Dear Cary,
I am a 67-year-old bald white man who wears glasses. Recently, I’ve been around people who assume that because I look like Mitch McConnell, I think like Mitch McConnell. I don’t look THAT much like a GOP senator, but… you get the idea.
It’s very sad to have spent a lot of my adult life working against racism and get lumped in with the KKK and the GOP. I don’t want to have to recite my résumé every time it comes up, but, since you asked: I’ve worked in social services for the last thirty years. I first worked for San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury Free Clinics before anyone outside of the neighborhood had heard the expression, “Health care is a right, not a privilege.” We helped people who were dealing with addictions get clean and sober.
At one point, I had a client who was unarmed and shot by the cops, so I’ve been close to this for a long time. Most of our clients had some kind of legal trouble, and most of them were Black or Brown. For a while, the job included annual lobbying efforts with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to stop the program from getting de-funded. Even in an ultra-liberal city like San Francisco, it was clear that systemic racism was oppressing people of color and stigmatizing addictive disease. Ultimately the program did get de-funded (thanks, SF) and I changed into a mental health job, also working with people at the dark end of the socioeconomic spectrum– in economic terms, but less so in terms of race because it was a less diverse location.
There’s a component of ageism here, too– I worked at what I did for longer than some of the people who accuse me have been alive.
I’m sure you’re flooded with responses, but since you asked … seriously, how do I handle this?
Not Mitch McConnell
Dear Not Mitch,
I also am a white guy in his sixties who does not look like a cool person but was indeed a cool person once. So I know what that feels like. I also remember when I was a young cool guy, meeting older guys who used to be cool, jazz guys, music guys, impresarios and such, men who were very cool in their day, and thinking, that’s weird, they don’t look that cool. They were cool. They just weren’t young.
It sucks. But it’s not the end of the world. And there are lots of things you can do, and you probably know this, but maybe having somebody say it to you will help you get off your ass and do it.
You say you worked with addicts so you probably know that the literature of the addiction recovery movement talks about how the only thing we can change is our own behavior, how we are powerless over other people, how the key to change is concrete action—taken by the person who wants the change. I believe all this. I believe in the transformative power of concrete action. You can’t change other people. But you can change your clothes.
I believe in the power of clothes!
Look at this stylish 104-year-old white man. And what does he say? “I want to look at myself with joy. It’s also always a reflection of my inner self.”
A reflection of his inner self. That’s the ticket. People do not know your inner self if they can’t see it. Like, to be pseudo-scientific, you can’t change how people process information, but you can give them different information to process. They don’t know that you fought for racial justice, that you demonstrated, that you were tear-gassed, that you have been on the front lines of the fight for equality. All they know is you bear a striking resemblance to Mitch McConnell.
Any attempt to hide the fact that you are a 67-year-old white man would be a lie. But you can be a 67-year-old white man who looks like he knows what’s going on. It might take courage for a 67-year-old white guy to wear an Eldridge Cleaver T-shirt, but why not support Black businesses and wear something that says you are not a racist asshole?
Well, now, I know, concern with cultural appropriation has swept the nation and people are having difficult conversations about who can say what and wear what based on the degree of difference in status and identity between the person referred to and the person doing the referring, and how the referring is done, whether it’s theft or homage, whether it’s appropriation or appreciation. I tell you, I get it, but I will defend to the death the right of a 67-year-old bald white man who looks like Mitch McConnell to wear a Black Panthers T-shirt. Also, let’s ask, who is allowed to play “Dixie” and drive a truck with a Confederate flag in the back window? (You can read Percival Everett’s story “The Appropriation of Cultures” for free at the JSTOR site that hosts it if you just sign up as a member. I love Percival Everett’s writing. Get to know his work!)
