I know that peanut butter was invented by a non-dwem and that Frankenstein was written by a non-dwem, but I thought that x-rays were discovered by a dwem. I was not aware that either of Roentgen or Pului were non-dwems.

The use of this sort of terminology is clearly intended to take The Man (by which, of course, I mean the collection of White Y-chromosome-infected Males) down a peg or two. The snottiness is often accompanied by the exaggeration of the case for some other group, as is the case with afrocentrism.

(There's a great sentence I read in a feminist magazine once, simultaneously chilling and humorous. It's so vague in my mind, but it was something about "... logic [being] a tool for male dominion ..." What's worse is I almost agree with a fraction of the statement.)

Beethoven was black. Relativity was actually discovered by Einstein's wife. Archimedes stole all his ideas from the earlier Egyptians. Sometimes these claims are made by people with multiple degrees and we are informed, "Well, see, how could you possibly argue with such and such a person! Surely HE knows more than anyone else about the subject!" (Modern day young earth creationists (YECs), BTW, use this same technique. "Scientists" with numerous degrees, but who have made trivial or no contributions to the sciences are held up as counter examples to the Nobel laureates and members of the Academy of Science.)

How DARE you think that Archimedes is more important than his Egyptian masters! How DARE you think that William Shakespeare is more important than other literary figures! Who says that Edison deserves more coverage than Carver?

It's not that I completely disagree with the idea. In the middle of all the squawking, I there's almost certinaly a legitimate argument. What bothers me immensely is we compensate for incomplete and shallow treatments with even shallower treatments. It's more important to convey the "right" impression than it is to convey a realistic impression. Not everyone who wants this diversification is so extreme, but my observation is that of the people I have personally known who used the term Dead White (European) Male in a serious sense, they have been almost universally among the most stupid people I've ever met.

k