Hello, It’s Me

Hey! As said in class earlier on Wednesday, I’m Blaine, I’m currently majoring in government and politics and secondary education, and I go by traditional male pronouns.

In this week’s discussion, one of the discussion topics was an article titled “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting That There Is.” In this post, author John Scalzi makes a metaphor to gaming, in which those whose are born and identify with the characteristics of straight, white, and male are compared to playing the game of life – and, no, not the board game – on easy mode. Because of their status in society, straight white males (henceforth referred to as SWMs) have an easier time progressing and are predisposed to higher achievements with less effort than those who are born and identify in a different way. This does not mean that they will always have better lives than those of “other” status, as some people can play the game better than others, but their progression will still be easier.

While this article totally made sense while reading it, flipping it over to the back to read Lisa Nakamura’s “Queer Female of Color: The Highest Difficulty Setting There Is?” made me do a double take on a few points. While at times Nakamura does seem to be nitpicking Scalzi’s article, her point about Scalzi’s assumption that geek culture is an inherently masculine and male thing does raise an issue, of which is illustrated with her example of E3 presenter, Aisha Tyler, whose presence at the convention was something to be validated, rather than accepted. That is to say, Tyler, because of her status as a woman, was made to defend her position as a gamer, even though when a man states that he games, no one bats an eye or brings into question his validity. I would like to explore this topic further in the future. Another point that Nakamura raises is that while there are other articles with similar points that SWMs are privileged and therefore are generally more predisposed to an easier life, because these articles were not written by someone of the SWM demographic, as Scalzi’s was, they received less attention. I don’t think this diminishes Scalzi’s points however; in fact, to me, it can enhance them. Because someone of this privileged demographic can come out and speak in a non-attacking way about his privilege, it can show others in the same position that while they should not be blamed for it, the fact of the matter is that their privilege does affect other people’s day to day interactions with them in a typically more positive way.

(Side note: Last semester in communications we watched a video of a woman in a wheelchair who was discussing that those who have disabilities should be treated like any other human being. She said people told her she was inspiring but she always wondered why, as she stated she had never done anything worthy of admiration. She felt that just because she was in a wheelchair, it did not merit admiration and felt condescending. If someone who did not have a disability had expressed this thought, it might have come off in the wrong way – people would think “wow, what an asshole” instead of considering the point, because the appearance of this person doesn’t really match the experience they’re describing. The same idea applies to Scalzi’s article on SWMs.)