ok white guys the long version:

Identity Crisis For White Men
By Crispin Sartwell

     Black women face a profound choice of identities in the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Do they keep faith with their gender or their race? During the beauty-shop interview, you're not a real woman if you don't vote for Hillary; and you're not black enough if you don't vote for Barack. It's like being drawn and bifurcated.
    What's more rarely appreciated is that we white guys face precisely the same existential crisis around the inverse question: whom do we oppose? Do we go with our sexism (and reject Hillary), or do we go with our racism (and ditch Obama)?  If you vote for Hillary, you're not a real man. If you vote for Barack, you're not white enough.
      Where, in short, does our fundamental loyalty lie, to our gender or our race?
      Here's how my demographic in small-town Pennsylvania are thinking about this profound dilemma, in which the political becomes all-too personal.  We ask ourselves:
   To which group of incomprehensible Others do we owe more of our economic/social/political privilege? From which have we drawn greater profit and prestige: the exploitation of black people, or (e.g.) the unpaid homemaking labor of women? It is, of course, a matter of honor that our wealth, such as it is, is built on a heritage of slavery and sexual slavery, i.e. marriage. We kicked your ass!
    No demographic segment can be expected to vote against its own interest, so it is axiomatic that we white men should fight to preserve the more profitable of our oppressions. I wish there were reliable statistics on this matter.
    Perhaps more to the point, who, black men or women in general, do we ultimately regard with more condescension, or dismiss as more parochial, ignorant, and concerned with trivial and reprehensible matters?   
    Which do we regard with more derision and contempt: women or black men?
    Whom do we loathe more?
    I personally have a bigger gripe with women. But perhaps that's just because I don't hang around with black men.
    Who fills us most fully with an almost supernatural quasi-Freudian phobic fear? This would be an easy question of there were an (openly) gay candidate. But no.
     Our dilemma is made even harder to come to grips with because both our racism and our sexism are entirely unconscious; this whole electoral dynamic happens only in the deep interminable sub-conscious of the beer-swilling male American. Yet it is likely to determine the future of America.
    We wish black folks and women well, but the prospect that we'd be ruled by them is, obviously, absurd. And devastating.

Crispin Sartwell is Director of Polling at crispinsartwell.com.

Comments

[TGGP]

I don't think there will be any quandary for black women. That's why the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case made such a mistake: she assumed by putting on black female jurors she would satisfy Johnny Cochran with a 3/4 black jury and at the same time ensure sympathy for Nicole Brown. It didn't work out that way. Regarding white men, they probably don't interact with care about blacks and if anything prefer the slave ships had never docked in the first place.

The joke's been done elsewhere: http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/04/the_white_mans.html

[miche]

GAWD!!! I've been away too long. This is way entertaining.

[Lamya]

If the white man has to either choose between a female and a black candidate, i guess the easiest thing would be not to vote, or vote for McCaine :-P but then not voting would give the power to all the other minorites and the women. On the other hand, the electoral system is supposedly the creating of the white man, and not voting would be like turning your back on the rules you made. Tricky..

[mr.fun]

ha!

one person can only do so much damage.

opinion pieces/ the internet / blogs (BLAWGS) - they're all one big troll. has anyone in the entire history of opinion pieces and/or the internet/usenet/rec.whatever, ever, and I mean ever, stopped and thought, "hey - wait a sec. this could be a trap!"

I heart our incoherence.

"I could be one of your kids."

[crispy]

ok let me try to say something about what i was doing, which is indeed kind of complicated and ambiguous.
one thing is that if you focus any attention on white men and our interests, you're doing something really bizarre: this is "marking the unmarked group." treating white men as though we were an identifiable minority with identifiable interests is entailed by all the other demographic markers. but it can't be said.
another purpose is sheer pc tweak. they tell us what not to say; it's so easy to say it. it's funny to say it, because it carries such weight and solemnity.
and then there is a serious point about the benefits and the psychological complexes involved in being in the "dominant" or unmarked group. i really am a likttle anxious about being ruled by women!

[Henry]

It is tongue-in-cheek in its exaggerations, but, if its underlying point were not meant seriously then there would have been no point in writing it. Its underlying point I take to be that too many people vote on the basis of race or sex because too many people identify with their race or sex. I do not disagree with that point, so maybe I did take it too seriously. Maybe I also took it too personally, because the repeated use of "we" and other plural pronouns seems to include me. But I think that the support for Obama shows that more people than we had imagined can move beyond race, and it makes me feel optimistic. That's why a column stating, even tongue-in-cheek, that we're all racists seems inappropriate right now. It seems to seek to put a damper on the positive spirit that Obama is finally bringing to the nation.

[Marriotr]

Umm, it's at least partially tongue in cheek, folks.

[Henry]

This column bothered me, and it's taken me a couple of days to figure out why. One thing is the statement that "No demographic segment can be expected to vote against its own interest." Demographic segments do not vote; individual people do. Therefore, you must mean either that every member of every demographic segment votes only for his own interest, or that demographic segments, on average, vote for their own interests. The former is false; the latter may be true, but you offer no evidence that it is.

Then there is the statement that "our racism and our sexism are entirely unconscious." That is obviously false, as some people are conscious of their racism and sexism. And other people, I believe, are not racist or sexist (me, for instance). Of course, if my racism and sexism are entirely unconscious, I would not know whether I am racist or sexist, but then you wouldn't either, unless you've discerned racism or sexism in the occasional comments I post on your blog. But what is more important is that, even if I am racist or sexist, that doesn't mean that my racism or sexism determines my vote. If I am racist or sexist, I am also other things, such as concerned about the interests of others, and I may be capable of judging candidates without regard for their race or sex. Therefore, I may be able to prevent my racism and sexism, if I have any, from affecting my vote, in which case my racism and sexism are irrelevant.

[Rik Little]

Too oversimplistic Crispin. "unpaid homemaking labor of womem" and "sexual slavery". There is a 4/26/ 2008 article by Dr. Stephen Baskerville (go to wnd.com and search 'baskerville' for article) called 'How Our Tax Dollars Subsidize Family Breakup.' The breakdown of the American family is an industry in america since no fault divorce of the late 1970s and NOW feminazi lobbied legislation such as the Social Security Act of 1996 (Bill Clinton) and Violence Against Woman Act (Joe Biden) which has set up a racketeering industry for States, Municipalities, Cops, Courts and a cast of thousands to make the state uber-fathers and in fact cost the taxpayers at least one trillion dollars over the last decade. This family breakdown affects crime, human resources and represents the most horrific civil rights violations going on in America By American government to date. Not since the Nazis and Communists did Government come in and assume parental rights over children for profit. Neither candidate can or will address this evil as there is too many states budgets being balanced on the backs of fathers as single mother chosen lifestyle 'homemakers' cash in as the State cashes in. So when 'Slavery' is raised by you in the tired gender stereotype that is no longer true or relevant I say to even discuss this political race in these terms serves only to waste time, support the evil status quo and misdirect voters. Racism and Sexism is alive and well in America as it always has been, but to link either to either candidate based on their race or gender sidesteps what voters should be appraised of about any of these millionaires running for office and that is Money. And how any of these candidates will untangle this boondoggle of 'laws' which are destroying America as a whole for self interest short term racketeering profit. The man or woman who stands up to this tyrany (I know it's spelled wrong) will most likely be killed by the real government power. We are living in a police state.