Straight White Men

The saying goes that those named in the title are the only group it's safe to mock. Of course, that theory is most often espoused by members of that group. I have a hard time taking their cries of persecution seriously. I had a friend -- who was, in fact, a member of that group -- ask me once in all seriousness why there wasn't a white men's television network. He was complaining about the existence of Lifetime and BET. So I told him that the world is essentially the white men's network. He didn't entirely get it, so we agreed to disagree (sort of).

I thought about this today because I've had LOGO on most of the day as I've been cleaning the house. Until yesterday, I had never watched a single episode of Will and Grace. At this point, I've probably watched twenty. It all started because when I turned on the TV, Woody Harrelson was on and I wanted to wait and see what the show was. It's mildly amusing, some episodes more than others. Just a little while ago, the marathon was interrupted by a show called Straight Out News, or something like that. I like that LOGO is being inclusive. The news show has a white gay guy and a black straight guy as anchors. It's not a great show, but it tries.

The other thing I tried to explaint to my friend was that none of these networks excludes people of other groups from watching. I've heard other people wonder why we need a Black television network and a women's television network -- or Black history month or women's history month. What white men should understand before they complain about any of this is that history has been written from a white male perspective, at the exclusion and/or to the detriment of other groups. I don't know whether we need these things, but I don't see the problem. Unless, of course, white men are afraid of women, Blacks or gays. That's a whole different issue.