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Ugh why bring race into this... Even if the author makes good points, he's not going to convince anyone by saying 'white people have funny words for bribes' in
by CapmCrackaWaka 6y ago
Ugh why bring race into this... Even if the author makes good points, he's not going to convince anyone by saying 'white people have funny words for bribes' in the first paragraph. This is coming from someone who 100% agrees with the rest of the article. Still, I won't share this with anyone I respect.
- flashgordon 6y agoExactly there was absolutely no need to invoke "whiteness" for the corruption to apply to anybody. Even simply saying "corporations/groups/etc" would have sufficed and may even have been more potent. Instead the article just ended up polarizing the audience on race lines. Sigh!
- alexfromapex 6y agoYeah same really abruptly made me want to stop reading. Imagine switching out white people with another race and it’s blatant racism.
- astkaasa 6y agoI guess replacing "white" with "Chinese" is a good idea. Another option is "Russian".
- mtrower 6y agoThat would seem to be a category error. One of those is race, two of those are nationality. Whether or not that’s a good idea depends on context. When you’re talking about matters of race, invoking race night make sense. When talking matters of nationality, invoking nation might make sense. When talking matters of nation, invoking race does not make sense. Naturally, invoking nation as a means of stereotyping and discrimination is a terrible thing as well.
- astkaasa 6y agoActually on the daily communication context these two nationality words are used as representation of races. You probably will not call a black/white people with China nationality "Chinese". And I will present you another example if you consider the previous too rare: you will definitely not call people from Tibet or Uighur "Chinese", right?
- mtrower 6y agoWhat else would you call a person born and raised in those countries, if not Russian or Chinese? Are descendants of Irish immigrants to America not American? Perhaps language is used differently in our respective circles. If you're born in Russia, raised in Russia, you're certainly Russian to me. A black man born in China, I'd absolutely include him in "Chinese" if the context was nationality. However, yes; Chinese is commonly used for both race and nationality, I'll give you that. > you will definitely not call people from Tibet or Uighur "Chinese", right? I will confess I am not educated enough on these regions to have an opinion here. Do Tibetans(?) identify as Chinese nationally? Or do they resent the Chinese takeover and view them as unwelcome oppressors? I think that would have a lot to do with my perspective on them (and I think maybe a lot of label-based identification comes down to perspective).
- astkaasa 6y agoBlah blah blah, so the answer is no. I get it.
- mtrower 6y ago...excuse me? There’s no call for that. Why come to a discussion forum if you don’t actually want to talk? Furthermore, the answer is not “no” —- I acknowledged that your usage may be acceptable, not that mine isn’t. I explicitly stated that while you may not call those people that, I would.
- technick 6y agoAnybody worth their salt can admit corruption isn't race related. It doesn't matter if your white, yellow, brown, black, purple, orange... corruption is a universal human issue.
- jtdev 6y agoDividing Americans down racial lines rather than socioeconomic lines literally helps the benefactors of this bribery gravy train keep their grip on America.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt's hard not to notice that socioeconomic lines largely follow racial lines.
- cambalache 6y agoSo what? You treat every person as an individual. "It is hard not to notice scientific breakthroughs largely follow racial lines" See how idiotic and inappropriate that line is?
- rbanffy 6y agoBoth are symptoms of a problem, don't you think?
- drewcoo 6y agoYeah, but pointing that out really upsets <race omitted> people.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt's not a comfortable discussion. The fact those lines often coincide is a symptom of a problem many people refuse to recognize.
- DaniloDias 6y agoA child argues that the reason their argument is valid is because it makes others uncomfortable.
- rbanffy 6y ago
- ErikVandeWater 6y agoYeah think about all the primarily non-white countries with legalized corruption. Would they ever blame the culture of the predominate race in that case? Dollars to donuts the answer is no.
- grecy 6y agoI recently spent 3 years driving right around Africa [1]. I spent almost a month in 35 separate countries, met countless interesting and thoughtful people and had all kinds of adventures. Now I'm back in the Developed world (I toured North America, speaking about my trip and experiences) tons of people want to talk about what is "wrong" in Africa, and a very large percentage of people very quickly say the following two things: - Africans are too lazy to help themselves. - Africans are too corrupt, they're doomed. NOTE: I categorically DO NOT agree with or support this thinking, and I try my hardest to dissuade it as much as I can. But in my experience many people in the developed world think this way. So to answer your question, yes, people blame the predominate race in non-white countries. [1] https://amzn.to/3pnVKu6 https://amzn.to/3pnVKu6
- arianon 6y agoThe author is simply making it clear who the target audience is: people who already agree with him, the purpose of this article is not to inform or persuade the reader, but to help the author therapeutically vent to like-minded people who will agree with the premise of the article. The racial jab at Whites is simply the political litmus test du jour.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DaniloDias 6y agoThere is a younger generation that has absolutely no attachment to sincere individualism or ethics. We are functionally divorced from them. There is no voice that is advocating for self-reliance and individualism. These people believe that racism is systemic. They believe it is evil to judge anyone who is not European or Asian by the color of their skin. But they also know that deep in the hearts of Europeans, all white people are racist and they can’t do anything about it. They sincerely think the world will be better if a generation of white boys going through puberty are forced to acknowledge their privilege and stfu. This will not end well, but some people need to see the explosion before they change course. Keep an eye on the national suicide rates and ask yourself how this new way of thinking is working out. The only way this world view makes sense is if you are shallow conformist. Too many people are too afraid of being labeled racist to address the inconsistency and racism of our national dialog on race. We normalize irrational and self-destructive behavior as a psychological condition that should be accepted because we need to “have a conversation about mental health.” Ted Kazinsky was right about the evolution of our culture and our dependency on technology to replace analytical thinking. Listen to the Sofia with an F podcast. We are in the middle of a philosophical divorce, and the next generation is focused exclusively on medications and DSM diagnostics over personal growth. We are industrial scale farming over-socialized, undereducated adults. Some day, their generation gets the launch codes. They are going to destroy themselves but they won’t be able to recognize their role because everything is someone else’s fault.
