Spring Break
White American Male's unfortunate place in society
Alex McElroy
Issue date: 4/3/09 Section: Forum
As college students, we're supposed to ignore the millions of catch-22s plaguing society. I mean, there are just so many better things to do other than interrogate our traditions.
But there's an overlooked dilemma - involving roughly 35 percent of the Oregon State community - that's too prevalent to stay disregarded. I'm referring to, of course, the sexualization of the White American Male. It's a problem that plagues way too many of us, one rooted in the mores of a myopic 'Merica.
As a child, I thought nothing of my skin color. I wore peach-colored crayons to their asses, constantly ripping off paper until my family and friends had to settle for a Simpsonsy-yellow tone in the pictures I drew. I didn't know I was privileged; my rationalization was simple: color the people you see on TV.
I grew up in rural New Jersey, my mother - defined by her epicurean palette - left my taste buds habituated to culture; she introduced me to the likes of wilted spinach and braised lamb. And since we were Americans, we always ate with a third party: television.
It was the best of both worlds; I tasted foreign delicacies without a passport while earning visual insight into what it meant to be a man from "Friends," "Full House" and "Boy Meets World." I grew up thinking a good haircut, melodramatic neuroticism and Chicken Cordon Bleu were the components of masculinity, or as it's defined in the states: gettin' laid (insert obnoxious high-five).
But at my first college, where buffet-style meals were served for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I quickly learned that my prior assumptions couldn't have been more wrong. The other guys ate hamburgers and fries, chicken fingers and pizza - the American meals I'd eaten at friends' houses. And they did so with ferocious vigor, spitting shards of beef and potato as they bragged about Sara's shrieks or Tanya's, well … I was an outcast, unable to hoot, holler or high-five as they craned their necks to check out the tights that blonde was wearing.
But there's an overlooked dilemma - involving roughly 35 percent of the Oregon State community - that's too prevalent to stay disregarded. I'm referring to, of course, the sexualization of the White American Male. It's a problem that plagues way too many of us, one rooted in the mores of a myopic 'Merica.
As a child, I thought nothing of my skin color. I wore peach-colored crayons to their asses, constantly ripping off paper until my family and friends had to settle for a Simpsonsy-yellow tone in the pictures I drew. I didn't know I was privileged; my rationalization was simple: color the people you see on TV.
I grew up in rural New Jersey, my mother - defined by her epicurean palette - left my taste buds habituated to culture; she introduced me to the likes of wilted spinach and braised lamb. And since we were Americans, we always ate with a third party: television.
It was the best of both worlds; I tasted foreign delicacies without a passport while earning visual insight into what it meant to be a man from "Friends," "Full House" and "Boy Meets World." I grew up thinking a good haircut, melodramatic neuroticism and Chicken Cordon Bleu were the components of masculinity, or as it's defined in the states: gettin' laid (insert obnoxious high-five).
But at my first college, where buffet-style meals were served for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I quickly learned that my prior assumptions couldn't have been more wrong. The other guys ate hamburgers and fries, chicken fingers and pizza - the American meals I'd eaten at friends' houses. And they did so with ferocious vigor, spitting shards of beef and potato as they bragged about Sara's shrieks or Tanya's, well … I was an outcast, unable to hoot, holler or high-five as they craned their necks to check out the tights that blonde was wearing.
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