The Order of Honorary White Men
Recognizes a new inductee
The ancient Order of Honorary White Men recognizes people who, while not having the good fortune to be born white men, have nevertheless distinguished themselves in a way so that they may be considered white men, or as close as you can get without being an actual, you know, white man. Not many not-white-men people make it.
But here’s Meygn Kelly of Fox News:
“I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure, that’s a verifiable fact. As is Santa—I just want the kids watching to know that.”
Many of you have heard about Kelly’s remarks by now. But the Daily Kos writer at the link writes something so trenchant that I had to share it:
I think what we have here is not actually a historical assertion that Jesus and/or Santa were white, but the considerably more prevalent practice of sufficiently awesome ethnic people being elevated to the status of honorary white people due to their obvious awesomeness. It is like a medal for good behavior. The general understanding that even though you might have been born half-Polish or a quarter Romanian or God forbid full-on something or other, you have conducted yourself in such a way as to have surmounted those unfortunate roots, and can thus be welcomed into the wider pool of White.
Jesus was from the Middle East and spoke Aramaic, not King James’ English. Santa is from the North Pole, and he’s probably Inuit.
Personally, I am not sure that that the writer, Hunter, is right that Kelly was not making a historical assertion. Not sure at all. But the point about elevation to Whiteness is right on the mark. And as is pointed out in the article, the reverse can happen, too. You can lose Whiteness points, by say, converting from Christianity to Islam.
But the exciting news is not that Jesus or Santa was inducted into the Order of Honorary White Men; that happened a long time ago.
In the first time in history, a woman was inducted into the Order of Honorary White Men. That woman is, ta da, Megyn Kelly! This is a bit of a breakthrough, all right, but Kelly’s unflagging support of the primacy of white men like Jesus and Santa left the membership committee of the Order of Honorary White Men no choice.
This is truly an unexpected advance for aspiring women everywhere. Kelly is reported to be stunned and delighted.
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