4 ms·
Then why aren't white males on your list?
by kolanos 8y ago
Then why aren't white males on your list?
- peterwwillis 8y agoBecause it's a list of things that makes it risky to live in this country, not just people getting shot. I list several groups without gender or race, and white males can still be in those groups. But just being a white male in and of itself isn't risky. That's the least risky group.
- kolanos 8y agoAnd that's just factually and verifiably false.
- peterwwillis 8y agoI'm perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise, if you have any evidence. Can you provide me a single metric of a societal risk to white males more than any other group, adjusted for population? (That is to say, a risk that is caused by society and isn't health/genetic related, like prevalence of disease)
- kolanos 8y agoThe link I provided clearly shows that white males are second only to black males in terms of how likely they are to be shot by police. My point is that excluding white males as victims of police violence or framing the problem as something that does not affect white males helps no one.
- peterwwillis 8y agoSo, because it's not helping white males, it helps no one?
- blockinator 8y agoI don't think it's helpful for anyone to essentially make a statement saying "the US is a dangerous place unless you're a white male" It's just a divisive thing to say and I highly doubt it's true.
- peterwwillis 8y agoWell first off, if you doubt it's true, all you need to do to disprove it is to provide a single example of white males being the subject of more risk than any other group by population, in any metric, that isn't genetic or similar. I haven't found one. Again, they are certainly included in risk-prone groups, as I listed, but as far as I can tell, not as the sole members of a most-risk-prone group. Second, the whole point of all of this is to look at who is most at risk. Yes, white males do encounter risk. But that's not what's important: what's important is, who is most at risk? The answer, in the apparent absence of evidence to the contrary, would appear to be "not white males". It's usually at this point, when someone says that this is divisive and not helpful, that we get to "All Lives Matter". Black Lives Matter was explicitly intended to only point out the risks of being black in this country, in order to raise awareness of those unique risks, and to try to reach some social justice. This had the unfortunate side effect of shining a light away from white people's problems. White people still had problems, and they still wanted people to care. Some white people even felt personally attacked by Black Lives Matter. So white people found the phrase divisive, and made up a new phrase to take the focus away from BLM's core issues: All Lives Matter. "Don't worry about only black people's problems, because I want you to worry about my problems, too." It may make white males feel that it's divisive, but really it's just difficult to accept that other people may be more in need, in one aspect or another. The goal of all this is to focus on the groups that are at the most risk, acknowledge them, and try to address their issues. The US is dangerous no matter who you are. It's just that in every category of risk, it's less dangerous if you're a white male.
- EpicBlackCrayon 8y agoI don't think you're going to make inroads with that poster. I don't think they're posting in good faith. The account is less than a day old.