Whole list of books I put in my comment right up there which explore that very issue.
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Racism 101 â you need it!
I imagine one lesson in such a course would be on the model minority myth, but you could just look upthread on that one.
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Maybe this is such a hard topic for white people to understand because they arenât black. While our cultures are intertwined in America, both groups had wildly different experiences. And while some groups of âwhiteâ people (Jews, Italians, Irish, Serbs) had a small taste of what is is not like to be considered âwhiteâ, they were always considered to be above a person of color. And other groups of ethnic backgrounds found acceptance by assimilating to white culture (while still retaining their identity in private). A bunch of white people arguing over white privilege is doomed to fail. I took me a long time to see the times that my whiteness had benefited my situation, but even if I had recognized it at the time I probably wouldnât have spoken up because it would have meant being arrested and spending a night in jail on a couple of occasions.
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***BTW Iâm not assuming everyone on this thread and is participating in the discussion is white. But more trying to get at the heart of why white people claim there is no such thing as white privilege. I think it comes down to experience.
Where are you getting the idea that academic types are controlling anything in the U.S.?
Do you think politicians care? Or anyone in business and financial industries? The police? The military? Fox News?
If academicians actually did have any power in this country, is the definition of one specific word really the spot where they would stake their claim?
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I know if I was an academic who controlled everything I would spend my life knocking down peopleâs doors to assault them with the definition of white privilege until blood started gushing out of their ears.
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Definitely. Itâs what I do. Or, more often, leave the job once I see how their practice diverges from their stated principles.
So why did my father-in-law change his name in the face of prejudice? Because Jews are the model minority and so exceptionally successful? Riiiiiiight.
Realistically, it was the fact that since he didnât look Jewish and was raised in America (even though Yiddish was his first language), if he had an âAmericanâ sounding name, everyone would always treat him as if he was white and not just another Jew. He and family members (and Jewish friends of mine) are pretty clear that while no one was/is hanging Jews anymore in America, there is still antisemitism, of which you trotted out a pretty convincingly staged example. So yeah, Stormfront much, kemosabe?
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Aye? I grew up in a pit-town full of racist fucks in northern England. The kind of place where Pakistani families had petrol poured through their letterboxes and set alight in the 70s. Still do, for that matter. Iâve never been to these hallowed halls of Orthodoxy that pissed you off so much in the 90s. And I see this every day. Misogyny, racism, anti-semitism (if thatâs actually a separate thing, you tell me. Plenty of Jews across the water in Gateshead still suffer from it either way). I see it every day, and Iâm a scruffy, working-class punk whose familyâs entire history involves being fucked over for the benefit of the British Empire, in all its glory, and still I know full well I do better than women, people of colour and white people from the âwrongâ parts of Europe. Even just buying a bus ticket is fraught with tension if you donât look right. And where Iâm from, we werenât fucking hanging black people from trees for pissing us off within living memory. In fact, we were kicking American servicemen out of our pubs for treating their black comrades like shit during the war, twenty years before they were allowed to use the same toilets as everyone else back where they came from. And itâs still shitty for people who arenât white, male and speak right.
Give it a rest, eh? Even if you genuinely want to be part of the solution, your obstreperousness over a cartoon, for godâs sake, does you a disservice. Every last thread about racism, everywhere, forever, thereâs always one. And this time itâs you. Youâve enthusiastically blocked your ears, armed yourself with your very own Sword of Truth, and gone in swinging blindly. Arguing a technicality. Over. And. Over. Again.
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Who are you talking to? Some of us agree with what you just said.
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Thatâs basically the idle fantasy that gets me to sleep most nights, except Iâve got a Plate-Class GSV, and a whole bunch of scary nanotech as well. Ahhh, dreams, eh?
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I know, I b0rked my reply, sorry. Just figured that out⌠
(edit: I think echines might be inFalcorâs gut flora quite possibly⌠;))
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GSV Hereâs Your Intersectionality
from https://www.flickr.com/photos/lukejfrost/sets/72157626729157968
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I donât object to the comic, I like it. But âwhite privilegeâ absolutely does say that, and it says it loud and proud - read this thread! Itâs divisive language. It invites and encourages discord for the sake of making its proponents feel righteous about themselves. And personally I believe that when you say âthatâs only your interpretation, I interpret it differentlyâ youâre strongly supporting my argument that itâs divisive language.
No. Thatâs absolutely not true. White people did not benefit from that inequity. They benefited from the mortgages available to them, not from the mortgages denied to others. Removing this inequity would not have removed the mortgage they received. This is an extremely important distinction, that the âwhite privilegeâ conversation acts to elide. Itâs the whole function of the WP paradigm - to give room for hatred and finger-pointing along color lines, and to provoke underprivileged whites (who are generally, as a class, an object of derision among the proponents of the white privilege meme) and make them want to put more loser-flag stickers on their pickup trucks.
