By Trevor Hobler
Flyer hung up in Glatfelter Hall for the “Tired of white cis men?” event before it was canceled.
As many people have heard, recently there was an art event scheduled by a Gettysburg College student with a rather controversial poster advertising it. The poster was titled, “Tired of white cis men? Come paint and write about it.” This editorial will be focusing on the backlash the poster received rather than the intention of the event.
The common thing people say in regard to this poster is that it is racist. The argument here is very straightforward, the poster implies that cis-gendered white men are something to be sick of, thus it is racist. People have been saying that the poster would have never gotten approved had the group been anyone other than white cis men. Again, this makes sense in a vacuum, saying anything about an entire race of people would be a harmful generalization. The issue with this argument is that not every race has the same capacity to be victims of racism, white people especially. White people have long run all the institutions in this country, and have historically used that power to ensure that no other racial group has threatened that monopoly of control. There are actions behind racism against Black people for instance that do have real consequences for Black Americans. In America, we see this very obviously with police brutality, where many individual police officers have an implicit bias against Black Americans as a result of racist rhetoric, as well as more institutional issues. This causes Black Americans to be victims of police brutality at disproportionate rates compared to other racial groups, which is obviously a very real impact that these racist policies have. If you were to say that “white people are criminals,” however, you would meet much less resistance, as that is not a stereotype that has been taken into account when it comes to how our society operates. We do not see white people being victimized by institutions on the basis of their race, because, since the founding of this country, white people have been the ones making the rules, specifically white men.
Another issue I see with the hatred this poster is getting is that being “white” is not really something that white people actually identify with. White people have never had the need to develop an identity around their race because it has been historically seen as the default. I put quotes around “white” because our modern notion of whiteness is not actually anything inherent to skin color, but is a deliberate way to treat people, with skin color being used as justification after the fact. Races, as we see them today, are relatively new phenomena in the timeframe of human history; being made to justify chattel slavery by claiming that Black people were inferior based on “biology” that had no actual scientific backing. Racism has just been used against everyone perceived as non-white to justify their inferior treatment by “white” society. Most white people do not actively view themselves through the lens of race, because they do not face resistance for that reason. This is not true for many minority groups, however, as they are often treated poorly strictly based on the color of their skin. The concept of white privilege is nothing new, and it simply boils down to white people having the privilege to ignore the lens of race in their own lives.
There is also the common saying that white Americans do not have a culture to identify themselves with, largely stemming from the historical context of the country’s formation. White people largely came to America voluntarily from Europe, knowing their history and traditions. This allowed white settlers to come to America while retaining said traditions and culture of their previous home. In contrast to this, many Black Americans came to America via the transatlantic slave trade, the process in which Africans were kidnapped from their native homes and sold into slavery in perpetuity in some far-off land they’d never even seen before. A combination of mixing different African cultures together on one plantation and deliberate attempts by slave owners to erase their native cultures resulted in the need for the rise of a new African-American culture.
White people, therefore, do not identify with their race as an aspect of their culture in the same way that other minority groups need to. White people do not need to think about their race when it comes to how they’re going to be treated by the police. Obviously, white people can face hardships and be victims of oppression, but the reason for these hardships is not their race; it is some other factor of their actual identity.
Bringing the focus back to the poster, making white cis men a target of a student event and the poster coverage of the said event is not racist in the way that making it about any other race would be. White people have no reason to take this poster as a personal offense, and calling out white cisgender men is not putting any white person in a spot where they’re going to be in any danger. I am a white cisgender man, and I can tell you that I am not personally offended by the contents of that poster. I do not care about being white; it is not a source of pride or personal happiness for me. I am not losing anything by someone saying that they are “tired of white cis men.” I am lucky enough to be in a position where I do not need to think about that in my day-to-day life, and while I’m not totally sure that the poster does anything productive, I’m willing to say that calling it racist demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of the issue at hand.
The event referred to in this editorial has been canceled.
November 17, 2022
“…not every race has the same capacity to be victims of racism…”
Like posting overtly racist posters, saying overtly racist things, and implementing overtly racist policies. Only in specific instance are those things defendeded and accepted.
Even to the point people are unashamed to write articles defending it and putting their name on top of that blatant racism. These are the same people who say society is steeped in “white supremacy.”
November 17, 2022
Lol white fragility in action.
November 18, 2022
God I’m just really tired of black people. That doesn’t sound ok, does it?
December 5, 2022
You must not have read a single word of the article if that’s the conclusion you come up with. He actually makes a very sound argument, and whether or not you agree with the tenets, boiling his article down to an absurdly simple comment like that shows a lack of any ounce of critical thinking on your part.
