“Douchebag: The White Racial Slur We’ve All Been Waiting For”
“If we think of the douchebag as a social identity as much as an accusation, as a subject with a distinctive persona locatable within the categories of race, class, gender and sexuality, then we find that the term carries a remarkably precise definition.
The douchebag is someone — overwhelmingly white, rich, heterosexual males — who insist upon, nay, demand their white male privilege in every possible set and setting.
The douchebag is equally douchy (that’s the adjectival version of the term) in public as in private. He is a douchebag waiting in line for coffee as well as in the bedroom. This definition marks him, like the atavistic, dusty rubber douchebags of our grandmothers’ generation, as a useless, sexist tool. Armed with this refined definition, I believe the term “douchebag” is the white racial slur we have all been waiting for. We have only to realize this. White privilege itself has blinded us to the true nature of the douchebag’s identity. But it’s been there all along.”
This is great, this is academe ☺ This whole article (except for maybe the stuff on hipsters, that’s more complicated).
I am really into this word sez, and I really like his definition of white privilege.
I am interested in this idea of the function of identity-words as ‘naming’ someone, naming some perceived quality of theirs that might not be visually apparent or socially obvious. It makes me think about the origins of most slurs, and why they are such weighted words, and why the debate over the word ‘redskins’ is so missing the point that right now, today, in this moment, in front of you, it is slicing peoples’ sense of self into pieces no matter how many fans think they are honoring something or how many Native Americans say they are cool with it.
I think everyone has experienced this to some degree, that moment when someone else names you and it just isn’t accurate and your soul shrinks a little bit— but then also that moment when someone names you and you discover something new about yourself that you had never articulated and you are able to broaden out a little bit.
Basically trying to tease out why it is that I find this naming of douchebags so obviously useful.
(Credit to CS)
