by Trace Taylor
Author’s Note: This author believes that skin colors (and other such divisive labels) are adjectives used to manipulate dominant narrative and reinforce dominant narrative assumptions (myths) such as “race,” another hegemonic machination contrary to evidenced and or scientific fact, and so counterintuitive to the construction of global Human equality. Therefore, all divisive (positioned for competition and hegemonic leveraging) adjectives shall have their first letter (typically capitalized) shown as lower case in parentheses. This author also believes that the word ‘race’ is divisive and colorized and so will not refer to skin colors as race or races but as skin colors since there is only one extant biological race of humans on the planet, and all people belong to it much the way dogs of different skin color, eye and hair color, and body shape and size, are still Canini Canis lupus familiaris. Our common ground is this fact: there are no subspecies. Skin color is skin color and we have to look past it at the hegemonic machine and its machinations that strategically employs divisive adjectives and myth.
Dominant hegemonic, white male narrative, throughout recent modern human history has dominated the global narrative that established and maintains the female’s role as subservient, less human, rape-able, responsible for being rape-able, and as property belonging to the patriarchy. The patriarchy under the guise of concerned father, caring spouse, ever-ready protectorate (all myth) have over time portrayed females as the biblical virgin Mary and Madonna, mother of the white male savior of the human species, alongside Ruth and Mary, very faithful, virginal, subservient, and obedient females held up as examples for all females to aspire to, and then simultaneously as the wicked Lilith, the wicked instigator of or at the very least accomplice to sin such as Eve and Hawā, Lot’s disobedient wife sometimes referred to as Ado or Edith in Jewish myth, and others frequently colored as adulteresses and whores due to their socioeconomics, stations, or independence: Mary Magdalen, Delilah, and Jezebel. Then of course, there is the equally mythical insatiable and unsatisfiable Hera, Medusa, the witch, and the succubus. Throughout modern western history, females have been painted as simultaneously sacred, the womb of salvation, and responsible for the downfall of the human species, as weak, hysterical, feeble-minded, unworthy of and incapable of self-governance therefore in need of management by males (Sáenz & Bukoski, 2014).
I address this perspective on male positioning over females not to focus on females but to place males correctly, for the purpose of this reflection, in their self-appointed and relegated privileged positions within a running, hegemonic, heteronormative, (w)hite-centric dominant narrative, a grounding stone from which to consider males within the context of hegemonic biases, values, capitalist agenda, and education. Wealthy male philanthropists, capitalists, heads of state, and ruling intellectuals such as (w)estern scholars and western scientists throughout history via the usurpation of earlier indigenous epistemologies and credit for these epistemologies via colonization, objectification, exploitation, eradication, and rendering of non-wealthy, non-(c)hristian, non-heteronormative, non-(e)nglish-speaking, and non-binary females and males of all skin colors into silent (self-imposed or not), invisible, deviant, and dangerous and or threatening populations; through conscious and subconscious biasing of research tainted with and interpreted by and for hegemonic values, and through the perpetuation of ruling intellectual control over higher education, have long served hegemonic machinations. Ruling intellectuals have and do influence and perpetuate hegemonic control over the dominant narrative and the science and its resultant products and so control and influence over higher education (Anderson, 1988; Medin & Bang, 2014; Laker & Davis, 2011; Strunk et al, 2015; Kozol, 2005; Katznelson, 2005; Nicolazzo, 2016; Diamond, 2011, Gordon & Henery, 2014; Roberts-Mahoney & Garrison, 2015; Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015; Smythe, 2015; Wells & Ramdeholl, 2015; Vaccaro, 2017; Kehoe, 2006; Kimmel & Davis, 2011; Gleditsch & Polo, 2016).
