Male Victim Syndrome

It seems that there is only one group of Americans who can be criticized, lampooned or bashed without consequence. That would be white, Christian, males of course. Being the largest minority (yes we are a minority) means that there are no PC considerations with which to bother. Apparently it is not possible to offend us. The columnist Leonard Pitts wrote a piece that essentially said we have such an advantage that it’s virtually impossible for us to garner any sympathy no matter what the offense.

While I don’t agree with Pitts, I think there are many who do. And there is enough awareness on that point that men themselves will often remain silent rather than air a legitimate gripe. You will never hear a man point out the huge difference between how Father’s Day is treated as compared to Mother’s Day. It would just sound too petty.

But last week I was visiting a big city. I was sitting around the hotel room watching daytime TV when a show called Cheaters came on. I had heard about but never seen it. So I watched two episodes with a constant wince. It involves a suspicious spouse or boy/girl friend who suspects they are being cheated on. They contact the sleazy host who then proceeds to sic a group of high tech private investigators on the suspected cheater. After they gather enough evidence, the host, offended mate and a camera crew descend on the cheater for a confrontation that is sure to include fireworks. They actually caught one couple in bed. It is beyond tacky.

But I did notice one thing about it. They had all kinds of couples. And when the woman was the doing the confronting, without fail, she attacked the man. That seems perfectly normal. After all he had betrayed her trust. But when the man was doing the confronting, he also attacked the man! Then they had the final couple. They were two lesbians and sure enough one of them was secretly seeing a guy on the side. So of course the other lesbian also attacked the man. Considering that the man was a bigger and tougher opponent in each case, I think there's someting to this.

Ironic Turn of Events

A short blurb in the papers that most people probably missed contained an extremely ironic aspect. It seems that the Chinese communists have had a policy in place since 1989 that says you are not supposed to even make reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre of that same year. But apparently an ad appeared in one of their newspapers that paid tribute to the "..mothers of June 4 victims." When the authorities saw the ad, they launched an investigation as to how this was slipped past the censors. They discovered that the particular government censor who missed it was quite young. And since any mention of the event had been banned all these years, she had never heard of it. I guess you re-write history at your own peril.