Originally published in the August 2008 issue of Esquire.

Greetings, Nation.*

America is facing a crisis. Need proof? Well, if this weren't a crisis, I would never have asked you to read an article this long. Personally, when I pick up Esquire, I just flip to the Answer Fella or maybe check out how Stacey Grenrock Woods weighs in on three-way mango stroking. (She's "pro" -- as long as it's consensual.) But this is too important. I must speak out on behalf of a people without a voice.

Today's political landscape is now dominated by Black Men and White Women, while one group has been completely marginalized: the White Male. Sure, you can still find the occasional example of white men in power. A token 389 in Congress. A conciliatory seven or so on the Supreme Court. One in the White House.

For one brief, shining seven and a half years, we've had a president who, to paraphrase Kanye West, "cares about white people." But folks, that soon may be over.

And second, if we're all supposedly so equal now, then why can't white men be victims, too?

We've certainly had to deal with our share of hateful stereotypes. These days it's accepted as "fact" that white men can't jump. Ooooh, but we love swimming, right? We've all heard it before: "Just give the white guy a microbrew and an inner tube. That'll keep him happy."

Because really, isn't the greatest victimization of all being robbed of your ability to be the victim?

Fortunately, it doesn't take much of a revisionist squint to see a pernicious pattern of white male oppression over the past two hundred years. And if a revisionist squint doesn't work, try closing one eye and shaking your head back and forth until everything becomes a revisionist blur. Like this... okay... now I'm getting dizzy. Hold on. My head is pounding. I'm gonna need a minute. Go ahead and read this while I take an Advil. Yeah, that's right, I said Advil. The "white man's pain reliever." For the kind of crushing pain that comes back in four to six hours.

Let me take you on a dark journey...

In the eighteenth century, male Caucasians in America were politically powerless. As colonial subjects of the English, these white men were oppressed by an even whiter man.

And as if life for the colonial white male weren't bad enough, in 1773 a bunch of Indians tossed all of their tea into Boston Harbor. Then they threw a party! And now we're supposed to feel guilty for putting them on reservations? Tit for tat, Tonto!

Even after winning their independence, for four score and seven years white men had to work like slaves just to oversee their slaves.

And throughout all the white man's trials, what did women do? They wore lace, giggled, and fiddle-dee-dee'd. It was enough to drive the white man to drink . . . that is, until the Women's Temperance League stole that, too, with Prohibition.

And if you thought the Eighteenth Amendment was oppressive, I'll give you one guess what came next: the Nineteenth Amendment. Women's suffrage was forced through Congress in 1920, cutting the value of white men's votes in half, and a mere nine years later, the stock market crash plunged the world into the Great Depression. Coincidence? Or legitimate reason for me to get angry? The answer: both.

In the 1950s, white men were forced to sit in the front of buses, where it was very bumpy. And does anybody else notice that white men didn't have any civil rights leaders? They could have had a March on Washington.

You know, through the right neighborhoods.

Then came one of the darkest chapters in American history: the Space Race, when our government launched a sinister conspiracy whose sole purpose was to shoot all white men into space.

Throughout the 1970s, white men were caricatured in "whitesploitation" films like Death Wish and Annie Hall.

In the 1980s, white men were forced to wear effeminate pastel blazers while black men got all the cool sweaters.

Today, Barack Obama's presidential campaign presents a historic opportunity, not just for one black man to become president, but for all white men to feel powerless. It's our turn.

After two centuries of being denied our right to feel oppressed, white men are finally waking up. It's time for us to push back.

Now let me be clear, we won't be staging violent protests or marching in the streets. Then again, we won't just be doing nothing. We'll be complaining the entire time. I say we converge on Washington on the backs of our riding lawn mowers. The Million Man Mulch!

But first we need a man with courage, a man with vision, and most importantly, a man bleached bone white by the Arizona sun.

He understands the pain of our centuries-long troubled history, because he has lived through most of it.

Who knows? With John McCain as our ghostly white beacon to guide us, we may finally re-reach that mountaintop, walk into one of the two Starbucks up there, order a half-caf (maybe an almond croissant), and proudly proclaim, "Free at last, free-er at last, thank God Almighty, we are free-est at last!"

*Just by reading my words, you have officially joined the Colbert Nation, and my opinions have secured a beachhead in your brain. Now just sit back and let them spread like a freedom infection.

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