When I point out that it wasnât a zero-sum game, what I mean is that nobody had to get some imaginary positive in order to balance a real negative. The money to fund the mortgages was created by fiat; given the number of non-white soldiers and the state of the nation there was no limit to how far it could have been extended without harming anyone. Returning soldiers that could pass for white benefited from a program that should have also been extended to all other returning soldiers. Your grandfather simply did not benefit from the inequity. To say that he did is a completely false framing driven by the blame-seeking rhetoric of the white privilege meme.
Regardless of intent, that is how the meme actually functions. It works to falsely apportion blame and designate villians - by skin color, rather than by culpability. Have we spent any time here talking about who was actually to blame for the color line discrimination in the mortgage program, and what should be done about it, or have we instead blamed white soldiers for accepting mortgages? You can thank the White Privilege meme for that focus.
It appears that a self-elected group is attempting to establish power over the way that racism is portrayed in media, online, and in conversation. Hey, you asked.
Hmm. Perhaps thatâs why I liked it. I do understand that point! But I donât believe calling people âprivilegedâ based on skin color advances the point - quite the opposite, as Iâve repeatedly said. Itâs a broken meme, and itself a âharmful mentalityâ. People need to give it up. Theyâre addicts, in love with two words, and they need to admit it so they can get better and be more effective in reaching their goals.
Iâm totally down with that, but if you insist on this buzzphrase youâre doing it wrong. Address the cognitive dissonance without explicitly calling every single white person part of the problem, and youâll be working towards your stated goal. And I will be your wholehearted ally.
I feel like a person who is trying to convince people not to use gasoline to put out fires, and even the ones who seem to understand my point just wonât stop loading up the tanker trucks.
I apologize for singling out your possibly half-serious post, but it elegantly illustrates what is wrong with the meme. In practice, it seems itâs not about helping anyone, itâs all about making people think the way you do. I prefer to do more useful things. And frankly the blood is already gushing from my ears from the constant assault.
If I was an academic who controlled everything I would halve funding for the education of children of the privileged self-proclaimed liberals (of every color) chanting âwhite privilegeâ and Iâd use that money to more than quintuple funding of education for underprivileged children in the American South, regardless of color. That would actually make a real difference for people of color, and not just make me feel better.
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I donât get where this hostility comes from. I think he was pointing out that there are nuances of privilege. To be sure there is antisemitism in the US. I donât think it is any where on par with what your average black person has to put up with. Yes they may face discrimination in some cases, but in no way at the same scale. Women arenât clutching their hand bags when a Jew boards an elevator or lock their car doors if they see them on the street. They are still (for the most part) white and thus are afforded some of the same privileges. Hell even in prison they usually get protection from the White Power groups because even if they are Jewish, they are still white.
And certainly in certain circle being Jewish is an advantage. Hollywood, the jewelry trade, the medical profession, etc all have an extensive network of Jewish members, and in business who you know gets you a lot farther in life. To concede Jews have some advantages over other minorities doesnât diminish that they do face some discrimination. But the way I see it, if you magically had a choice to wake up tomorrow black or Jewish, which one would you pick and why? ETA - Especially in America in 2015.
Seriously folks - it isnât all or nothing - black and white out there.
Iâll just thank the people that feel compelled to show up and argue a definition instead of talking about ways to address the underlying issues â even when they claim that they understand the definition in question, they just think it presents the wrong tone. Thatâs a derailing tactic.
But letâs address your belief that white people didnât benefit from their privilege and that people only suffered from a lack of it. Panel 4 of the cartoon talks about preventing black people from moving into white neighborhoods. That made those neighborhoods more desirable for people who were interested in being in all-white community. For a large portion of our history that group of people was comprised primarily of people who controlled the wealth of this country. Property that is desired by people with money accrues value faster than other property. So the privilege of being allowed to purchase property in an all-white suburb meant your money earned more than other people who were not allowed to do so.
Do you still argue thatâs not a benefit?
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and no one claimed that⌠the issue was his vaguely cloaked antisemitic screed.
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Youâre pretty much better being anything in America besides being black, socially and economically. Thatâs part of the problem of American racism.
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Iâm pretty sure the Obama girls would rather be dark-skinned than paraplegic.
No worries, and yes I was just kidding. I would hope that these unicornesque all powerful academic types would use their powers for good rather than obnoxiousness.
And while you may tire of it, it is repeated like a mantra because there are people who deny that that white people do enjoy some privilege in the USA. While U.S. Politicians beat their chests and crow about everyone in the country having the same opportunities on a level playing in the US, it just simply isnât true. One need to look no further than this page: http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/3/#tab:overall
Side Note: If I was an all powerful academic unicorn, education, healthcare, prisons, and military would not be privatized (or privatized with heavy government oversight). These four things should not be run to make a profit, they are a cost to ensure the health and protection of the people. Donât ask me were the money would come from, because I donât know. An issue that America has is that it is too spread out. Smaller western countries seem to have a more communal attitude toward paying for things that donât benefit them directly. Where as in America we always seem to be like âFUCK YOU! DONT TAKE MY MONEY!â**
**and I can kind of understand the sentiment in rich people, I mean, they already spent soooooooo much money to get their person elected to begin with. Then they have to pay taxes on top of that? jeez.
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