Two recent disparate events have left me thinking.

The first was a face-to-face conversation with a Reformed Journal reader whom I regard highly. She taught Advanced Placement English to high school students in New York for many years and embodies how I imagine our readers: intelligent, well-read, and possessing a mature faith. As we talked, she singled out many of our regular RJ writers as personal favorites. Everyone she named is a woman, which I initially didn’t notice. That came to me as she listed the regulars she does not read. They are all men and in regard to each she said, “He’s just another white guy.”

I protested. These men were different, from different parts of the country, with different interests, writing about different things.

“Just another white guy,” she kept saying.

I tried my best not to get defensive but it was hard. After all, some of my best friends are white guys. Actually, most all of my best friends (including her husband) are white guys.

She said she reads my articles. Was our friendship the only thing keeping me from being just another white guy? She also mentioned a couple of other male writers whom she appreciates—men she felt rose above being “just another white guy.”  

I stuck that encounter away until the other night when I saw something surprising on television. I was watching a Detroit Tigers game and, as is my habit, was channel surfing during the commercials. I don’t like to brag but I’m really good at this, always returning to the game at exactly the right moment and never irritating anyone else who might be watching. I digress, but my use of a television remote is best called “delightful.”

A cable movie channel was showing a beloved comedy from the 1980s that I hadn’t seen in a while so I kept coming back to that between innings. I was surprised when one of the main characters dropped an “F bomb.” Then it happened again. And again. Over and over. I did not remember the movie like this. My guess is that when I’ve seen it over the years, it’s been cleaned up for television. But the other night the cable channel was showing the original. Then, for no apparent reason, a woman took her shirt off. This wasn’t a sex scene, it was just, you know, that thing women do when they’ve obviously had their clothes on for too long. If there ever was gratuitous nudity, this was it.

Up until that moment, I would have said this comedy was rated PG or PG-13. But it was clearly rated R. Nobody under the age of 17 was supposed to see it unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. Yet who was this movie made for? Whose gaze was it meant to please? Young men and adolescent boys. That got me thinking and I poked around the internet and found a slew of R-rated 1980s comedies: The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Coming to America, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Vacation, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, Stripes and more(there are dozens of lesser-known low-brow R-rated comedies on the list). Besides starring a disproportionate number of Saturday Night Live alumni, these movies followed the same formula. Each was quite successful, earning staggering amounts of money. It’s no coincidence they were R-rated—it was the marketing strategy, built on both the belief that the tastes of young men and adolescent boys were normative and the confidence movie theatres wouldn’t enforce the ratings.

I saw each of these movies when they were released. Couldn’t wait to see them. I’ve seen each enough times that I remember iconic lines and scenes. They are a part of the greater catechism of my life. The amount of time I have spent absorbing this greater catechism dwarfs any religious instruction I have had. (Although I’m not sure how much that matters since my religious instruction was also sexist.)

It occurred to me (not for the first time, but this was a fresh reminder) that I grew up in a world made for me. When I was younger, I noticed this as much as a fish notices water or you and I notice air. Since I never noticed, I never questioned why the world should be made for me. That’s just the way it was. I can try all I want (and I do try) to be sensitive to the experiences of women, people of color, people with different sexual orientations, people with disabilities, or any other marginalized group, but it’s hard. The world has always been designed for me.

Which makes me just another white guy.

Or, more specifically, just another white, straight, cisgendered, middle class, Christian, able-bodied guy.

What also occurred to me was how much the MAGA movement is built on the deep desire to preserve the world I grew up in, a world of white male superiority and domination. I thought of the video shared by Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth recently of evangelical pastors proclaiming the benefits of oppressive patriarchy and “explaining” that women should not be in positions of authority nor allowed to vote.

And then I stopped myself.

That’s too easy.

It’s too easy to play “me vs. them.” Too easy to make myself feel better because I am not as idiotic as the toxic nut jobs on that video. Too easy to say, “Look how great I am because I don’t want to Make Patriarchy Great Again.”

What’s needed, instead, is ruthless self-examination. Instead of posting a vacuous sermon about how egalitarian I am, what’s needed is for me to look deeply at how comfortable I am in my privilege and to confront it. I was raised to be sexist. How will I work to undo that greater catechism? (Maybe start with my attachment to the television remote.) Looking inside this way isn’t easy and there is little reward for doing so. But if I don’t?

I’m a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.

Or, better yet, just another white guy.