March 25, 2024
have you ever considered that people might just totally disagree with each and every point that this article made and consider it complete nonsense/dangerous propaganda. remember the khmer rouge, mao’s cultural revolution and other marxist movements had many academic supporters who wrote sensible articles about why the viewpoints and actions of those groups was not only correct…but moral and necessary. in fact, heck…iang sary, brother number 4 of the khmer rouge wrote his economics phd. at the sorbonne, where he was a member of the french communist party all about how cambodia had to remove all vestiges of european cultural colonialism….and then 10 years later, he and fellow student and communist party member pol pot were in charge of cambodia and put his phd. thesis into action. maybe people are saying that this is similar rediculous propaganda which is legitimizing dangerous racism, sexism and overt discrimination that will lead to very negative outcomes in american society and the western world. they don’t agree with the arguements at all.
June 6, 2024
This article is simply gaslighting. White people are not responsible for the conditions of everyone on the planet at all times. White people owe nothing to anyone because of their skin color and you have been conditioned by pseudo intellectual feel good drivel into thinking anti white propaganda or anti white speech is somehow valid or even worse a show of cultural intelligence and social literacy. The word salad on display here is nothing but a veil to cover up petty and vindictive behavior from a self hating wanna be “in grouper”.
November 18, 2022
Gotta put this on a shirt
November 19, 2022
The argument that racism is “prejudice plus power” and therefore cannot be exacted on white people is disingenuous and is only designed to misdirect the conversation. Playing linguistic games doesn’t detract from the underlying problem. Prejudice and antagonism directed to people based on their race is racism, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what historical grievances exist, whether you are personally offended by it, or whether you believe the poster will actually manifest a physical threat. What matters is whether we can call out this kind of language for what it is. Gettysburg shouldn’t tolerate this kind of behavior in any situation.
November 29, 2022
Obviously the poster is racist.
One line of argument that I want to challenge is the idea of Whiteness not being a facet of identity. This position completely ignores historical context. The same policies that artificially produced the idea of Blackness also created Whiteness. Whiteness and Blackness were what distinguished the slaves from the masters, those who had to sit at the back of the bus versus those who could sit at the front. Even if the White identity resulted from this imbalanced power structure, it is an identity nonetheless.
Furthermore, targeting anybody on the basis of race is racism. Just as it is unfair to generalize minorities, it is also unfair to generalize White people. No individual White person is responsible for the historical systems of oppression that have existed in this country, and targeting them on such basis is wrong and racist.
March 27, 2023
This article misses the point. The flyer for the event categorizes a group of people based on assumptions about how that group of people behaves generally. This is no different than sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, or any other generalization about a group of people. The generalization is that a straight white man is homophobic, racist, sexist, mysogynistic, and economically privileged. This could be true in some instances, but a straight white man may also be kind, tolerant, economically disadvantaged, sensitive, and respectful to women. Anytime you paint an entire group of people with broad strokes you are discriminating against them. You are not allowing for the diversity that exists within that group. Diversity of background, wealth, religion, political beliefs, intellect, ability, personality, etc. My even commenting on this article is surely to lump me even further into this privileged intolerant class of people, but that does not change the fact that is not at all who I am. I resent being lumped in with Donald Trump and the Maga crowd. Nothing is more insulting to me, and nothing could be further from the truth.
August 19, 2023
I am a black woman. My living husband is a white cis man. I take offense to this poster and this article. There’s no justifying the poster’s wording, and there’s no deeper meaning. It’s insulting.
September 27, 2023
Thank you and I agree wholeheartedly!!! Unfortunately the hate machine has changed direction but still doling out misguided hate it’s just changed to be acceptable to the straight white male now which is WRONG. OP should be ashamed of themselves
June 30, 2024
The whole concept that “power” is a factor in racism is an attempt to redefine what it means. It’s an attempt to justify their own racist and bigoted attitudes by playing word games. Pick a dictionary, any dictionary, and you will not find any mention of “power” in the definition of racism. These modern “social justice warriors” want people to believe that only white people can be racist just because most of the top 1% of the elite are white. No one ever mentions that the reason (in the west) that there are more white people in the workforce is because there are far more white people. They would just rather call it racism instead of facts. We will never solve this problem, or any other, as long as we continue to ignore facts. That is the problem with modern “social justice warriors”, they ignore facts that they don’t like. Thus everything they spout is skewed. Not accurate. Everything that these SJW’s do or say is “designed” to present a false narrative. All humans are capable of being racist, not just white people. Thanks
God bless you all, through the Holy Spirit, in Jesus holy name, Amen.
November 5, 2024
I am just glad the other commentators agree how much of a nonsense hypocritical and apologetically racist article this is. Changing the definition of racism is also not okay.