(Disclaimer: The “white men” referred to in this blog is a shorthand reference to ‘white racist sexist men.” Not “all white men.” Just, I got tired of typing “white racist sexist men” and also it made my prose look inelegant and God knows we can’t have that. )

I try to never engage in the Oppression Olympics. It’s even more pointless than trying to explain to a maniac why he shouldn’t wildly overbet his ducks the same way he bets his rockets every damn time. (And that is very, very pointless, as I was reminded yet again just the other night at an otherwise fairly enjoyable cash game.) However, someone on another blog made a good point the other day in regards to racism vs. sexism and why one or the other is “worse;” she said, in essence, that while sexism is more socially acceptable to express, racism has more dire consequences especially physically for the recipients. Naturally she was dropped on like a load of bricks by a few deeply offended ladies (one of whom actually made the statement that she “risked rape every hour of every day just walking down the street”). After I tucked my eyeballs back in their sockets and picked my jaw up off the floor (where the hell does she live? Sierra Leone?) I decided not to re-enter the fray, because clearly anybody who’s willing to say something that retarded can’t be reasoned with. But I still thought it was a really good point and it got me thinking…

I am inclined to think that the hatred that lies so thinly beneath sexism is greater than the hatred that lies beneath racism, because it IS so widespread and socially acceptable to express, and yet so much more detrimental to the white men who express it…wait, why do I say that? Because I thought about it and I realized both what a nasty situation black men are in, and what a strange one white women are. You see, white men want white women. They don’t want black men. Not intimately, not in their lives…best case, they want low-paid (or unpaid) laborers and scapegoats. However, white men do want white women. And in America today, they can’t just grab likely ones by the hair and drag them off to the nearest cave, nor buy them from their fathers, and it’s more of a challenge than ever before historically just to get them drunk and rape them with impunity. (Sadly, “more of a challenge” is still nowhere near “practically impossible,” but that’s a whole nother blog.) No, they actually need to convince these white women to engage in meaningful social interaction and earthly sexual delights. So they have to restrict themselves primarily to name-calling (blatant!) and sideways legislation against things like emergency contraceptives and funding research that shows that women aren’t nearly as good as men at (fill in the blank with something cool or that might result in a high-paying job someday). 

But they do want us. They wish they didn’t and they hate us for it, but they also are sure, on a bone-deep instinctive level, that they NEED us. And not just for sex, though I think a lot of them rather desperately tell themselves that. Take me, for example. Not to say that no man has ever wanted me for just sex, but to be honest, I am and always have been the type of girl that men want to marry. Beyond the sex, they want the companionship…the intimate, caring kind that doesn’t laugh at your deepest desires and comforts you when you’re deathly ill, that tells you that you really are the greatest, because our society also forbids adult men from receiving that sort of human interaction from anyone but his female love interest. And, of course, if you the white woman happen to possess that reservoir of interaction combined with a nice body and a good income, you, my dear, are the Holy Grail. 

What do black men have that white men want with any kind of comparable desire? Nothing. So what power do they have…? NONE. Except in numbers. I finally understand, now, the whole “brotherhood” that permeates black male culture. Whether or not they ever wanted that, they had to have it for simple survival. And this is why it is so much more dangerous to be one, and why they react with what many feel is hysteria to any perceived threat, such as the recent rash of “nooses.” Of course they do. What’s protecting them? Nothing but their strength as perceived by white men, their willingness to shout out and to take nothing lying down. 

Analysis aside, there’s an easy way to tell for yourself which is really worse. Set aside your gender identity for a moment…give over thinking of how you MUST be your gender, the one you are, and place it all in cold, hard perspective. In America today, would you rather be a black man, or a white woman? In terms of what kind of treatment you’re going to get from society, from birth to grave, in terms of opportunities, perception, income, education…everything?

Would you really choose to be a black man?