Elliot Rodger’s half-white male privilege - by Joan Walsh
The killers Asian heritage matters. So does his ugly class entitlement. Misogyny crosses lines of race and culture
JOAN WALSH
The widespread recognition that Elliot Rodgers killing spree was the tragic result of misogyny and male entitlement has been a little bit surprising, and encouraging. Why, then, has it been so hard to get his race right?
From the left, headlines (including on Salon) have labeled him white, though most stories at least nodded to his Asian heritage (his mother was ethnic Chinese Malaysian). Chauncey DeVegas fascinating piece on Rodgers crime as evidence of
aggrieved white male entitlement syndrome, a malady that includes other white male mass killers from Columbines Eric Klebold to Newtowns Adam Lanza, didnt mention his status as half-Asian.
When commentators noted the omission, DeVega (whose work I admire) doubled down in a follow up piece,
Yes, Elliot Rodger is white! He argued that Rodger constructed an identity for himself as Eurasian and proceeded to internalize American societys cues and lessons about power, privilege, race, and gender. He then lived out his own particular understanding of what it means to be white and male in the United States.
Not that I have a lot of sympathy for Rodger, but it twists his already twisted story to label him simply white.
Predictably,
the right is having a lot of fun with progressives calling Rodger white, because denying Rodger whiteness gives them another reason to deny white male privilege entirely. Meanwhile, the
wingnut white supremacists over at the New Observer are calling the Isla Vista killings an anti-white hate crime, ignoring that its first three victims were Rodgers three male roommates, who were of Asian descent. It wont be long until Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity join that party.
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/29/elliot_rodgers_half_white_male_privilege/