Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Heterosexual White Guy Journalists Association



There’s a need out there and I have undertaken to fill it. It’s my great pleasure to announce the formation of the Heterosexual White Guy Journalists Association, or HWGJA (hah-wug-jah). Minorities have taken steps to improve the way they’re portrayed in media and now it’s our turn to burnish our image, which has been getting trashed for many years now.

There’s the Association for Women Journalists on whose web site it says: “AWJ promotes the fair treatment of women in the media and the promotion of women in the newsroom through a scholarship program, career grants, networking, advocacy, career seminars . . .”

Then there’s the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association which proclaims: “NLGJA is an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students that works within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues.” In case you’re not hip to what LGBT means, it’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. That last is a new word for what we use to call a transvestite or a cross-dresser, or it could mean someone whose gone even further and had plastic surgery to either remove a penis or implant a facsimile. The latter procedure is what Rush Limbaugh calls an “adadictomy.”

There’s the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association, and - get this - both the Asian American Journalists Association and the South Asian Journalists Association. What’s up with that? Why is there a need for two Asian Journalists Associations? Can’t the AAJA just have a department like the South Asian Subcommittee or something like that? As founder and president of HWGJA, I intend to form special departments like the Republican Bureau (wouldn’t be any need for a Democrat bureau - see explanation below), the Jock Committee, the Redneck Panel, and the Unmedicated ADHD Task Force. I don’t know if the task force will ever get anything accomplished, but they’ll certainly be active.

As HWGJA president, I intend to apply for membership in the National Association of Multcultural Media Executives, or NAMME (nah-mee). I know what you’re thinking: heterosexual white guys are in the majority, right? Well, if NAAME refuses me membership I intend to sue, just as soon as HWGJA gets a legal department. I’ve already done the research into our minority status and my conclusion is that heterosexual white guys are definitely outnumbered in the profession. Take television journalism, for instance. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that Matt Lauer is exclusively heterosexual. No HWG gets excited about the latest designs in wedding dresses like Matt does. And when he’s not there, David Gregory fills in. Ever see Mr. Gregory sashaying to music with Meredith and Al outside the studio in New York City? At best, Lauer and Gregory are metrosexuals. They’ve had so much makeup applied to them so often, something’s happened to them. Males on other networks seem little better. We HWGs are definitely in the minority.

White metrosexual journalists covering Washington, DC are overwhelmingly Democrats and that party has become anathema to HWGs. That wasn’t always true, but HWGs have been leaving the Democrat Party for about thirty years now and I don’t think there are any left. Thomas Edsall at The Huffington Post organized a forum recently, asking: “Should the Dems love white guys or dump them?” Edsall was referring to HWGs of course because homosexual men have always been strong Democrats. Various non-HWGs weighed in with comments and the consensus was: “Who needs them? They’re a shrinking demographic anyway, so let them go.” That would explain why the party’s three leading candidates for president are: a woman - Hillary Clinton, a black man - Barack Obama, and a white guy of questionable sexual preference - John Edwards.

All these advocacy groups object when our mass media depict members unfavorably, whether they be black, Hispanic, homosexual, female, Asian, Muslim Arab, or whomever. Amos and Andy is out. So are Brer Rabbit, Little Black Sambo, and Speedy Gonzalez’s cartoon-character sidekick Slowpoke Rodrigues. Public school textbook publishers, for example, can only use images that depict minorities as the advocacy groups insist. Asians cannot be shown in laundries or as academics. Women cannot be portrayed as nurses or receptionists or caring for children. Blacks can’t be shown in an urban environment. All images must be counter to stereotype, even if the stereotype is accurate and substitute images distort reality.

Heterosexual white guys are the only ones left to ridicule or poke fun at, so we’re depicted as heartless oppressors of everyone else in the history textbooks our children read. We’re shown as selfish and stupid on television - like Homer Simpson or Family Guy for example. Behaving as normal boys in the typical public school classroom, we’re diagnosed with ADHD and force-fed amphetamines. At the other end of things, our life expectancy is shorter than that of women. In between our childhood and our death, we’re expected to keep everything running while all the other minority groups whine about how cruel and heartless we are.

My goal for the HWGJA, however, is not to complain about our circumstances the way the other groups whine about theirs. Heck no. Homer Simpson is funny. So is Family Guy. They wouldn’t be funny unless there were some basis in reality for their antics. My goal instead is to maintain a healthy, heterosexual-white-guy sense of humor and thereby provide a contrast to those other groups who desperately need to lighten up. We HWGs have to laugh at them every time people from those hyper-PC advocacy groups feign outrage and indignation at their lot in life and blame us. It’s the only way we're going to stay sane until they all grow up - if they ever do.

22 comments:

Mark In Irvine said...

In case you were wondering, you don't gain any credibility for (and you gain very little humor in support of) your cause by suggesting that there is some question as to whether M. Lauer, D. Gregory or J. Edwards is straight. Studies have shown that it's the guys who are worried about being latent homos who make a big deal about someone else's sexuality. If you have to make you case by "jumping on" (ahem) the other guy, you must have a pretty weak case after all.

Anonymous said...

Wow! You tread pretty close to being a White Supremacist. You may think this is funny but I think it is a pretty sad commentary on how at least one "White Guy" sees the world. No wonder American's are hated around the world.

Tom McLaughlin said...

