The Ridiculousness of Unabashed Whiteness
As always with my posts, if you have a moment, please read the PREAMBLE for context. However, if you are strapped for time, scroll down to STORY.
PREAMBLE:
A few weeks ago, I was privy to a situation where a client of color was being bullied in the most obvious of ways….hyper-policed, over-criticized, and singled out for actions deemed perfectly acceptable and normal by their White colleagues. Far too many professionals of color know this story, but have little recourse, as racial gaslighting (you see it, but white folks tell you it’s not a thing) is the Infinity Gauntlet (Thanos’s glove of doom) of power grabs. Fortunately, I have witnessed, firsthand, this pattern play-out for almost a decade and have developed an (imperfect) process for bringing this culture to light, holding organizations accountable for vanquishing the most toxic overt racism, and, hopefully, restoring some semblance of (unfortunately) normal covert racism to an organization.
STORY:
A prime example of unchecked, out-of-control, unabashed whiteness can be best captured by the ridiculous performance of Australia’s Dr. Rachel “Raygun” Gunn at the 2024 Olympics. While the levels of gall and moxie were impressive, considering the absolute absence of any semblance of skill and awareness, I was truly aghast (while I shouldn’t have been, considering what I have come to understand about the nature of whiteness) at pure display of unrestrained confidence, while literally performing a last-place, train-wreck of a show. In EVERY OTHER SPORT in the Olympics….might I repeat…EVERY OTHER SPORT…the last place finisher knows they are last, even as they are phoning in a terrible performance…and tends to act accordingly.
Kinzang Lhamo (Bhutan) came in dead last in the marathon. And, while she finished to the applause of the gracious crowd, she knew she was last and acted accordingly. Other prime examples are Damian Warner’s (Canada) disqualification in the decathlon, when Lamecha Girma (Ethiopia) rocked his melon in the steeple chase, knocking him unconscious, and who can forget, Anthony Ammirati’s (France) junk knocking down the clearance pole in the pole vault. All these folks knew, during the event, they’d missed, but somehow, Raygun maintained her unabashed pathology that she “killed it” before, during, and even AFTER the global tragedy of a performance (you gotta watch her return to the down-under, celebration video to truly ingest, appreciate, and understand the depth of whiteness pathology).
Whiteness says, if you merely “DO” anything with unrestrained confidence, you can be a star! Never mind the millions of people of color who are truly talented and have actual skill, merit, and expertise. Whiteness says not “fake it til you make it” it says, “fake it so you CAN make it”. This doesn’t work for people of color. We gotta make it above and beyond to even reach baseline at mediocre white folk levels.
The global impact of Raygun’s “epic” performance is at a white-hot level. My hope is a small sliver of the conversation is questioning how whiteness not just allowed (and continues to allow) attention to be focused on arguably the worst publicly viewed break dancing performance of all times will likely give rise to the global popularly of an abject failure of yet another mediocre white performer over the actual winners (gold, silver, and bronze medalists…two of which are women of color) of the inaugural breakdancing Olympic event.