The Elites are Gaslighting All of Us

A blend of identity and status-washing has torn us apart.

I’ll admit, that title doesn’t seem to fit at a newsletter titled, “Manhood Reimagined,” but it is key to understanding the world we find ourselves in, one where straight, white, elite men have rigged the system for their benefit. Part of that rigging intentionally stunts the journey of manhood. Read on to find out how.

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My last post closed with the claim that America’s culture war is a tool used by straight, White, elite men to prevent us from engaging in an honest assessment of the inequitable world we find ourselves in. Through a blend of identity and status-washing, those at the top keep us divided.

Here’s how it works.

Identity-Washing

In that broad description of straight, White, elite men, the word that matters most is elite. How do we know this? Because those at the top are more than willing to have a public face that includes some women, queer-folk, and a bit of color, as long as these representatives of a diverse audience help maintain a status quo that keeps them in power.

This identity-washing seeks to convince those who are aware of social inequities that the elites are “one of them.” The idea is if they can project the image that they are culturally aware, then it will help them to stay in power.

The result is Amazon posting a banner on their website saying, “Black Lives Matter,” even as their predominantly Black warehouse staff are viewed as dispensable, up to the point they’ve been told to keep working after coworkers fell dead on the job in 2019 and again in 2022. Sadly, that is only part of the story, as Emily Guendelsberger explores in “On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did To Me And How It Drives America Insane” (affiliate).

Or it’s how you end up with a CIA ad like this one:

That’s right, it doesn’t matter what your identity is, you too can be a part of an organization that:

• topples democratically elected (but not business-friendly) governments creating chaos in South America and longstanding enemies in the Middle East,

• missed 9/11 (and now use that as an excuse to surveil us),

• falsely guided us into the Iraq invasion,

• helped keep us in Afghanistan for 20 years without any measurable gains, and

• continually finds itself on the wrong side of history.

All of this happens at the expense of tens of thousands of lives and millions more who continue to struggle with their physical, mental, and emotional health. But hey, it’s good to know that it’s not just White men who make the world worse while helping the broader military-industrial complex rake in billions.

In the end, whether it is Amazon, the CIA, or some other group, the point here is that even when there is representation of marginalized groups, the communities they come from do not benefit. It is all done to make the corporation/organization look inclusive and socially conscious even as what they do harms the masses.¹

Yes representation is important, but granting a couple of representational exceptions does not create systemic opportunity, instead it often becomes a cudgel that beats down anyone who doesn’t “make it.”

Status-Washing

But straight, White men tend to be complicit in this confusion because we buy into status-washing. This is a lesson today’s elites picked up from the Robber Barons of the Industrial Revolution (who learned it from Slave Traders).

At the turn of the century, the Bourgeois used the European descent of the Irish and Italians to convince them they had more in common with the elites (after all, they were all White) than the rest of the Black and Brown working class. This divided the Proletariat and enabled the elites to maintain control over everyone (I’m pretty sure it is also where we got middle management).

Today, these “rags to riches” stories of Gates, Bezos, Zuck, and Musk are propped up as examples of who we too can be if we put our heads down and work hard, never mind that the “rags to riches” version of these stories are as much fairy tale as truth.

But we hear them and want to live that dream so we do what we’ve been taught to do in hopes that someday the story will be about us. But two things happen when we do this:

1. we participate in a social structure that often harms women and other historically marginalized groups, and

2. because we assume the system is meritocratic and we all have equal opportunity, any move made to address inequity feels like an assault on our opportunity.

So we grind away only to hear horns blare as we pull into a blind spot. We get angry because we’ve been made the perfect foils as the defenders of the status quo. We often think we are defending straight, White, and male, but in truth, we are defending oppressive elites.

What Now?

So what do we do in a world where elites manipulate both sides for their benefit?

1. I suggest we all start by recognizing that Top-Bottom is a far more significant division than Right-Left (once you lop off the White Supremecists).

2. Since this is a newsletter for men and society has cultivated a world where we can easily have a slew of blindspots, we start educating ourselves. Here are four easy reads (and one not so easy) I’d recommend (links are affiliate).

   1. “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: In the most delightfully African way, Adichie reveals the world as she experiences it and invites us all into a better way of being. If you have a stereotype of who feminists are, this is a great place to start.

   2. “Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit: If I hadn’t heard so many women affirm the basic message of this book, I’d assume the opening piece came straight from The Onion. At other points she does a fantastic job of drawing the elite connection with tones of status-washing.

   3. “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin: This book is a bit older but still accessible, and I wanted to avoid some modern authors who are embraced as part of elite identity-washing (and are proving themselves to be grifters). Baldwin’s take on love resonates with this post.

   4. “Dignity” by Chris Arnade: The author, who once worked on Wall Street, explores a side of America where the thing that leaves you feeling ostracized is not your sex, race, or creed, but your class. These overlooked Americas are everywhere, but in our society, they are nowhere.

   5. “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire: So what do we do instead of engaging in culture wars? The late Paulo Freire, a Brazilian whose work was first published in 1968, offers a methodology that has withstood not only the test of time but worked across cultures.

I’d love to hear your recommendations.

1. Anand Giridharadas wrote on this from another angle in his book, “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World” (affiliate).