And she is an Internet personality. Her tone and cadence reminds me of Rush Limbaugh.
Those White People
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And she is an Internet personality. Her tone and cadence reminds me of Rush Limbaugh.
So....I'm hyped up on the caff and may not be coherent, I apologize before hand.
I get miffed when white people complain about white people unless they are including themselves in the group. Whenever I post something about how white people need to be the ones to fix XYZ ... because honestly who is perpetuating institutional racism (which is one of my HTDO)....I always use the word "we".
White people are the status quo. Sure on an individual level some are less privileged than other individual POC ... but as a whole whites are racist enablers at best, and we need to fix that. You know when I hear the most racist shit...when I'm in a room with all white people. If I am not going to call that out when there is no one to "prove" that I am an ally to, when there is nothing beneficial for me to call that out, then I'm just enabling the system.
I don't hate that I am white any more than I hate that I'm a woman. It is who I am. I am super aware of my privilege, my inherent biases, my habit of using some microagressions (those are the hardest for me to self identify and I'm lucky to have a group of friends who will call me out and educate me when I fuck up)... half of my friends are POC, my kids are POC, I have lived in a country where I was the minority and as such I have experienced institutional racism ... but guess what? None of that actually compares to being a POC in the US so I need to shut up and listen and follow their lead. I need to be aware that I am part of the group that is the problem. Its not personal its just fact. It took me a while to reach that point, it is hard to swallow, especially for all us white kids who were raised "colorblind" (which is a stupid fucking way to raise a kid as it only hides the racism). White fragility plays into it a lot, and I will make concessions for that to some extent, because I am white and if me listening to someone bitch about how they aren't racist or aren't privileged blah blah blah will eventually help them understand what exactly POC are trying to say...then it is a good thing. But not for one second to I expect or even think any POC has to put up with it.
Anyway ... what was the topic again? I hope this makes some sense.
I get miffed when white people complain about white people unless they are including themselves in the group. Whenever I post something about how white people need to be the ones to fix XYZ ... because honestly who is perpetuating institutional racism (which is one of my HTDO)....I always use the word "we".
White people are the status quo. Sure on an individual level some are less privileged than other individual POC ... but as a whole whites are racist enablers at best, and we need to fix that. You know when I hear the most racist shit...when I'm in a room with all white people. If I am not going to call that out when there is no one to "prove" that I am an ally to, when there is nothing beneficial for me to call that out, then I'm just enabling the system.
I don't hate that I am white any more than I hate that I'm a woman. It is who I am. I am super aware of my privilege, my inherent biases, my habit of using some microagressions (those are the hardest for me to self identify and I'm lucky to have a group of friends who will call me out and educate me when I fuck up)... half of my friends are POC, my kids are POC, I have lived in a country where I was the minority and as such I have experienced institutional racism ... but guess what? None of that actually compares to being a POC in the US so I need to shut up and listen and follow their lead. I need to be aware that I am part of the group that is the problem. Its not personal its just fact. It took me a while to reach that point, it is hard to swallow, especially for all us white kids who were raised "colorblind" (which is a stupid fucking way to raise a kid as it only hides the racism). White fragility plays into it a lot, and I will make concessions for that to some extent, because I am white and if me listening to someone bitch about how they aren't racist or aren't privileged blah blah blah will eventually help them understand what exactly POC are trying to say...then it is a good thing. But not for one second to I expect or even think any POC has to put up with it.
Anyway ... what was the topic again? I hope this makes some sense.
I am saddened that colour of skin is even a topic today. Colour of skin....That people are more concerned about other peoples' colour - and I'm not pointing to anyone here or in my life - than they are concerned about the colour of their pets' hair, more than baffles me. I can't put into words how less than unimportant it is...
How can it be a topic today??
I feel like I've been living in a disconnected time bubble...
But then, I have travelled to New Zealand. Out of the many countries I have visited NZ is inspiring how close it is to true equality between people of different skin colour.
I still can't believe I am writing about skin colour. Really?? Skin colour??
How can it be a topic today??
I feel like I've been living in a disconnected time bubble...
But then, I have travelled to New Zealand. Out of the many countries I have visited NZ is inspiring how close it is to true equality between people of different skin colour.
I still can't believe I am writing about skin colour. Really?? Skin colour??
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So...there seems to be an implication that, since I'm black but not ruji, I am by default not "a cool guy"? Furthermore...does this also mean that all white guys are by default cool guys?
