Column:

Oops, your privilege is showing

By ChaToyya Sewell

Published Aug. 25, 2009

Full disclosure: I like my racists, sexists and homophobes all the same — upfront, overt and easily avoidable. I like them like the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world. Available when I want to flavor my day with a bit of masochism. On a normal day? Remote controlled.

That's why there's nothing that gets my old gag reflex going like a hipster "ist." I'm sure you have seen the type: the "I voted for Barack Obama and have a gay cousin and a woman birthed me, so I can say or act however I want" type. I mean, it's all satirical, man. No, satire involves self-reflection and awareness.

It is not the thing that launched a thousand fried chicken parties and bands whining about how all women are hateful, spiteful creatures.

The hipster "ist" has frequently been in the media lately, everything from their propensity to gentrify neighborhoods and call it "slumming" — rude, classist! — to throwing hip-hop themed dance parties and charging a fried chicken admission — icky, racist! — to flavoring all their favorite films with some shallow characterization of some manic pixie girl they all love — boring, sexist!

Yet this is nothing new, the tenuous relationship between subcultures and marginalized groups has existed through various incantations, the beat cultures fetishization of black culture and punks early adoption by Skinheads. It goes on and on.

Some — such as blogger Sady on tigerbeatdown.com — theorize since hipster culture in general is a rebellion against white middle-class culture, this plays a large part into their dealings with marginalized groups. Bourgeois culture generally looks down upon verbal showings of privilege — be it race, able-bodied, gender, sexuality, etc. — not out of a sense of equality or morality, but because it is distasteful and low-brow.

This would force those rebelling against this ideology to proclaim their "isms" loudly, while hiding under the banner of satire. It is the non-material equivalent of other working class items fetishized by hipster elements, such as Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and alternative country bands.

Me, personally, I'm less concerned with the history or relevance of this cultural phenomenon. I just want it publicly known, the next time you have a juicy bit of satire to dole out and I look like a possible audience member: don't. My satire bone is broken and I doubt I will think it is funny. But then again, I doubt anyone will admit to their hipsterness, because isn't the first rule of hipsterdom to deny, deny, deny?