Mad Thoughts

And you’d think that fellow nerds, regardless of race and gender, would understand given that our status as freaks and geeks and outcasts would give us some humility and common ground to stand on. Unfortunately, this is not often the case. Try bringing up issues of race, class, gender, and homophobia on a video game message board and see the vitriolic response you get, no matter how diplomatic you try to be. Bring up issues of representation and race to fans of Battlestar and Firefly and get told that you’re a killjoy or one of the “PC police” who doesn’t understand what their favorite show is trying to do. Bring up the relative absence of Asian men in American pop culture and people invariably bring up Bruce Lee – without acknowledging the fact that he was passed over for the television show he created, Kung Fu, for a white actor, and had to go to Hong Kong to find success. Point out that The Last Airbender has an almost all-white cast and people will say, since they’re animated and fictional, they’re not supposed to be Asian – while ignoring that, even when the characters are supposed to be Asian, Hollywood makes them white anyway (see the movie 21, based on a true story where almost all of the real life people involved were Asian Americans, or if you need to stay with nerd references, see Bulletproof Monk, where the Asian American character in the comic is replaced by a white guy).

This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

Think of it this way. Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode. Interestingly, Wikus in District 9 learns a very different lesson. He’s becoming alien and he can’t go back. He has no other choice but to live in the slums and eat catfood. And guess what? He really hates it. He helps his alien buddy to escape Earth solely because he’s hoping the guy will come back in a few years with a “cure” for his alienness. When whites fantasize about becoming other races, it’s only fun if they can blithely ignore the fundamental experience of being an oppressed racial group. Which is that you are oppressed, and nobody will let you be a leader of anything.