There exists a thing we might call the arrogance of white male banality: We white men can pass. Nobody follows us around the store suspecting us of stealing. We can dress like slobs and go into government offices, conduct business. We’re not constantly being judged. So I suspect that when young progressives and people of color see a middle-class white man who takes little care with his appearance, they are interpreting it as a form of privilege. In a way, it says, I don’t care what you think of me, I’ve got mine. And that might chap their hides a bit. Because young people are looking at a world which they think we screwed up, and they’re not happy about it. So you can make a gesture to the world of young progressives by upping your game, sartorially. Show that you’re a part of things. Get an earring or a tattoo. Get some cool shoes.
Speaking of clothes, I live in Italy now. (Talk about privilege! Eh?) You should see the Italian suit I got for about €150 at the Valdichiana Outlet Mall! You should see my new shoes! And my new attitude.
When we got to Italy we had no clothes. We had some things we had been wearing to keep warm in the Outer Sunset but we didn’t really have any clothes. We looked awful by Italian standards.
So Anna Buracci went to work on us. Here in our town there is a store called Blue Jeans Mania and Anna Buracci sold me some tight pants. Well, they’re not super ridiculously tight, but they are slimming! They are excellent! And I never would have bought them if she hadn’t taken over the process. And they make me feel great and even though I am now the old white American guy in a town of cool young Italians, it’s a show of respect. It says I care just a little tiny bit about not looking like the ugly American.
And now, dear 67-year-old white guy, and dear readers, I must find an ending to this column. And I’m not sure I have one. So because it’s deadline time and I’ve spent a lot of time on this, I’m just going to say thank you, my friend, for writing to me, as I always need new questions to ponder, and if you should like to come to Italy we could go clothes shopping together. Ciao! Ci vediamo! A presto! A domani! Arrivederci!
I saw your links and read Everett’s piece and collectively you made me feel better. I evolved a little. Taking an interest in clothes and changing your style is an art. You get creative and you get to express it and make a statement to your neighbours, your friends, associates and the world and it’s fun. I’m really glad ‘Mitch McConnell’ wrote you.
I am glad too. And I’m so glad you read Everett’s piece. Thank you!
Love it!
Cary, I thought your answer was fantastic, as always. It’s true that American men – especially older men – have the luxury of remaining totally oblivious to style. Style is a statement of who you are, and is a language all its own. I guess women are trained to be more tuned in to style, but it’s no less difficult to adapt to old(er) age with its expanding waistlines and sagging bits. It does require some thought and creativity. I hope Not Mitch can find some fun & creative ways to make a statement.
Lol. I so enjoyed this column. “…and wear something that says you’re not a racist asshole.” Hahaha! Loved the links, especially Günther! Still chuckling.
Got you beat by ten years, which only adds a decade of experience that you’ve illuminated so well. I have two young relatives, both committed to social justice. One wants to be in conversation about it, and is willing to consider she may have been wrong about shoving all old white men into one box of disposable despicables. The other attacks as if I was Andrew Jackson, Columbus’s offspring by way of Phyllis Schlafly. For her, an old white man of modest wealth cannot be anything but the enemy. Even worse, I’m a priest (Episcopal), proof positive of my hypocrisy. To her, my only hope is to shut up and listen as she educates me, and it’s slim hope indeed.
Steven, this is such a big issue now. I sense such conversations are going on all over the country, as long-repressed anger at the course America has taken is directed at the nearest symbolic target. Norma and I talked about this last night and my big-picture view is that such moments of social awakening and change always involve the rush of pent-up emotion, the return of the repressed, and with that comes a lot of pain and anger that is directed at the nearest convenient target, including older relatives and statues, symbols of a past that cannot be changed but must be learned from. I believe that such moments are good and necessary and eventually healing, but the immediate rush of emotion can be ugly. It’s humbling, also, to remember my own youth in the sixties, the disdain we had for our fathers and grandfathers, the sexism we displayed toward our sisters and elder women in the movement, our arrogance and ignorance of history, how slowly social progress is. Change is painful but I take the long view, and I sense that you do, too, and I know how hard, and also how necessary, it is to shut up and listen not just to the person but to the cultural moment, which is profound and long overdue.