stupid nerds.

I like to avoid link blogging and said like filler, but I also like to waste time today, so...Dirk Deppey at the Journalista blog had an entry today (under comics culture) that referred back to a New York Times article that is the very definition of filler for the paper which discusses nerdiness as an expression of hyperwhiteness and nerds as specifically "refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded." Some of the weaknesses in that vein of argument are in called out in Deppey's piece. I'm personally trying to figure out if I've misread my childhood and becoming a nerd was some sort of active rebellion as opposed to a defensive posture. And while joining any group while young is partly a defensive move, I don't recall "I want to be a nerd" being a rallying cry the way even preppies might have had it. Of course, that means that every exclusively white youth culture is either an absorption of African-American culture or a rebellion from absorbing it.

I'm especially thrilled that this racial reading of subculture (not inherently a bad mode to be) involves deracinating Asians as a group (oops). Possibly, our nerdlike cultural typing has either having been absorbed as whiteness or is not counted outright. I know our nation discusses race in black/white primarily...but you spring up from California with this stuff then you got to cast a wider net. I'm sure I'm leaving folks out too, but then, I haven't written a book yet. So, filler, and embarssing academia. Awesome.

EDIT: Someone other then me's actually coherent response to the article.