Fuel for a toxic mix

The feminists of Shakesville, including lead writer Melissa McEwen, are becoming quite annoyed with Bernie Sanders. Bernie is doing quite well with a message for those who are having a hard time clinging to the middle class. But it seems he thinks that by pushing an agenda that helps the struggling white males of this group he will also be helping the women and people of color. Something about a rising tide lifts all boats (hmm, where have I heard that before?). Their annoyance is because Bernie appears to be pointedly ignoring how the current system of privilege works against women and people of color.



Chauncey DeVega, in an article posted on Alternet, writes about toxic white masculinity. White men are afraid that their natural rights will be exposed as unfair advantages. They are losing social and political control and are resorting to violence. It is white men who commit almost a third of mass shootings. The killing and abuse of women has become so common it is rarely newsworthy.

This toxic white masculinity is encouraged by many of our news outlets, especially Fox News.

The white identity politics, grievance mongering, conspiracies, paranoid thinking, eliminationist rhetoric about liberals and progressives, hostility to women, rage against immigrants, anxiety about those who are not “Christian”, and mainstreaming of white supremacy and white racial resentment, are the fuel for toxic white masculinity. The right-wing media gins up and encourages such sentiments because it is dependent on them for viewers and ad revenue.

In addition, the Republican Party also fuels this toxic mix. And this toxic mess is hurting white males.

White America, your media and political leadership have created a broken politics and economy that have left you less secure, less safe, and less upwardly mobile than generations past. But hostility and anxiety towards people who may have a different skin color than you is fool’s gold. White America’s leaders, and the plutocrats to whom they owe their allegiance, have been using that fake money to hustle and manipulate you for centuries.