Been away from the board awhile, but before people get batshit conservative crazy, I don't refer to white guilt as "feeling bad for something my ancestors did" or even as a condemnation of progressive liberalism. (Those hippy beatnik commies!) But all the same, it's not a concept I've really had the opportunity to really think through and articulate to my satisfaction.
Cameron's Avatar helped me to start thinking about the subject partially because a lot of its critics pointed out how it's very emotionally manipulative, so while I enjoyed the movie in the moment, when you start taking it apart . . . it makes one
feel dirty. Nevermind, that it's also hot sweaty bait for Otherkin types, who need no further encouragement. There's also that bit where the outsider joins the natives, becomes their hero and saves them. (Meanwhile the Navi are all perfect and in harmony with nature, instead of, you know, being fucking primitive savages.) Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai is of a similar formula. White guy is the last samurai who fights against his former comrades as one of the samurai.
By that token, weeaboos sort of have that same fascination with Japanese culture. And ironically, it goes the other way as well, as Japanese tend to view white Europeans and Americans as being more cosmopolitan, with similar considerations extending to beauty standards. In Korea, plastic surgery is very much a thing, to the point that a nose job might very well be a graduation present for girls coming out of high school.
By the by, VICE has a documentary on the subject, but I'll just skip to a part I found particularly interesting. It highlights the mismatched cultural expectations that I discussed above. To give context, the hostess is interviewing a Chinese girl after her surgery with Korean plastic surgeons.
As we are wont to, me and my brother like to talk video games. On the subject of Overwatch, he feels vaguely uncomfortable with the women characters, not because they're hypersexualized, but because he feels they're pandering to him by going, "Look at this exotic girl of a different culture." In particular, he feels insulted by
D.Va being token Korean fap material. Read her background lore and you'll get what I mean. I put the word "appropriation" to it, though he was a little more reticent with that explanation.
Still, it reminds me of why I loath the Big Bang Theory, as I've literally been told by professors and fellow students (
chemists, in fucking fact), that I'm like Sheldon. And I can only say that recently, the idea that BBT is essentially "black face for nerds" really strikes home for me. It's really an insulting and patronizing idea of whatever they think a "nerd" is supposed to be. (Personally, I just care a lot about truth over any other consideration like wealth, honor, status, prestige or personal comfort but apparently that makes me a Sheldon.) And I can draw parallels to that and the race stuff.
I can't articulate my feelings any better than this, as it's something that's just sort of been brewing for a long time. If I had to summarize, "white guilt" really is just more the phenomenon where people go through all the motions of appearing cultured, open minded and tolerant without
actually being those things. They just check off boxes and then believe they're a better person for it. When really, it's just extremely patronizing and there is no real motivation for understanding the nuances about anything.
I am curious of a couple of things though, such as the travel of my surname in Europe, I have the impression it has moved around a bit. I am also curious if I have any "stationary" ancestry. Very possibly among my dad's lineages, on the Amerindian side of things, seeing as they were kind of isolated on that continent.