I think it's entirely plausible that people could be genuinely angry about the result for reasons to do with things other than their ego.
This whole thread is about why white people shouldn't criticise white people. They're too emotional about it... or stuck up about it... or something. Hopefully they will contain their emotions, mortify their personality flaws, and find the right tone of voice to speak about white America so that their concerns can be made heard. I doubt it though.
Not the case at all. Many white guys are liberals, SJWs, self-conscious, inauthentic, and "upset".
I guess I just don't see how the thread is meant to assert that white people shouldn't criticize people. It's hard to explain, but there's a feeling in the US right now that can only be described as hysterical. People bandied about the words "racist, sexist, homeophobe, misogynist" so extensively that first folks got worked up into righteous anger, then fear ("what if my friend/coworker/neighbor is a racist?"). Then paranoid ("what if I get called that? What if people think that of me?"). So you could say there's almost Mcarthyesque feeling in the air. The election of Trump was kind of a quiet coup (in the sense that the forces that pushed it flew below the radar and few saw it coming) precisely because of the furor surrounding all the isms. By accident the isms turned into a smoke and mirrors. Being an ist or an obe of any kind is no good obviously. But the accusations have now been thrown about so much, ruining careers and relationships, to such an extent, that when someone comes out now with these kinds of rants, they are often regarded with some combination of humor and suspicion.
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The reason why people are so angry right now is not because these things are supposed, it's because they're actualised. What happened is not a quiet coup, it's the flowering of a fascist movement. People often mistake fascism for the right or for the left, it's as different from those things as passive-aggressive is from passive or aggressive. It comes about as a response to a particular situation of disenfranchisement, and it represents catastrophe for anyone who is not part of its chosen few. I don't think Trump matters remotely... It's a lot of other things that matter, which all go hand in hand together.
Where have the learnings from past mistakes gone? Where have all the inspirational lessons of how to live together equally and respectfully gone?
A part of humanity is trying to teach people to deal with shame that has originated from (I thought) the past. Triggers for shame being race, single parenthood, financial differences, sexuality, gender, mental health difficulities; and then a person who represents the birthplace of shame rises to the top in a powerful country. How is there such a divide between these two groups?
I must be emerging from a dreamworld..
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I don't even know how to talk about this problem. As Jet said, it is a "we" issue, not a them issue. Pointing fingers at other white people, excluding self, solves nothing. One of my activist friends and his peers once told me, "We think when the bad white people come for us, the 'good' white people aren't going to do anything to help."
I try to take responsibility for myself, learn everything I can, pay attention to what POC are saying and the support they are asking for. I need to find a solution. It's not the black community's responsibility to help me find that solution or coddle me. It is not my job to 'enlighten' some dumbass racist white people who are the 'other' white people. It's my job to take responsibility for myself and be part of the solution myself.
It is depressing and frustrating that this issue exists. It's fucking annoying that even in my "liberal" former city, inside a "liberal" social circle, people are closet Nazis and listen to Skrewdriver, and that being blonde and blue eyed means I'm "safe to be honest with" because I "secretly must feel the same way", so people feel free to say fucked up shit around me. I get the impression that if you aren't secretly intentionally 'a bit racist' (- I say intentionally, because people are unintentionally racist in many ways, including myself, which mortifies me,) people hate you because you're a liar and trying to be PC. You're only a cool white person if you're chill with old fashioned prejudice and give open racism a pass. (--Please note, I'm just commenting on personal experience here, not all people.)
I'm sitting in a place of privilege where I can "discuss" this issue and decide whether I will get up and move away from someone who says things I don't like, or choose to put up with it, decide whether I will just talk, or take action. Meanwhile, today one of my teenage friends who is black, Jewish and gay was harassed on the street by a redneck in a pick-up (for real!) and the guy handed him a KKK meeting flyer as a warning. He lives what I get to sit back and "debate".
I try to take responsibility for myself, learn everything I can, pay attention to what POC are saying and the support they are asking for. I need to find a solution. It's not the black community's responsibility to help me find that solution or coddle me. It is not my job to 'enlighten' some dumbass racist white people who are the 'other' white people. It's my job to take responsibility for myself and be part of the solution myself.