"Studies have shown . . ." that I'm probably a self-hating, latent homosexual. Hmm. You're about the 179th person to make that allegation over the past eighteen years. When is it supposed to become so long repressed that it busts out with a Senator-Craig-type incident in a public mens' room? Will it be soon?

Guess I better warn my wife, because 179 homosexuals can't possibly be wrong about this.

Thanks for the warning Mark.

Tom McLaughlin said...

"metrosexual in dc"

Is that you Senator Craig?

Mark In Irvine said...

I advise you to do your business before leaving home, just to be safe, because apparently some airport cops are looking to entrap toe-tappers.

Mark In Irvine said...

I do my business before leaving home, and sometimes the missus helps me. Big grin.

Mark In Irvine said...

btw: happy new year.

Matthew Schaeffer said...

Tom, I guess you can include me in the HWGJA. I guess I can be apart of the Legal Dept, but then again, I'm not lawyer nor do I play one on TV, but if Rock Hudson can play a straight man, I can act like a lawyer.

Anyway, I like your stuff Tom. God luck with it.

Matt

Tom McLaughlin said...

Thanks for the feedback Jocko. Whether you agree with me or not, I put my real name on what I write. As for people who shoot off behind anonymity, I can't take them seriously.

Embarrassment to my school? You can ask them. I provide a healthy balance to the multicultural malarkey that's the usual fare in public education. It's pretty obvious what side of the scale you're on.

Anonymous said...

Interesting.

I'm a white guy and a member of the South Asian Journalists Association. If I didn't disagree with everything you stand for, I might join your organization just to piss you off.

Good night, and good luck.

mrcyriac said...

Hey Tom,
As a member of the South Asian Journalist Association (the sub-committee as you suggest) and a teacher myself, I was wondering if I would be able to join your organization. I was born in Kerala if that helps inform your decision.

You have inspired me to resurrect my own blog. Do let me know if I'm in.

Cyriac.

jrphilyaw said...

good stuff, tom, keep up the good work and the good fight for all us heterosexual white guys

i especially enjoy the comments from these people that have little compunction in bashing HWG for expressing what it feels like to be a HWG in 2008 America

while i don't care whom matt lauer, david gregory or john edwards have sex with, i will say that any man that wears as much make-up as they do each day and any man that spends more than about 60 seconds on his hair each morning, while not explicitly gay, is a douchebag

and i love this metrosexual in DC alluding to calling you a white supremacist and equating your thoughts with foreigners feelings about America

it's been my experience that some, repeat some, foreigners dislike Americans because of the delusions of grandeur and little understanding of history that so many Americans have

i could go on, but no one seems to care what us HWG think anyway

again, keep up good work, tom

-jason philyaw

Mark In Irvine said...

I'm an HWG, but don't feel the need to shout it from the rooftop, or on the 'net, 'cause I don't feel threatened by anyone, gay or straight. I DO feel threatened by GWB, however.

Anonymous said...

I am not white or male but I totally agree with you.

Anonymous said...

have u seen the CSA movie? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:_The_Confederate_States_of_America

Anonymous said...

A normal HWG has both testosterone and estrogen in their systen to make their body run healthily. Normally, when they are in balance, there is no need for one to out-express the other, you just perform as a normal member of your gender. Tom on the other hand, has radioactive testosterone that makes him want to be pointing to his crotch every 5 minutes and yelling for everyone to look. I personally will not respond to any more of his silliness on this site. There is no point. He just replies with another crotch point, and enough is enough.

Anonymous said...

Gosh, Tom!

You're getting the babes all wild again here on your blog.

Koli Mitra said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mark In Irvine said...

gee - you white guys must be feelin' all oppressed 'n' stuff - nobody's payin' attention to ya, huh? what's the problem? not gettin' enuf lovin'? maybe try loosenin' up a bit - ya know - go commando instead of wearin' those tighty whities.

an incredulous whit guy reader who's gettin' lotsa lovin'

Anonymous said...

Being a heterosexual white female who has watched normal white people get slammed all over the place by special interest groups all whining together to create one loud whiny voice..
I just want to say.. good on ya for the HWGJA...
bout time straight white guys get some recognition... journalists or not..

Of course.. I read all the whiny comments trying to shut up any normal white voice that calls them for what they are... whiny..

Overall.. it's really sad that one can't just be a "journalist"...

But hey..
Maybe once the special interest journalistas see that normal white boys ain't going to be a whipping post anymore.. all this BS will fade away and maybe one will just one day be known as a "journalist" with no other declaration...

We can only hope..

In the meantime...
Long Live HWGJA

Mark In Irvine said...

"Maybe once the special interest journalistas see that normal white boys ain't going to be a whipping post anymore"

uh ... in the bad ole days, it was the black folks that were bein' tied to them whipping posts ...

and nobody's picking on the white straight guys - some people must just be feeling awfully "sensitive", poor babies ...

Anonymous said...

"uh ... in the bad ole days, it was the black folks that were bein' tied to them whipping posts ..."

ummm .. yeah.
Of course... that was approx 150 years ago..
time to move on maybe around that..?


"and nobody's picking on the white straight guys -"

oh..?
Poor Dawg the Bounty Hunter might disagree...
He was almost taken off air for saying "nigger" in a private conversation...
Jesse Jackson calls someone a "nigger" and it barely gets mentioned.

I guess that's not picking on straight white guys.. ;o)


Just one little instance.

The problem with straight white guys is that special interests have them on the run...
They should be like Clint Eastwood when Spike Lee was whining about no black men being in Flags of our Fathers...