White People Are Not Victims
Narratives of white victimhood are the rage these days.
From Abigail Fisher v. the University of Texas to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, from Paula Deenâs claim of being a victim of the âPC police" to a material witnessâs use of the phrase âcreepy-ass cracker" in the criminal trial of George Zimmermanâthere has been ample effort to imagine white people as the real victims in contemporary America.
David Sirota says âhysterical white people are all over the media screaming to whomever is listening that white people are under attack.â
Tim Wise notes this is in keeping with history. âThe cult of white victimhood has long had its charter members," he says. âNowadays the cult has the attention of the media and a white public already anxious about changing demographics, the presence of a black president and economic insecurity."
I call it WDDââWhite Delusional Disorder.â
People suffering from WDD experience intense and wild distortions of and deviations from empirical reality. They believe white people are not benefiting from a racially stratified society. They are, instead, its true victims.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case weighing the affirmative-action policies of the University of Texas. The court punted by sending the case back to a lower court. But in doing so, it left unaddressed claims of Abigail Fisherâs victimization.
The plaintiff claimed: âThere were people in my class with lower grades who werenât in all the activities I was in, who were being accepted into UT, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skins. I was taught from the time I was a little girl that any kind of discrimination was wrong. And for an institution of higher learning to act this way makes no sense to me. What kind of example does it set for others?â
Yet court documents show that Fisherâs high school grades and SAT scores would not have qualified her for admittance to Texasâs flagship institution in Austin. Even so, she is a victim , she says. Meanwhile, the school admitted five students of color with lower scores as well as 42 white applicants whose scores were equal to or lower than Fisherâs.
Not surprisingly Fisher and her supporters have shown no concern for the 168 students of color who did not receive admission, though their scores were equal to or higher than hers. Nor have they expressed outrage at the number of students denied admittance though they presumably enrolled in costly SAT prep courses. Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy and the courtâs conservative bloc failed to account for white privilege.
This was equally evident in the Supreme Courtâs gutting of Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. During oral arguments last spring, Justice Antonin Scalia memorably described the VRA as a âperpetuation of racial entitlement.â Thus the Voting Rights Act victimizes white America. Despite claims of racial progress, and despite fantasies that the VRA is punishment for the sins of white grandfathers (it isnât), the VRA was about protecting every personâs right to vote.
But this is the logic that governs the cult of white victimhood.
Only in America can inequality, voter suppression, and societal condemnation of racial slurs become a moment to lament white victimhood.
David J. Leonard is associate professor and chair in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author most recently of After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press). Follow him@drdavidjleonard. (Image via)
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