The Caucasia Syndrome

No one cares about white guys. I can come right out and say that without fear of retribution because why? You guessed it, no one cares. No one wants my opinion on anything, we have no months of dedication, not even a day. People can say whatever they want to me and I'm supposed to grin and bear it. Sigh...

Well ordinarily this doesn't bother me all that much (my vast DVD collection keeps me in a relatively good mood I suppose, it deadens the pain of my increasing superfluousness) but today I was taking a survey. I was invited to this survey site last fall semester, and it's by invitation only, because of the obscene amount of money I spend on the aforementioned DVD collection. It's pretty cool, for filling out a survey on consumer type stuff you get points, and once you reach a certain point level you get a gift card. Sounds pretty good right? Well that's only if you're in the group they're looking to survey at that time (then you get 40-75 points) and if you're not you get fewer points (remember when I said "fewer points" a second ago? Well that "fewer" was a hyperbolic understatement because they give you 2 points). And every time they tell me they don't need me, it's after I check the "Caucasian" button. Well, I'm usually only twelve seconds or so into the survey so I don't really care.

BUT

Today, they had me watch the pilot for a new show called "Defying Gravity." It has some slight potential, but because of what they've done to me this day it's now on my vengeance list right along with "Grey's Anatomy" and the orthocons (but hey, if they all want to go the way of DHL that's fine with me, I can't be responsible for what my retribution will bring once they open that door). I watched the WHOLE FREAKING PILOT EPISODE and then answered what must have been a BAZILLION nitpicky questions that I would have had a hard time answering about characters on "24" (which I've been watching since 8th Grade, and every episode of which I've seen anywhere from 2-5 times). And yet, after devoting an hour of my life to watching the pilot and answering the questions (an hour that could've been spent doing more productive things like watching TV, playing video games, or counting blades of grass) they suddenly told me, "Oh we've got enough of (your kind) on this survey already so here take 2 points, put them on a good horse." (slight exaggeration)

Umm, excuse me, but the last time I looked, the demographic that every TV show tries to reach is who now? Oh yes, white males between the ages of 18-34. That's me baby! At last, someone cares. And I do my part, I currently watch something like 25 shows and I've seen every episode of 70+ shows. And yet, even though we're the most influential, still no one wants my opinion. Why is it that within a 30 second clip for a lot of shows you see an explosion, a scantily clad woman, and maybe four total seconds of exposition about the plot? Because they're trying to reach all the 18-34 year old white guys who have nothing better to do than watch all of their shows (this is also why there's always a male character who is single and who beats down lots of bad guys every week, we can imagine ourselves as him and save on therapy bills).

But no, instead my opinion, which has done much for the studios, has gone the way of Moses. It's led an entire people (most of my friends) to the Promised TV Land (of bilking money) and yet it's left to rot on some mountaintop alone with its 2 opinion points (the last part stretches the allegory a bit). Doesn't my opinion deserve more? Haven't I spread the word enough? Haven't I given them enough money? Nope, much like 4 out of 5 commercials for household products, the one rule is the white guy comes out last.

You know what would make me feel better? I don't even need a whole month (even though they're starting to get as specific as "Trinidad and Tobagoan awareness month"), I'll take a day. And don't tell me that "every month is white guy history month" because that's like saying that every day is steak day at Vegan club. Is our history discussed every month? Certainly, but people only seem to focus on the negative stuff. Examples include:

"Well sure, George Washington may have set the standard for leaders in this country by refusing to be a king and instead becoming a short-term elected representative, but he stole a kid's lunch money once!"

"Yeah you know, Abraham Lincoln brought the country back together and everything, but you know he was way taller than his Homecoming date Junior year and everyone thought she was a freak!"

"Okay, maybe Teddy Roosevelt was instrumental in preventing war between Russia and Japan but that big stick he was always talking about carrying was a mutilated limb from an innocent tree!"

So as you can see, teachers are starting to ignore anything good done by white guys because some of them did very bad things back in the day (it's a well known fact that only white men are monumental bad guys, Kim Il Sung and Idi Amin were actually white guys with big budget prosthetics). And so we're all lumped into the same category: Caucasian. Has anyone ever been to this Caucasia place? Because I'm pretty sure I haven't. People are rightfully upset when they're marked down as being from Nigeria when they're really from Tanzania (I'm from Maryland and I certainly wouldn't want to be marked down as being from one of the Dakotas, does anyone even live there?). However, I do suppose that since all white people are exactly the same, with the same background and religious beliefs, it's okay to lump them all together into the same pile. Why, just look at Ireland.

Just one day out of the year is all I want, to maybe tell the story of the Alamo where Davy Crockett doesn't surrender (that's the way it happened, go ahead and challenge me on it). To tell the stories of Thomas Jefferson's genius inventions, instead of harping on the fact that he had an affair with one of his slaves (doesn't that make him progressive? He wasn't a bigot when it came to attractive women, that's more than a lot of people could say back then). I'm not saying we should all go out and watch "Birth of a Nation" or anything crazy like that, I think telling some stories that shed a positive light on white men would be nice for once, to talk about what precious few of us weren't power hungry Lex Luthors.