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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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One of those memetic ironies: it's become de rigeur among the anti racist set to constantly identify oneself as white in a mildly ironic self effacing way. White boy summer, white girl wasted, I'm just an old white dude, they never should have let a white boy like me (x), white son in law energy. The identification is primarily negative, but mildly so.

Where when SA originally wrote his piece identifying as White was a red tribe affectation, today it might almost be more a blue tribe affectation to constantly go on about one's whiteness.

This does not, of course, preclude the affectation developing from irony to importance. Nor does it mean the event was real, it could quite easily be faked and reflect the tastes of just a handful of campaign staff.

Eh, Whitest Kids U Know was incredibly quotable to a certain age group, too.

Did social media let this sort of humor get a little closer to the people in power? Probably. Does it reflect an actual acceptance of identitarianism? Not so much.

Does it reflect an actual acceptance of identitarianism? Not so much.

There are very few groups more accepting of identitarianism than white progressives, and all the others are shunned from nearly all mainstream spaces (the remainder, like Banania, should be but are not, because the universe is fickle). They primarily approve of it for others, but they definitely approve of it.

The first two times I saw this was in the context of basketball: the title of the film “White Men Can’t Jump,” and Larry Bird in Space Jam being “clear” as a reference to WMCJ. (My mom still laughs every time.)

Where when SA originally wrote his piece identifying as White was a red tribe affectation, today it might almost be more a blue tribe affectation to constantly go on about one's whiteness.

Eh, identifying oneself as White is kinda blue, but 'is he White or Mexican/black/whatever' is a red tribe thing, and the expected answer if talking about a liberal White would be 'hipster' or something of that sort.

White boy summer, white girl wasted

These seem more apolitical. I suppose they’re vaguely left if only because zoomers are more left than the average of the rest of the population, but it’s not a huge tell politically.

The self deprecating nature of those statements is apolitical in the sense of it doesn't take a position on immigration reform or tax policy. But the self effacement excludes white identitarian politics. Which makes sense given Chet Hanks' well known love of miscegenation.