Much has been written in the months following the November Republican landslide victories in the House and Senate on the subject of the angry, white male backlash.

Who is this angry, white male? And why is he backlashing?

Is he a misplaced factory worker, who lost his job to overseas competition?

Is he a rural farmer, who fought tooth and nail to survive the farm crisis of the 80s, only to find politicians all to eager to discuss lower price supports for farm subsidies in the 90s?

Is he a city social worker, who sees the effects that crime, poverty, drugs and hopelessness have had on our urban landscape?

The answer to all these questions is an emphatic no.

For the most part, the angry, white male backlash has come from wealthy political opportunists who have twisted the political system to benefit their own pocketbooks for most of their adult lives.

Surprisingly, some of the most adamant supporters of the angry, white male backlash are in fact African-American males.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and California University Board of Regent Wade Connerly are two prime examples.

Both Thomas and Connerly became embroiled in controversy over the summer because of their votes against affirmative action suits.

This would seem ironic, due to the fact that it would seem both arrived at their respected positions in part due to some form of affirmative action program.

This is not to say that all African-Americans who have succeeded have done so because of affirmative action. But if you look at the life history of Thomas and Connerly you would see that both benefited from some form of affirmative action program.

The point of my column is not to argue the merits of affirmative action programs, but rather, to point out that much of the fury brought on by this so-called angry, white male backlash is for the most part misdirected.

This brings me to a conversation I had recently with my uncle who lives in a suburb of Los Angeles.

My uncle kept rambling on about how his once-all-white neighborhood had gone downhill “ever since the minorities and the foreigners moved into my part of the city.”

When I tried to explain to him that he was a son of an immigrant and he was once considered a foreigner in this country, he told me, “It’s different, we weren’t looking for a free ride.”

The myth that all minorities and foreigners are looking for a free ride is one of the biggest lies of the angry, white male backlash. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Being a white male myself, I can see where a lot of this white male backlash comes from. White males are constantly being bombarded by the self-titled politically correct media.

On a daily basis white males are confronted with messages that tell us we should feel guilty or even evil for being a white male.

No one will ever make me feel guilty for being a white male. Not Al Sharpton. Not the National Organization for Women. Not Roseanne. Not Oprah. No one.

Excuse me, I just got sidestepped and starting spewing some angry, white male venom.

This brings me to one of the major lies of angry, white male movement: the white male as the victim.

This is not to say that white males are not at times victims of reverse-discrimination in our society. This is just to say that for every white victim of reverse-discrimination, there are at least two minority victims of racial discrimination in the U.S.

Most of our political leaders who expose an angry, white male viewpoint are nothing more than ideological chameleons who change their political views to reflect public opinion polls. Nothing satisfies most politicians more than finding a defenseless scapegoat.

In the future, my hope is that if there is a white male backlash, it would be a politically-informed white male backlash and not an angry, white male backlash. In my opinion, knowledge equals progress and anger equals self-destruction.

Bill Kopatich is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines.