Treating White Males with Kindness, Respect and Inclusion

By JOHN YOUNG

I consider myself progressive, compassionate, open-minded. Heaven knows I’m tolerant.

Yet in recent days I have realized that routinely I am engaging in profiling.

I see a figure up ahead of me on the sidewalk or in the store: I start making judgments. My mind takes giant leaps that cause teeth and hands to clench and pheromones to fly.

This is something for which many of us have admonished others, like the president-elect. But here I’m admitting the same — generalizing about others because of race and sex.

Confession time? Here goes: Since the election, other white males scare the hell out of me.

White males are the demographic most responsible for electing a man whose belligerent tendencies would put White House security on high alert, were he to show up there unannounced.

I realize my sudden disposition about white males is wholly irrational.

Consider the first Thanksgiving. If the Native Americans profiled people like I have since the election, the feast in question might have been white meat, but not the fowl variety.

Instead, the first illegal aliens were greeted with kindness.

Once again, it’s stupid to generalize – particularly about white males. After all, if we fled to Canada like my wife has suggested we do, I’d encounter a whole bunch of them. And most of them would die before voting for someone like Donald Trump. So, too, in Sweden, and France and, for goodness sakes, Scotland, where Trump couldn’t be elected greens keeper.

So, once again, this attitude — this stereotyping — defies reason. And anyway, you can run, but you can’t hide from white males. They appear to be everywhere.

I’ve decided to start doing what great ethicists and spiritualists say: not be judgmental.

I’m going to take these matters one white male at a time. After all, the man at the hardware store who helped me find the drill bit I couldn’t find was white, and, quite possibly a Trump supporter. He was accommodating, and he knew drill bits. That’s one.

The optician who examined my eyes and told me my optic nerves were working efficiently was a white male. I found him competent and courteous. That’s another.

The man in the checkout line in front of me was white. He seemed non-threatening, and we appreciate the same brand of toilet paper.

This is going to be difficult, but I can do it, one white male at a time.

I have several white males in my family. I am committed to maintaining correspondence. This is called courage.

What I’m saying is that the tendency to generalize is a mindless reflex. Regardless of the situation, I’ll not make it a practice. I will not comport myself like Donald Trump has regarding Mexicans and Muslims.

Should more white males seek to come to our country, I will not resist it. Immigrants historically have been good for us. They bring enthusiasm, skills and new recipes.

Sure, white males have been involved in horrendous things – mass murders, kidnappings, sexual assault, insane wars. However, I am not for closing the borders to keep them out.

Oh, and this applies to heterosexuals as well. I realize that at least some heterosexual males cannot be trusted to keep their hands to themselves, that they tend to treat females as prey. But let’s not judge them all for that.

Therefore I say to you, America: We must learn to accept white males. They are among us for better or worse, and they aren’t going away, especially if Canada gets particular.

John Young is a longtime Texas newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2016

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