Confessions of a Professional White Asshole

How I built a lucrative career (and gradually sold my soul) playing caricatures of awful white dudes on black TV shows.

Illustrations by David Huang | Edited by Shawna Kenney

Anybody can be an amateur white asshole. But it takes a particular combination of luck and talent to become a professional.

First, of course, I am born white. Lots of white people don’t understand just how privileged they are to be born white. I do. Plus, my people are lily-skinned, Church of England Episcopalian-white.

But my parents are immigrants, outsiders, and my mom taught me to judge people by what they do and who they are, rather than by the color of their skin. I’m 8 when we move to Hueytown, Alabama, during the roiling, boiling, festering racial cauldron of the mid-1960s. Men like Bear Bryant and George Wallace set the bar high for White Assholes. I see Governor Wallace being hailed a hero, his picture on the front page of the newspaper as he blocks black students from entering the University of Alabama, proudly proclaiming, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” The mating call of the Alpha White Ass…