It is depressing and frustrating that this issue exists. It's fucking annoying that even in my "liberal" former city, inside a "liberal" social circle, people are closet Nazis and listen to Skrewdriver, and that being blonde and blue eyed means I'm "safe to be honest with" because I "secretly must feel the same way", so people feel free to say fucked up shit around me. I get the impression that if you aren't secretly intentionally 'a bit racist' (- I say intentionally, because people are unintentionally racist in many ways, including myself, which mortifies me,) people hate you because you're a liar and trying to be PC. You're only a cool white person if you're chill with old fashioned prejudice and give open racism a pass. (--Please note, I'm just commenting on personal experience here, not all people.)
I'm sitting in a place of privilege where I can "discuss" this issue and decide whether I will get up and move away from someone who says things I don't like, or choose to put up with it, decide whether I will just talk, or take action. Meanwhile, today one of my teenage friends who is black, Jewish and gay was harassed on the street by a redneck in a pick-up (for real!) and the guy handed him a KKK meeting flyer as a warning. He lives what I get to sit back and "debate".
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It's okay, white people aren't as cool as me either.
I'm impatient to see what Trump will do myself, because up in my region of the nation people are forming petitions, protests and– no joke– anti-fascism groups.
I 'liked' the video 'trumpocalypse'
and then I saw the Jay Smooth video and read the articles @Asa also posted. It just highlighted to me how hard it is for us not in the U.S. to really even begin to understand the race issue as it is unfolding and being experienced in the U.S..
To really understand how serious what is going on really is. After I saw the second video I could see how much more 'real' and visceral the content was coming from the black guy talking about race ...and how slightly inane and ingenious the liberal white girl came across in comparison. It feels like people really living in different realities and experiences which further high-lights the divisions. (I also read the articles). I don't think it means the girl is really disingenuous, it's just that from where she's standing she can't begin to understand the experience of for example Jay Smooth. This is what happens when divisions become so big.
If it's alright me saying, and I can imagine how it some ways it may not be, but this is not a judgement of America, hate can spring up anywhere...it's a process, where if denial is ignored, and injustice unchallenged these things over a period of time cement...
It feels to me that everyone of whatever colour has to get on the same page with this issue...to deal with the fear, pain, denial and embarrassment...to get real! Get real to start to heal! The black lives matter movement and all the stuff that has happened with police brutality etc. it's utterly insane, obviously beyond insane. When insanity gets to the point of being everyday, that's when things are seriously up. You can be exposed to so much madness it hardly registers as much anymore.
Some serious work obviously needs to take place, real talking, real healing.. taking away all the illusion. The terminology is a serious indication of how extremely serious things have got. 'White Supremacy', obviously this is is serious which is beyond serious. I mean a lot of Americans I imagine (A lot), must be deeply concerned but just don't know how to even begin...I'm not saying people aren't caring, it's just obvious that the problem had got so big it's hugely daunting and challenging.
It's obvious that there is a huge amount of fear, division and denial (as I've said, this is coming from someone who doesn't know the issues first hand). But how can fear, hate and division be described in any other way.
I think at this juncture especially with the dawning of Trump, really and truly an movement of solidarity and race equality..as like in the 50's & 60's. something like that needs to happen again. The only question is, would (as I've seen indicated in other threads), this a time of great tension....a revolution of love maybe, rather than protest...I don't know but I think it's true as others have said it's everyone's responsibility.
Forgive me if my whole view on this is somehow wrong, naïve or somehow insensitive. Especially as I'm not there and I can't begin to imagine how it feels to live in such fear and pain.
(Just a bit about my experience vis a vie race/ integration;
I grew up in London and went to a multi-cultural very mixed primary and secondary schools, it was one of the best things about my childhood experiencing so many different races and religions. Many races and religions, different cultures are generally really integrated in London, which is why up to now there has been a lot of integration. Please let it continue...Communities live side by side and go to school together.
I think though bad decision making and bad economics are not good for solidarity and integration, obviously...as we have seen in the UK voting for Brexit, and pointing the finger at 'foreigners' for taking away jobs...when really it had nothing to do with foreigners at all but corrupt bankers etc. e.g. integration and solidarity is quite easy to destroy with divisive politics and bad economics. Also the whole middle east crisis has caused further tensions, and stupid hate crime against Muslims.
The whole banking crisis and terrible economic climate must have stoked up divisions further in the U.S. as all people become afraid when they don't know how they will be able to live and feed themselves.