The hegemonic narrative has positioned and permissioned the penis to oppress the vagina then further positioned the (w)hite penis to oppress the non-(w)hite penis and non-English speaking penises, and subsequently the (c)hristian penis to oppress the non-(c)hristian penis and the (a)merican penis to oppress the non-(a)merican penis. This was accomplished via many means, methods, and modes, but one that stands out as a common conceit is the strategic divisive colorizations of groups, divisive colorizations that produce conformity to the dominant narrative or a purging of nonconformity by the leveraging or pitting of one group against another (competition): males v. females; birth female feminists v. trans female feminists; (t)rans v. not-trans-enough-(t)rans; non-wealthy (w)hite males v. non-wealthy, non(w)hite, non-(c)hristian, non-(a)merican, nonheteronormative, non-binary males; all of which serve to support the hegemonic narrative (Anderson, 1988; Teranishi & Bordoloi Pazich, 2014; Gordon & Henery, 2014; Nicolazzo, 2016; Diamond, 2011; Hird, 2000; Vaccaro, 2017; Catalano, 2015)
Colorizing one group of non-wealthy males to validate the dominant narrative and drive hegemonic agenda and the engine of a capitalistic economy is a tried and true patriarchal tactic, dating back to the euro-invasion and colonization of the (n)orth (a)merican continent en mass. While (w)hite males were painted as civilized and assertive, as God’s pupil in godhood and the master race, indigenous (n)orth (a)merican males were colorized as overly masculine, overly aggressive, as savages, heathens, scalpers, rapists, thieves, murderers, and drunkards in desperate need of eradication, deculturalization, “saving,” “civilizing,” “educating,” and “managing” by the white male; the narrative, as expected, positioned non-wealthy (w)hite males in direct competition with the indigenous males for land and other resources (Laker & Davis, 2011; Gordon & Henery, Kimmel & Davis, 2011; Medin & Bang, 2014; Kehoe, 2006)
Black males were colorized as subhuman, lazy, shiftless, slouchers, dullards, dumb brutes incapable of coherent intellectual thought, welfare scammers, non-(a)mericans but property of (a)merica; as thieves, rapists, murderers, gang bangers, black bucks, anarchists, drug lords, aggressive and violent apish males to be feared, controlled, and kept in their place by (w)hite males and subsequently used as leverage to keep the non-wealthy, uneducated, (w)hite male laborers, intersectionally both beneficiary and victim of the hegemonic capitalist patriarchy, in their place and content with their lot, lest their jobs be given to (b)lack-skinned males at much lower pay rates (Anderson, 1988; Laker & Davis, 2011; Gordon & Henery, 2014, Kimmel & Davis, 2011)
Latinx males have been colorized as lazy and unmotivated, as freeloaders and yet as job thieves and laborers; as drug smugglers and runners, human traffickers, hypersexual rapists of mythical (a)merican virginal purity and femininity, gang bangers, unwilling to learn to speak (e)nglish, murderers, lowly laborers, cash hoarders, and invading anti-(a)merican “aliens,” “cockroaches” (Sáenz & Bukoski, 2014). Colorization of (l)atinx males has fired an (a)merican heteronormative (w)hite male sense of fear, insecurity, and threat to livelihoods, to property such as (a)merican soil and wives and daughters, and to tax dollars and essential resources, such as welfare and healthcare and “the (a)merican dream, all of which has led to a hyperbolic policing of citizenship and a capitalization on indefinite detention facilities for brown-skinned youth and adults.
Asian, (a)sian (a)merican, and (p)acific (i)lander (AAPI) males have been colorized as quiet, obedient, introverted, overachievers who are “out-whiting the (w)hites” (Teranishi & Bordoloi, 2014) by “hard work— not from a welfare check” (Teranishi & Bordoloi, 2014) and simultaneously as “unacculturated, perpetual foreigners” (Teranishi & Bordoloi, 2014) loyal only to their country of origin, which is to say, disloyal and un(a)merican or rather, never (a)merican and a potential threat in the form of betrayal. Rather, though, than overtly colorizing them in the fashion of a potential threat in need of control and management by (w)hite males, they’ve been hyperbolically colorized as effeminate, as mild (weak), obedient, timid, non-aggressive and non-threatening with the exception of their predisposition towards disloyalty and their “permanent alien” status and so their probable betrayal of (a)merica the beautiful and the (a)merican way of life. Through creative state mathematics and mass media, AAPI males have been heralded as the example for all males of color; however, their colorization is much the same as it is across all aforementioned populations, including the non-wealthy (w)hite male: hyperbolic myth systematically engineered, cultivated, and strategically deployed to drive hegemonic agenda and ruling class economic gains (Teranishi & Bordoloi Pazich, 2014; Kehoe, 2006; Anderson, 1988; Laker & Davis, 2011; Gordon & Henery, 2014).
