Fucking White People…

Illustration by Devin Finch.

The headline of this piece is a sentiment I’ve expressed a lot over these last two years, but following the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, it’s also one that’s gotten me banned from social media on two occasions. Apparently the crowd that insists that political correctness has enabled the pussification of America is so easily triggered they need to make my Facebook page a safe space for them. So, I’m going to say it here instead, loudly, and often; Fucking. White. People.

There’s no arguing that white people are the reason Trumps is president. He carried white men to the tune of 63 percent and white women by 53 percent. Funny enough, Clinton won women as a whole by 12 percent, but women of color were not enough to swing the election on their own. Why? ‘Cause fucking white people, that’s why.

There’s been a ton of think pieces since last Tuesday examining the culture of working class white rural America, those being the ones that most went for Trump (in Texas, six of the ten largest cities went for Clinton). Lots of very good writers have waxed eloquently on the disappearance of factory jobs and the cutting loose of small town America to focus on minorities and “elites.” The explicit message is, “these people were left behind, and that’s why they voted for Trump.” The implicit message is, “these are a noble people that the system failed, for shame. “ They’re not, though, they’re just, you know, fucking white people.

All this ink is being spilled finding out what this group thinks, but very few people are bothering to ask the follow-up question, “is what they think complete and utter bullshit?” They clearly have opinions and beliefs, but, as I have pointed out in the past, calling something an opinion doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. Merely having a belief doesn’t make it inherently worth anything to the rest of us. Lots of people never get that memo, especially fucking white people.

As a kid I spent my summers in the small town of Oakwood, Texas helping a family friend fence in a game reserve, and I have a really, really hard time picturing those small town Americans sitting around debating the finer nuances of trade deals. There’s no real reasoning to their dissatisfaction with their economic plights, and certainly no real plan. When faced with the prospect of forging a new path or going with the comforting lie that a candidate would simply fetch work back from foreign shores, fucking white people went with the lie.

The financial woes are often used as a smokescreen against the bigotry every vote for Trump supported. Here is the real reason, so stop calling them racist. That’s a very unnuanced way of looking at it. It’s not that these communities are bigots. It’s more that these particular fucking white people no longer know what bigotry is in 2024.

They hear racism, and they think of slavery, segregated schools, and burning crosses. They are fervently against those things, but that’s just not the racism that the rest of us are trying to deal with anymore. Addressing racial divides in 21st century America is more about retraining police to stop shooting every black person that scares them, or getting more black people into power positions, or closing the racial gap in incarceration rates for similar crimes. Racism, and the fight against it has evolved, but not for fucking white people, who know most of their racial history from movies rather than live-in experiences.

That’s the main problem with these communities. They aren’t strutting about saying, “boy, I do sure hate me some bitches and darkies” while whistling a jaunty tune. They simply don’t run into a lot of minorities. If they have gay or trans people in town, those folks stay discreet, quiet and hidden. Same goes for non-Christians. Non-whites can find a place as individuals, but rarely as a group, and certainly not if they rock the boat. As long as the supremacy of fucking white people is not meaningfully challenged, their acceptance is never actually tested.

This unofficial segregation is what allows them to divorce “race issues” from “real issues.” All the Islamophobia and giant walls and what not are just ideas to them, and not nearly as important as their anger that the post-recession economy has not lived up to what they feel they are entitled. Instead, they see attention heaped on presumed-undeserving minorities and growing into ever-more-indignant fucking white people.

This is a group that has spent three decades letting Republicans tell them they were morally superior to others every time they rejected any sort of welfare state or hand-out, a conveniently puritanical bit of nonsense that has done plenty to keep these communities hamstrung. Whenever the left tries to bring them healthcare, minimum wage increases, college opportunities, childcare, or any other benefit that would help lift people out of the trash pile, these folks double down on insisting they’re in the right and it’s someone else’s fault they are where they are. Fucking white people would rather starve and not admit they were wrong than change their minds and eat.

I can sympathize with the position they’re in. The country doesn’t win by arguing about who has it the roughest. However, rural white America also doesn’t do the country any good by taking the problem of systemic, widespread, institutional racism and insisting that they play no part in supporting it when they vote for a howling bigot who just happens to make them feel better about their economic anxiety. It’s the political equivalent of pretending you don’t have money problems by refusing to check your bank balance. It’s not about what will actually help, but what will make fucking white people feel better, even for a moment.

And I’m tired of that. I’m tired of every single conversation about improving the world always devolving into a white person insisting everyone be nicer to them because they have very important worldviews, even if said worldviews are demonstrably and provably misinformed garbage. We have bridges that need fixing, a renewable energy grid that needs building, kids to educate at a reasonable rate, a space program that needs its shuttles back, a cyber-harassment epidemic that needs crushing, and a whole lot more than I have room to talk about in this article. God knows how much of it we could accomplish if hurt feelings would get off the agenda. It never seems to, though.

Because fucking white people.

by Jef Rouner