4 ms·

I'm white and grew up in a near-western suburb of Chicago and have also noticed that white people were quick to adopt a black dialect. I'm not sure it was neces

by hderms 10y ago

I'm white and grew up in a near-western suburb of Chicago and have also noticed that white people were quick to adopt a black dialect. I'm not sure it was necessarily only correlated with the things you mentioned (partying, anger, etc...) but it definitely existed. People adopted a lot of slang words from the black community too, which can sound really unnatural coming from a rich white kid's mouth. However, I don't think it was necessarily a result of people viewing black people negatively, in fact, it often seemed to be admiration. I could be wrong because I can't read minds but these were young kids that had been raised in an anti-racist environment, so suggesting that they were mimicking black culture because they secretly felt negatively about it isn't a convincing explanation for the entirety of it.

pessimizer 10y ago
> However, I don't think it was necessarily a result of people viewing black people negatively, in fact, it often seemed to be admiration But see, that's still racist. And the contexts in which it comes out makes it seem like an admiration of looseness, coolness, style, toughness, sexiness, grittiness, authenticity... an escape from just being a plain old person. Really, these are qualities involved in the identities many teenagers hope to construct. I'm just a plain old person too, but the culture makes me a repository for fantasy. I'll go on a tangent here about something that really bothered me yesterday. There was a really interesting and informative article yesterday in the LA Times about an "Asian" propensity towards diabetes - an article which could help people with their health by informing them of something which they may not have been aware of. http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-asian-americans-diabetes-20160419-story.html http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-asian-americans-diabetes... Here's the question: The article had nothing to do with white people, yet this was the graphic: http://www.trbimg.com/img-571584ce/turbine/la-me-g-asian-american-diabetes-20160418/750/750x422 http://www.trbimg.com/img-571584ce/turbine/la-me-g-asian-ame... and later: "Asians tend to have less muscle and more fat than Europeans of the same weight and height, studies show. So an Asian who isn't obese or even overweight could have enough fat to be in danger of getting diabetes, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as 'skinny-fat.'" So how did white people get to be the baseline? The zeros of the world, the people that other people are a divergence from, the people that you have to know to understand? Why is an article about Asian diabetes instead an article about comparative rates of diabetes between Asians and whites? Some liberal arts major might call it a "microaggression", but as a engineering major, I am just literally looking at Asian health being described mainly in relation to the health of whites and trying to figure out the words to explain how that bothers me to white people who can't see it, without them erupting into rage.
- yomly 10y ago
  It was written by a white person in a country which is still assumed to be predominantly Caucasian. Hence white people were the baseline.

by hderms 10y ago

pessimizer 10y ago

> However, I don't think it was necessarily a result of people viewing black people negatively, in fact, it often seemed to be admiration But see, that's still racist. And the contexts in which it comes out makes it seem like an admiration of looseness, coolness, style, toughness, sexiness, grittiness, authenticity... an escape from just being a plain old person. Really, these are qualities involved in the identities many teenagers hope to construct. I'm just a plain old person too, but the culture makes me a repository for fantasy. I'll go on a tangent here about something that really bothered me yesterday. There was a really interesting and informative article yesterday in the LA Times about an "Asian" propensity towards diabetes - an article which could help people with their health by informing them of something which they may not have been aware of. http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-asian-americans-diabetes-20160419-story.html http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-asian-americans-diabetes... Here's the question: The article had nothing to do with white people, yet this was the graphic: http://www.trbimg.com/img-571584ce/turbine/la-me-g-asian-american-diabetes-20160418/750/750x422 http://www.trbimg.com/img-571584ce/turbine/la-me-g-asian-ame... and later: "Asians tend to have less muscle and more fat than Europeans of the same weight and height, studies show. So an Asian who isn't obese or even overweight could have enough fat to be in danger of getting diabetes, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as 'skinny-fat.'" So how did white people get to be the baseline? The zeros of the world, the people that other people are a divergence from, the people that you have to know to understand? Why is an article about Asian diabetes instead an article about comparative rates of diabetes between Asians and whites? Some liberal arts major might call it a "microaggression", but as a engineering major, I am just literally looking at Asian health being described mainly in relation to the health of whites and trying to figure out the words to explain how that bothers me to white people who can't see it, without them erupting into rage.

yomly 10y ago
It was written by a white person in a country which is still assumed to be predominantly Caucasian. Hence white people were the baseline.