Would most of us have caught that? No. And even if we did, it’s still reinforcing the idea that this is an Asian disease, rather than a pandemic. That Asians are carriers, not Nona Maria. Or James, that nice boy at Whole Foods who seemed less cheerful today when he bagged up your groceries.
White culture is avoiding the local Chinese food place and going to the Italian one instead, because the Chinese people “might have gone to visit relatives.” (I am not saying boycott the Italian place, but Italy, too has an outbreak. It’s just as logical, that you have equal chance of exposure but we code one as “white” now and the other as not).
Funny thing about that picture: White culture has us recoiling from an Asian person wearing a mask, because they have a culture that it’s not a good thing to knowingly infect others. It’s Western White Society where we don’t give a fuck who or what we cough on. Where we’ll hack into our fists then grab the shopping cart handle and trundle away. Where we sniffle openly on public transit, leaving a trail of used tissues falling out of our pockets that we repeatedly shove our hands into before grabbing door handles and pushing elevator buttons. We use the wrong masks in the wrong ways, when it’s too late. But we’re supposedly the experts in preventing disease spread?
I was checking out something at the library and the librarian had to sneeze. True, she covered her nose. With my library card. And then immediately handed it right back to me.
So you’re saying it’s somehow a good example for black people to support other black people, instead of always supporting all people, all of the time? How’d you get so racist, hmm??
“Techno’s Sexual Counter-Space: Ecstasy and Electronics as Technologies of White Sex”
White sexuality is, like whiteness itself, rarely recognized, let alone referred to as white. This is also true of the sexuality practised by young people in the techno world.
Whether or not the specifics in this case line up, this happens all the time. And before anyone jumps in with “that’s not ‘white culture’, it’s just capitalism!”, ask yourself who set up our current capitalist system, and who was it always meant to favour?
I recognise that look on Hilary Rosen’s face at the end. It’s the look of a school bully who has the satisfaction of getting their victim in trouble for defending themselves.
This is why liberal white women terrify me. They talk a good game so their friends at the yoga studio and farmers’ market won’t think they’re despicable people, but when it comes down to it, they will vehemently defend Trump’s policies, even if they don’t defend Trump. They think, Trump’s Rah Rah Team Red, so we have to root against him, but we need someone like him on Rah Rah Team Blue who is just like him. Or, is at least a mid-90s moderate Republican. Like Newt Gingrich. We want a Democratic Gingrich.
Thing is, we don’t have to “give up our privileges” so much, it’s just that they don’t look special if everyone shares them. If all humans are treated with respect, the “privilege” of being respected no longer looks privileged." Personally, I would happily surrender that sort of privelege.