- wpietri 6y agoAs a fellow white person, I get this is uncomfortable. But they're not bringing race into this. It's been here all along. Because white people put it there. Right from the beginning America's constitution was built on white power over black people. [1] Slaves helped build the White House. [2] We fought a civil war to end slavery, but gave up on Reconstruction, [3] leading to the Nadir. [4] After the Nadir, we had Jim Crow in the south and widespread ethnic cleansing elsewhere [6][7]. [5] As with Reconstruction, we had some improvement with the Civil Rights movement, but now reasonable people see us as being in a second Nadir, [6][7] and that the recent collapse in bipartisan comity is just more fallout from attempts to move toward racial equity. [8] You could look at the pictures of presidents and see it's been very white. [9] Or take senators. There have been 11 black senators [10] out of 1994 senators total [11], a worse ratio than presidents. This is not an accident; it's something that white people have worked very hard for, from the US Constitution to the Wilmington Coup [12] to a former president who vigorously promoted racist lies and ended up trying to disenfranchise large black cities wholesale. [13] Whiteness has a pervasive influence on America's history and still does today. And until white people can at least hear mention of that whiteness without putting their hands over their ears, we're going to keep having some of the same problems over and over. That especially includes problems in the political system, a major function of which has been to ensure continued white dominance. [1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-fifths-compromise https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-fifths-compromise [2] https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-backgrounders/slavery-and-the-white-house https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-backgroun... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/what-if-reconstruction-hadnt-failed/412219/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/what-if... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relatio... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre [8] http://bostonreview.net/forum/remake-world-slavery-racial-capitalism-and-justice/n-d-b-connolly-our-second-nadir http://bostonreview.net/forum/remake-world-slavery-racial-ca... [9] https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-urgency-of-a-third-reconstruction https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-urgency-... [10] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3744902 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3744902 [11] https://www.whitehousegiftshop.com/Presidents-Magnet-p/magpotusall.htm https://www.whitehousegiftshop.com/Presidents-Magnet-p/magpo... [12] https://www.senate.gov/senators/EthnicDiversityintheSenate.htm https://www.senate.gov/senators/EthnicDiversityintheSenate.h... [13] https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/chronlist.pdf https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/c... [14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_189... [15] https://www.instapaper.com/read/1381142307 https://www.instapaper.com/read/1381142307
- jollofricepeas 6y agoYes, it’s triggering but keep reading. The author explains their phrasing. The author feels there is a double standard where the “white” US perpetually demonizes black and brown countries corruption while excusing their own corruption under the guise of “lobbying”, “speaking fees” and “dinners.” To the author, it appears to be racism when in fact it may just be hypocrisy (ie. Russia).
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago> The author feels there is a double standard where the “white” US perpetually demonizes black and brown countries corruption while excusing their own corruption under the guise of “lobbying”, “speaking fees” and “dinners.” Its sad because many people are not happy with all this lobbying, speaking fees, dinners, etc., but the author ignores this and acts like people in the US approve when. They really just don’t have any say in the occurrence.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago> They really just don’t have any say in the occurrence. I feel this isn't correct. People have their vote and Americans overwhelmingly vote for people who trade law & Fed power for campaign cash.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago> One say that people have is their vote. Americans overwhelmingly vote for people who trade law & fed power for campaign cash. That’s because there isn’t another option. Voters are villified for voting third party.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago> That’s because there isn’t another option. Voters are villified for voting third party. Voters could also choose to not reelect officials who trade in bribes.
- technick 6y agoAre you really that sensitive that you can't look past a potentially poorly worded part of an otherwise amazing write up? That's some sad shit, that you can't take the positive with the negative, and look past a personal opinion which, in context, is correct as the author is specifically addresses Janet Yellen, who is white and a horrible choice for that position in my opinion.
- DenisM 6y agoYou may have some good points but the abrasive delivery is unwarranted.
- mtrower 6y agoI’m pretty sure from context that when he says “white people” he’s referring to the general American public - not Janet Yellen.
- CapmCrackaWaka 6y agoI didn’t ignore his other points, in fact I very clearly said I agree 100% with the rest of the article. Please stay away from ad hominims on HN.