Non-wealthy, white-skinned males, by colorization hyperbolized and widely broadcasted thanks to the commercialized and capitalized printing press and mass and mainstream poli-corporate media, to traveling “ministries” and evangelists and some churches such as the (s)outhern (b)aptist, have been colorized as god-like and in (g)od’s (w)hite omnipitant male image, superior to and saviors, protectors, and owners of, ordained by manifest destiny, (g)od’s favorite child and son, so entitled but also dispensable, replaceable, threatened, on the verge of disappearing. These “dominant narrative assumptions” (myths, colorizings) are reinforced and perpetuated through hegemonic policies, practices, and poli-corporate mainstream media. Such practices are evident in the (a)merican justice, detention, education, and media industries (Anderson, 1988; Medin & Bang, 2014; Laker & Davis, 2011; Strunk et al, 2015; Kozol, 2005; Katznelson, 2005; Nicolazzo, 2016; Diamond, 2011, Gordon & Henery, 2014; Roberts-Mahoney & Garrison, 2015; Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015; Smythe, 2015; Wells & Ramdeholl, 2015; Vaccaro, 2017; Kehoe, 2006; Khan, 2017; Jordan, 2014; Terranishi & Bordoloi Pazich, 2011).
Colorizations of white-skinned males makes them no less subject to indentured instrumentation, inflammation, consignment, and conscription than any other male of any other color, pitted against females, non-(w)hite males, and each other. Many are unaware that such competition plays on their (w)hite, (a)merican male identity, their fears and their enculturated biases engineered to serve and capitalize patriarchal hegemonic values and constructed via colorizations, interpretations, optimizations, operationalizations, all of which support and are supported by ruling intellectual statistics (colorized math) produced by and for the ruling class, its agenda, and its dominant, heteronormative, (w)hite, male narrative (Anderson, 1988; Medin & Bang, 2014; Laker & Davis, 2011; Strunk et al, 2015; Kozol, 2005; Katznelson, 2005; Nicolazzo, 2016; Diamond, 2011, Gordon & Henery, 2014; Roberts-Mahoney & Garrison, 2015; Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015; Smythe, 2015; Wells & Ramdeholl, 2015; Vaccaro, 2017; Kehoe, 2006; Khan, 2017; Jordan, 2014; Terranishi & Bordoloi Pazich, 2011).
In considering the colorization of non-(w)hite, non-conforming males as struggling, failing, underperforming, falling behind the “average” or hegemonically established statistical “norm,” and in a state of educational crisis, a broader spectrum of critical feminist male standpoint perspectives and deeper examination of hegemonic machinations is called for to determine the validity of such a claim. Little research has been done into how male gender, taken for granted and so nullified or made invisible, is formed. Much more research is needed to clarify the exact nature and source of this supposed educational crisis. More research might color an entirely different picture of the reported non-(w)hite male educational crisis. Perhaps this crisis lies not with the males but in the hegemonic capitalist policies and practices that pit one non-(w)hite male group against another and against (w)hite males and females of all skin colors. Perhaps it lies in the holding of these males to and judging them by a mythical homogenous, one-size-fits-all (w)hite-centric, hegemonic-values-and-agenda-driven, competition-prioritized rubric that disallows space for an extremely heterogenous male population and collection of cultures, backgrounds, epistemologies, experiences, beliefs, and differing ideals for what constitutes success (Bistóí & Lee, 2014; Sáenz & Bukoski, 2014; Harding, 2015)
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Trace Taylor 