'The True Alpha Male':... Elliot Rodger, and Aggrieved White Male Entitlement Syndrome

[sheshe2]

'The True Alpha Male': The Santa Barbara Mass Shooting, Elliot Rodger, and Aggrieved White Male Entitlement Syndrome

In a complementary manner, William Hamby offers up a sharp synthesis of how rage and white male privilege come together to create monsters:

Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel (2010) proposed a mechanism that might well explain why white males are routinely going crazy and killing people. It's called "aggrieved entitlement." According to the authors, it is "a gendered emotion, a fusion of that humiliating loss of manhood and the moral obligation and entitlement to get it back. And its gender is masculine." This feeling was clearly articulated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre. Harris said, "People constantly make fun of my face, my hair, my shirts..." A group of girls asked him, "Why are you doing this?" He replied, "We've always wanted to do this. This is payback... This is for all the sh*t you put us through. This is what you deserve."

At the risk of getting too existentialist, I'd like to propose a very simple and elegant explanation for not only school shootings but a host of other barbaric acts in recent years: White men are having a crisis of both aggrievement and entitlement. One need only look at the 2012 election season to see less brutal but equally mind-numbing examples of white men going mad because they are losing their power. The "Republican Meltdown" is a perfect example of men who previously had all the control escalating to madness when that control was lost...

The thing is, losing power hurts. That's the "aggrieve" part of aggrieved entitlement. It's one thing for a bunch of white men to feel hurt because they are no longer the kings of their own private castles, rulers of all they survey. It's another thing for them to feel like they're entitled to power, and more importantly, entitled to punish others for taking it away. And that -- aggrievement plus the feeling of entitlement -- is what may well drive people like Adam Lanza to these horrific crimes.

Any brave soul who dares to talk about white masculinity, white privilege, and gun violence will be hounded by the Right-wing's dogs--a media machine that cares nothing for the truth. Many otherwise decent, smart, and fair-minded white folks may also recoil at the thought that Whiteness and White Masculinity can be dysfunctional and violence. When an entire social structure has been erected to reinforce the lie that white folks are "normal", and those "Others" are "deviant" or "defective", it can be very difficult to break out of that haze of denial. Such an act requires a commitment to truth-telling and personal, critical, self-reflection which Whiteness, by definition, denies to most of its owners.

http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2014/05/the-true-alpha-male-ucsb-mass-shooting.html

[SevenSixtyTwo]

1. Elliot Rodgers was pissed

because he couldn't get laid. Would you care to compare the number of black male on white female rapes to the number of white male on black female rapes? Not only is the article racist, it's idiotic.

[bravenak]

3. Look at you.

Deflection.

[Whisp]

5. hmmm, SST eh?

Just noticing your acronym... sort of reminds me of someone who took a severe and deserved pummeling here lately on posting racist shit. But of course I could be wrong, I can be that once in a while - I remember back in 1972 I guessed wrong in one of those 'guess how many gumballs' in the gumballs machine.

Ever do a flip horizontal in Photoshop?

[Squinch]

7. Prize for the most bigoted and misinformed thread of the week! Tell you what, why don't YOU do

yourself a favor to a little research into the number of black male rapists to the number of white male rapists. You won't find what you are assuming you'll find.

Speaking of racist...

[sheshe2]

9. Had you read the link...

You would understood a bit more....

[Gormy Cuss]

14. 1) if you think that not getting laid was really Rodgers problem, you're glossing over a lot.

2)Where is the evidence that Rodgers raped, or even had the intention of raping?
3)What does the number of reported black-white rapes have to do with anything? And FWIW, if you're going to use something as evidence of your assertion, at least provide the data and source.

[Skidmore]

2. Link to a report about rape to point out the

prevalence and who is victimized by whom.

http://www.sarsonline.org/resources-stats/reports-laws-statics

[sheshe2]

10. Sad statistics are they not Skidmore. nt

[Skidmore]

20. Sure are, sheshe.

I fear so much for my little granddaughters when they will finally go out on their own. I really do. I really find this descent into a predatory society to be pervasive and so disturbing.

[sheshe2]

21. I have no children of my own, Skidmore.

Yet my sisters kids, I always loved them as my own. Now I have 1 grand niece and two grand nephews. I fear for them all. It's sad we have to say that.

It's why we continue to fight the fight and will until the day that we die.

[Whisp]

4. Thankyou, sheshe, K&R

[LittleBlue]

6. He was mixed, not white. nt

[mwrguy]

11. He looks and acts white

So he's white.

[LisaL]

13. He was biracial. He called himself Eurasian.

He looked biracial, and I am not sure what you mean by claiming he "acts white."

[LittleBlue]

16. "acts white"

Huh?

He's biracial.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

17. "Acts" white?

Does President Obama "act" black?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

22. wow

[backscatter712]

24. Aggrieved entitlement douchebaggery doesn't limit itself to white people.

Look at Boko Haram - these are black Muslim men, for the most part, who are going apeshit because women are daring to do things like *GASP* go to school, or even worse *GASP* refusing to wear black sacks over their heads. All of the sudden, these black Muslim men are feeling entitled, and that they're losing their privilege, so they're going apeshit.

[el_bryanto]

8. That's well argued - makes a lot of sense. nt

[Laelth]

12. Interesting. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Scuba]

15. "Alpha male"? Isn't the alpha male connotation more of the protector of the pack? This guy ....

... was the weakest of the weak.


Perhaps the usage is evolving.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

18. The attempt to drag Adam Lanza into this "theory"....

....shows the author really doesn't have a fucking clue what they are talking about.

Adam Lanza was treated as a freak most of his life, and didn't even have the basic social skills to remotely blend in to white privileged society, or any society at all.

[SaltyBro]

19. Until white privilege is addressed in this country

we will have people like this Elliot Rodger kid mass murdering people.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. wow

Edited to add -- Don't forget about Cho, Chris Dorner and Aaron Alexis.

[AgingAmerican]

25. White privilege drove this half Asian kids desire to kill all women??

Hmmmmm...