Author is Arthur Hayes, founder of the late crypto exchange BitMEX. The essay is less inflammatory than the title suggests, and I read it for the finance insights—- after all BitMEX was accused of frontrunning customers (too?)
“ As a student at Penn, I received a crash course education on the finer nuances of whiteness. The Fraternity system allowed the groups of same-caste whites to congregate together. There were Jewish, Southern White, WASP, and International White frats. While they didn’t put a billboard up saying “if you are not this or that, please don’t apply”, everyone surmised pretty quickly which house was which. My house was one of the traditionally more diverse fraternities, at least as far as Penn fraternities go. In the early 1990’s, the house got into a bit of trouble when a member of the WASP frat called a black brother by a racial slur. One of our house’s brothers or pledges retaliated by kidnapping a brother of the WASP frat, tying him to a flagpole in the black West Philly ghetto with a boombox playing Malcom X speeches.”
This dude clearly has serious issues with race. The framing of that is insane, it’s still an interesting article but it is heavily inflammatory
The situation is probably less racially charged these days thanks to the diversity movement but — one man’s politically incorrect accuracy is another’s insane framing? I have no rat in the race race but where I went to school (a R1 uni) tribally segregated frats and student clubs were huge part of the background. Police would often intervene in racially motivated incidents involving residents. I would be surprised if all that disappeared. There were native american and Latino living arrangements, which exuded a subtle sort of animosity towards the larger community. The Ukrainian and Russian clubs are still probably not that friendly towards one another. Not to mention the Jewish dorm vs the Muslim societies.
There is something to the “not the right kind of white” take, though it isn’t so much white as a cultural elite which happens to be 99.99% white. Consider that Nouriel Roubini, who is the right kind of white by Hayes def (academic, child of elites) hasn’t tried to publicly accuse SBF of fraud, while having gone further against CZ and Arthur. Consider that Brian Armstrong, not being the right kind of white, has gotten hit pieces from NYT.. Consider that headlining econo-digerati of the colored variety is wildly a non thing
I'm actually happy to see discourse like "The right kind of white" because it shows a thoughtfulness I don't see with more offensively generalising notions like "white privilege". The message is essentially the same but the author seems to have the intelligence to realise that the privilege of some white people is not necessarily afforded to all white people.
I'll take it over the discourse I normally hear but my standards are low.
“ As a student at Penn, I received a crash course education on the finer nuances of whiteness. The Fraternity system allowed the groups of same-caste whites to congregate together. There were Jewish, Southern White, WASP, and International White frats. While they didn’t put a billboard up saying “if you are not this or that, please don’t apply”, everyone surmised pretty quickly which house was which. My house was one of the traditionally more diverse fraternities, at least as far as Penn fraternities go. In the early 1990’s, the house got into a bit of trouble when a member of the WASP frat called a black brother by a racial slur. One of our house’s brothers or pledges retaliated by kidnapping a brother of the WASP frat, tying him to a flagpole in the black West Philly ghetto with a boombox playing Malcom X speeches.”
This dude clearly has serious issues with race. The framing of that is insane, it’s still an interesting article but it is heavily inflammatory