Why is white male suicide so high?
Across both the United States and Europe, white impoverished males hold a staggeringly disproportional suicide rate. Reaching figures of 70% in certain years despite representing only 33-37% of the population.
Their are several suggested factors, yet most fall within social change and expectations that have disenfranchised the economic minority of the majority populace. It’s my personal belief that cultural shifts and propagated blame are relevant factors. A simple example would be to compare two equated minority groups. A ethnic/sexual minority with a economic minority of the majority(lower poverty line white males)
When a ethnic or sexual minority feels as if they have failed to meet their own/societal expectations, it is within the realm of social norm to consider the impact of prejudice and pre-era social engineering as a plausible and acceptable reasoning for failing. As in “It’s not my fault that I failed, the system is working against me”.
Now take a white male who is born into poverty and through his own actions, has failed to leave poverty. Post-Era Social engineering as well as social science has told him that he lives within a system built for his success. A system that oppresses others so that his race may succeed. When in truth it’s a system built for the success of the rich, regardless of race. What is a individual in this circumstance to feel or think? Many of these individuals were never taught, nor have they learned how to climb the social ladder. They mearly assume that they are failures due to their own inability. If they cannot succeed within a system built for their success, they only can only blame them self. It is within this self blame, this self hatred that suicidal tendencies are spurred. This hatred is then multiplied by social media based white prejudice that is both formed and accepted by altering social norms. -They are consumed by not only by their own loathing, but a perceived exterior loathing that is propitiated by social acceptance of white bias. Death may seem rather accatable when you’re being demeaned on multiple fronts.
Now some may state “I’m not going to feel bad for a white male!”. Yet I believe poor whites are no different than any other marginalized group. They have been stepped on and forgotten by a system that isn’t helping them to stand back up. This post isn’t to denounce the effects of social/economic influences of being the prominent culture within a country(caucasians). It’s to mearly adress that by passing blame to a singular factor such as race, we openly ignore the true factors that are oppressing and limiting the influences of ethnic/poverty minorities within this country; and that is economic opportunity, not racial opportunity. A poor Caucasian and a poor African American have far more common ground than a rich white and poor white. If we can learn to adress such truths and befriend those who share in our hardships instead of chastising them for a skin they did not choose... we can pick each other out the holes we are in.
Extra thoughts
The opposite side of this coin is seen by impoverished whites who decide to follow the same path as their minority counter parts. They choose not to blame them selfs, but revert to racism as an out. Their position in life is no fault of their own, they are poor because they believe that the system has shifted to support racial/social groups outside of their own