In my opinion when communities grow apart and there is inequality, this is where division starts. I imagine there are parts of the States that are more integrated and parts that are less integrated- where communities do not mix and are ghettoised? Maybe there are a lot of differences across the U.S. in terms of integration and segregation, so it doesn't make sense to talk in generalities? Anyway these are some of my ideas. Surely there has to be a better tomorrow.
and then I saw the Jay Smooth video and read the articles @Asa also posted. It just highlighted to me how hard it is for us not in the U.S. to really even begin to understand the race issue as it is unfolding and being experienced in the U.S..
To really understand how serious what is going on really is. After I saw the second video I could see how much more 'real' and visceral the content was coming from the black guy talking about race ...and how slightly inane and ingenious the liberal white girl came across in comparison. It feels like people really living in different realities and experiences which further high-lights the divisions. (I also read the articles). I don't think it means the girl is really disingenuous, it's just that from where she's standing she can't begin to understand the experience of for example Jay Smooth. This is what happens when divisions become so big.
If it's alright me saying, and I can imagine how it some ways it may not be, but this is not a judgement of America, hate can spring up anywhere...it's a process, where if denial is ignored, and injustice unchallenged these things over a period of time cement...
It feels to me that everyone of whatever colour has to get on the same page with this issue...to deal with the fear, pain, denial and embarrassment...to get real! Get real to start to heal! The black lives matter movement and all the stuff that has happened with police brutality etc. it's utterly insane, obviously beyond insane. When insanity gets to the point of being everyday, that's when things are seriously up. You can be exposed to so much madness it hardly registers as much anymore.
Some serious work obviously needs to take place, real talking, real healing.. taking away all the illusion. The terminology is a serious indication of how extremely serious things have got. 'White Supremacy', obviously this is is serious which is beyond serious. I mean a lot of Americans I imagine (A lot), must be deeply concerned but just don't know how to even begin...I'm not saying people aren't caring, it's just obvious that the problem had got so big it's hugely daunting and challenging.
It's obvious that there is a huge amount of fear, division and denial (as I've said, this is coming from someone who doesn't know the issues first hand). But how can fear, hate and division be described in any other way.
I think at this juncture especially with the dawning of Trump, really and truly an movement of solidarity and race equality..as like in the 50's & 60's. something like that needs to happen again. The only question is, would (as I've seen indicated in other threads), this a time of great tension....a revolution of love maybe, rather than protest...I don't know but I think it's true as others have said it's everyone's responsibility.
Forgive me if my whole view on this is somehow wrong, naïve or somehow insensitive. Especially as I'm not there and I can't begin to imagine how it feels to live in such fear and pain.
(Just a bit about my experience vis a vie race/ integration;
I grew up in London and went to a multi-cultural very mixed primary and secondary schools, it was one of the best things about my childhood experiencing so many different races and religions. Many races and religions, different cultures are generally really integrated in London, which is why up to now there has been a lot of integration. Please let it continue...Communities live side by side and go to school together.
I think though bad decision making and bad economics are not good for solidarity and integration, obviously...as we have seen in the UK voting for Brexit, and pointing the finger at 'foreigners' for taking away jobs...when really it had nothing to do with foreigners at all but corrupt bankers etc. e.g. integration and solidarity is quite easy to destroy with divisive politics and bad economics. Also the whole middle east crisis has caused further tensions, and stupid hate crime against Muslims.
The whole banking crisis and terrible economic climate must have stoked up divisions further in the U.S. as all people become afraid when they don't know how they will be able to live and feed themselves.
In my opinion when communities grow apart and there is inequality, this is where division starts. I imagine there are parts of the States that are more integrated and parts that are less integrated- where communities do not mix and are ghettoised? Maybe there are a lot of differences across the U.S. in terms of integration and segregation, so it doesn't make sense to talk in generalities? Anyway these are some of my ideas. Surely there has to be a better tomorrow.
You @melissa* are truly inspiring. I have been completely unaware how big the issues are in the USA.
I went for a walk just then in the supermarket and counted the 'Aussie whites'. Out of a count of 32 people I counted 3 Aussie white faces. Spanish songs are being piped through the sound system...
It's so multicultural where I live (I'm not saying racism is still not an issue) that we have assimilated into not even noticing race...for me...but a lot for others too.
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A policy of ejecting residents from participation in the US Economy on the basis of race and religion is not market deregulation. Let's be clear, this person was elected on this policy. People being ejected are not white Christians. White people who are expressing their anger at white people are not the ones denying the implications of their whiteness. They are also not the ones tearing families apart, unless certain types of families are lesser families than other types.