It's no wonder they're so upset.
But now, they have a leader. Finally. A man who will re-ignite the flame of privilege in the souls of those white men everywhere in this country who once had it, have now lost it and are angry with how they're being forsaken. This brave man of measured ideas and thoughtful consideration who tells it like it is, as he himself often says. That's why the white boys like him so much. There is a small adjustment he may need to make in his delivery of those ideas, one that nonetheless will probably be difficult for him. In his case, "telling it like it is" is a spouting of wandering obfuscations and confusion-laden untruths. He could fix this problem in a New York minute, but I expect he's unaware of it, poor fellow. This inestimable candidate has trouble ensuring factual accuracy for everything. Indeed, he may feel that such accuracy is not important. I mean, where indeed is Crimea? It doesn't matter. He'll look it up later, and get back to you.
I tell you, he's huge! And he tells it like it is...which isn't.
Terence Clarke's new story collection New York will be published later this year.