I find the discussion mostly civil thus far and actually super interesting. It’s definitely off topic lol, but seems to be a catch-all for all the things we sort of start to discuss and then get shut down before it can go anywhere. Apart from the explicit dismissal of arguments as “left wing” I’ve found the back and forth here to be thought-provoking and informative 
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We’re only a short step away from MIDI terminology rearing its head again…
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Sure, and fair enough. But–and I’m not accusing you personally of this, just making a general point–a lot of these discussions end up focusing on the unfairness of these conversations to white men as a convenient way of ducking the larger issues. It also tends to throw the onus back on marginalized people to conduct the conversation in a way that doesn’t risk offending the sensibilities of White men, which kind of reinforces the original point about privilege…
I am also in no way trying to claim moral superiority over other posters here. My own thinking has evolved over time because of life experiences–the BLM protests, but also being married to a non-white person, having a kid come out as trans, etc. I would have described myself as “progressive”–nay even “woke”–in the past, but I’ve come to understand that I still had (and have) a lot to learn about the experiences of others. I mean that with all humility.
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I do take your point on this and I am am aware that this is a potential criticism of my way of thinking. I don’t care too much about the bruised egos of white men, I just don’t think lecturing them about privilege and slavery is going to encourage many of them to help to change the world for the better, because many will see it as an attack and become defensive/entrenched. I think it’s especially problematic when it’s other white people doing the lecturing. We need to find a way of putting minority voices at the head of the debate, as they are too often drowned out by all the white people shouting at each other.
I think we’re done with focusing on what the problem is, we all know what the problem is. It’s time we started coming up with some solutions.
I’ve got some pretty radical ideas, but I’m a white guy, so fuck what I think. (This is a joke).
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I completely agree with you. History and the present, however, show a very different reality: the majority doesn’t listen, let alone responding with force. Minorities are quickly dismissed and shown “their place” if they criticize systemic inequalities. One argument for why the BLM movement has been so successful is because of the amount of white people that have taken up the cause. I don’t mean that to come off at “white saviourism”, just that the dominant majority can’t as easily brush aside these issues if part of their group is against them and criticisms are coming from within. White supremacy and misogyny (as only two examples) are white and male problems respectively. It is mostly (fully?) on white / males to address these issues within their own ranks.
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A lot to agree with here. The problem is a lot of white people’s propensity for going off on tangents and missing the point.
Like, who cares about police brutality when we’ve got important debates to be had about a bunch of old statues and whether or not Uncle Ben is racist.
A lot of white people can’t be relied upon not to make it about themselves. Our priorities are all over the place. I’m not saying that statues and uncle Ben arent problematic, just that there might be more pressing issues that need dealing with first. But we always manage to find a way to make it about us and what we’re most worried about, even when our intentions are good.
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I dont understand how Uncle Ben is about white people? And why can’t it be about both police brutality and racist stereotypes? And anyway I don’t understand how this supports white people not speaking truth to other white people?
It can, it just seems like the debate has a habit of being steered towards what we think is offensive to the detriment of what seem to me to be more pressing problems for the black community.
I’ll say it another way. When the football restarted in the UK, everyone agreed that it was a good gesture for all the players to take the knee at kick off. Great, but then that was it, no follow up, nothing more. We’ve ticked our solidarity box, carry on as before. There’s now a few black players questioning what the point of it is, as the only people benefitting are all the white people who feel good about themselves and their solidarity.
I guess my main concern is that most white people don’t really know what the truth is when it comes to racism, so can’t really be relied upon for dishing out lectures about it.
I’ll paraphrase Bill Burr. It’s time we all shut up, sit down and take our talking to.
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My favorite minority voices are Coleman Hughes, Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. They should most certainly be at the forefront of any discussion on race.
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Don’t forget Rob Brydons Small man trapped in a box, classic
Because racist images make white people uncomfortable about how they benefit from inequality. They don’t want to look at them when they’re shopping for groceries.
Racist cops and prisons stuffed full of black kids not so much, we don’t tend to see too much of that in our day to day life.
slavs are called slavs because taking them (us) to slavery and selling on the slave markets was very common back in the days.
but no one cares and no one will, just because this does not fit current bipolar concept of the world, where all whites are natural born privileged oppressors.
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Very smart guy.
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This is disputed, there’s no clear evicence of the etymology of slav. Slav and the ancient latin word for slave might as well be homonyms. Might as well be derived from slovo, meaning word as in people who speak like us or ancient indo-european slauos, meaning “people”.
He’s coming out with a book soon and I want to read it. You would like his frequent conversations with Glenn Lowry if you haven’t heard those already.
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The word meme was coined to pair with the word gene as they both replicate on their own. Genes go out into the world and then mutate and adapt. The Karen meme is mutating and adapting, it is not JUST one thing. It is sexist in some contexts, especially when it is adapted as as an insult for a bossy woman. It’s less sexist when used as a barb against white privilege, but it’s still a negative generalization about white women. Karen will continue to change and mutate and flourish where ever the concept of entitled women is looked down upon. Do you see how this is appealing to misogynists? It paints the world with their preferred subtext.
Humor is a valuable tool for communication, but so is compassion and mindfulness.
Let’s make an effort to use all three here on the forum.
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Once again, that’s a distorsion of what people actually mean when using those terms.
The fact that when talking about racism based on skin color, or sexism, white males are priviledged does not mean that they are all oppressors, never go through any hardship or that eastern europeans can’t be disctriminared by western or northern europeans because of their country of origin or accents.
Both can be true.
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I think the point he was making is that there are so-called white populations around the world that do not in fact benefit from any such privileges — not least, because the social/ethnic dynamics are totally different as is the cosmology.
To consider privilege to be foremost “white” would be true in a Anglo-Saxon / Western European context mainly. Once you step out of those social contexts, the picture can shift quite drastically and that’s barely represented in that discourse.
Me personally, I reject these categories whole-heartedly, I think they perpetuate the violence they try to solve.
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It’s very much true in eastern and northern Europe as well, especially in the former Soviet Union.
Try being an Albanian in Greece or Serbia and see how much “white” privilege applies
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