Imagine someone at the top of the social food chain. What does this person look like? How do they act? Who do they hang out with? What skills do they have?
In the United States, white men — who established the rules of the social food chain — have historically occupied this space at the top. Their status was tied to both their gender and their race. Over time, in fits and starts, this has shifted. Women and people of color have gained status (the right to vote! and own property! to bodily autonomy! to share the same physical space as others!), necessarily at some expense to white men. Social and cultural status and its signifiers have changed along with it. This shift has led to racial resentment among whites, who believe it is unfair. They think the traditional arrangement (what we might call white supremacy and patriarchy) was better, more… natural.
Loss of social status and the accompanying racial resentment are often expressed in a semi-coded language: “we are losing our way of life” “they don’t share our values” “let a man be a man” “I don’t feel at home in my own country” “let’s see them try to cancel me!” etc. You get the gist.
One of my favorite dramatizations of this phenomenon is from the 2012 film 21 Jump Street. Two cops, played by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, go undercover as high school students to break up a drug ring. Several years earlier, Hill’s character had been bullied in high school by Tatum’s character, a popular athlete and prom king. Before their first day undercover, Tatum’s character explains the rules of high school: 1. don’t try hard at anything. 2. make fun of people who do try. 3. be handsome. 4. if anyone steps to you on the first day of school, punch them in the face. 5. drive a kick-ass car. Oh, and always wear your backpack over one shoulder. No two-strapping!
In this scene, the traditional, conservative hierarchy Tatum’s character grew up with has been replaced. There are new social groupings he doesn’t recognize. His strengths are now weaknesses. Bullying is out; empathy is in. Punching a gay Black kid in the face is a sin of the first order. And everybody is two-strapping.
Because we like Tatum, and his character, we can empathize with him, even as we think he’s ridiculous and applaud his low-stakes comeuppance. This is helpful, because in real life, we are reluctant to empathize with people in his position. White men have had it all, in a system they created and sustained, and now that they are being forced to share it we are supposed to feel bad? Fuck those guys.
I admit that on most days, I’m part of the “fuck those guys” caucus. Given how lopsided the scales have been for so long, it feels like an act of supreme chutzpah to complain when they shift, ever so slightly, and ever so slowly, towards something approaching balance. So we meet their chutzpah with our derision, and match their resentment with our resentment. They are still in the lead, but others are catching up; neither side feels good about its position, but our momentum sustains us and their fear animates them.
As the rising, diverse majority replaces bullying with empathy, do we have any empathy for the bullies we displace? What about empathy for those just not yet in our camp, the dislodged and unsettled, seeking a secure, affirming home? Particularly those who are poor or working class, who cling extra hard to social advantages that are among the few assets they can leverage for any financial gain? In 21 Jump Street, Tatum’s character is on a personal journey, to adapt and thrive in a new reality. It’s fiction, and comedy, but it’s still worth asking if we have room for Tatum at the table.
