It's Kind Of Hard To Be White, Says CNN

By Joe Coscarelli Fri., Mar. 4 2011 at 6:12 PM

Just as National Geographic informs us that the average person is a 28-year-old Chinese male with no cell phone, CNN inquires, "Are whites racially oppressed?" The answer is obviously "no, stop talking," but the whole article is too credulous, worryingly so, giving a pretty nice platform to some crazy ideas, even if only to debunk them (rather tenderly). "We went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden becoming whites, the new victims,'' says a sociologist. "You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. Whites are the new minority group." It goes on way too long from there.

There are bullet points meant to be evidence "of racial anxiety." There are seven of them, actually, including:

• More colleges are offering courses in "Whiteness Studies" as white Americans cope with becoming what one commentator calls a "dispossessed majority group."

Later there's a sentence that reads, "Some white Americans not only feel ignored in higher education; they feel excluded by popular culture."

Maybe this is the nuanced look this subject needed, but when our eyes rolled back into our head, about halfway through, it didn't feel that way. Feel free to report on how good the ending is in the comments though!

[jcoscarelli@villagevoice.com / @joecoscarelli]

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Mikey1969

OK, I read the story, and it's decently done---for the most part. I think it's idiotic that two of the bullet points claim that the evidence that White people are becoming a minority are nothing more than saying 'Well, Rush and Glenn say so, so it must be true'. I don't know if I feel 'marginalized' by being White, but I DO agree that it is harder to find scholarships, grants, etc if you are both White and male. Big deal, there's still stuff out there. I have always thought that since there is an NAACP, there should be something for White folks, same with a Black Entertainment Television channel, but since that channel would show nothing but Larry the cable guy, Limbaugh and Beck, I wouldn't watch it anyway.

Really, it's not that big of a deal, it's just a bunch of people who are pissed that they have to work for success nowdays. I'm a straight White male, and had no family to help me out. I have done fine for myself so far, so I think these people for the most part are overblowing this issue.