Ideology Does Make Subjects of Us All

Hey Brother, I thought I recognized you!”

 A shiver ran up my spin when I heard this on campus today.  Its nothing about the statement itself that bothers me so much, it’s the speaker which is somewhat disturbing to me. It’s a fatter white man in the middle of the OU campus. The notion of community among whites has always been a odd thing to me.  I am of the firm belief that community is not offended on whiteness, and whiteness does not bring people closer together inside of America, rather that because it is the dominant description inside of society that it precludes this. That small Russian communities are more of a community than the suburbs will ever be, that the interaction of middle eastern groups is infinity more productive than going to the Y. That you are more likely to form groups solely based off whiteness is ridiculous to me. 

 

This hailing thought, makes me question it.  When I hear a black male say to another , in reference in place of name of the label of brother it doesn’t bother me in the least. To me it seems to represent a essentialist ploy towards a transcendental experience, a common linking of hey not white either, even thought this isn’t as common place among people that you don’t know. But to refer to someone as a brother, is a odd way to both depersonalize a interaction with someone and to increase it at the same time. The brother is the nameless, the removed individual pulled away. The brother is the closest because they share the most tight knit of bonds, when they are in fact not your biological brother, I think the assessment is of race instead. 

 

The White hailing of the brother scares me terribly because to me it paints the image of someone who thinks whiteness is under attack. The notion that somehow there is a power struggle between whites and non-whites, and that we need a system of solidarity to keep ourselves protected from the dangerous “colored’ other. It screams klan meeting, religious fanaticism and exclusion while a majority.  Its because this group is in the dominate that side pockets of culture make sense, why on earth would anyone want to integrate into that? It strikes me as a odd question now, is that how all of white interaction is? Is the Klan the exception or the rule and its just more unspoken and hidden?  I question my role in this system.

 

I feel like a drifter, I am a white atheist, without a home or a community of my own. My behavior is erratic and unpredictable, very much on the extreme of everything, am I part of this problem?