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As soon as you make civil rights selective and for only certain people, it’s a political view. Either it’s civil rights for everyone or you are taking some sort

by zpeti 5y ago

As soon as you make civil rights selective and for only certain people, it’s a political view. Either it’s civil rights for everyone or you are taking some sort of political stance. Whether that’s repressing a minority (past) or repressing a majority (current trend), it’s basically treating people unequally and it’s just as bad.

wolverine876 5y ago
> As soon as you make civil rights selective and for only certain people ... We agree (without getting into the weeds of the wording). My point is that the civil rights of marginalized people have long been highly 'selective'. The outrage when some rights of the majority are threatened is ironic, or something. The majority usually doesn't need much help; look around, at successful people in almost every domain: white guys have tons of freedom, voice, opportunity, prosperity, safety, etc. Turn on the news and see who does the talking. I think concern for their rights is often (without talking about you in particular - I don't know you) cover for protecting their political and social power, protecting the established discriminatory system. Civil rights are there for the vulnerable, who don't have power. 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.' People in the majority have rights, absolutely, but that's not a problem and it's a distraction from the serious issues.
- zpeti 5y ago
  Except you are lumping in all white people as powerful. Which I profoundly disagree with as per my point in the first comment, what about someone who's white but has been generationally poor? It is absolutely ridiculous to call these people powerful or free or having a voice even. There might be racism in society but that doesn't mean you get to lump all white people together as more powerful than all black people. There are plenty of powerful black people, and plenty of zero power white people. What you are doing is basically race based identification and judgement, aka racism.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > There might be racism in society but that doesn't mean you get to lump all white people together as more powerful than all black people. There are plenty of powerful black people, and plenty of zero power white people. What you are doing is basically race based identification and judgement, aka racism. I agree factually in some respects, but I think that argument is a distraction. Obviously we must generalize somewhat; we can't write out every detail, and no matter what level of detail we include, someone can point out more that we omit. We could list the status of every individual in the country, but then we would be omitting their histories. On the other hand, generalizing about race is something I think we should be very careful about. So yes, there are disempowered white people. There are disempowered disabled people and short people and immigrants and poor people, etc. There are disempowered rich white male in SV, for various reasons. But I strongly disagree in this respect: We are talking about power resulting from skin color (what a concept to write - it's just absurd, but it's true!), not from other things. And all white people are much more powerful than black people in that regard. White people can go anywhere, buy anything, get any job, walk down any street, rent an Airbnb, interact safely with police, all simply by power conveyed by their skin color. It even affects where you can go in cyberspace: Look at popular Tik Tok videos; from what I've seen (not a lot, but compilations on YouTube), 98% white, some Asian and Hispanic, I'd guess 0.1% black. Join a gaming forum and make it known that you are black, and see what happens (based on what I understand). To catalog everyone else who is disempowered is like talking about every other disease at a cancer conference.

by zpeti 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

> As soon as you make civil rights selective and for only certain people ... We agree (without getting into the weeds of the wording). My point is that the civil rights of marginalized people have long been highly 'selective'. The outrage when some rights of the majority are threatened is ironic, or something. The majority usually doesn't need much help; look around, at successful people in almost every domain: white guys have tons of freedom, voice, opportunity, prosperity, safety, etc. Turn on the news and see who does the talking. I think concern for their rights is often (without talking about you in particular - I don't know you) cover for protecting their political and social power, protecting the established discriminatory system. Civil rights are there for the vulnerable, who don't have power. 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.' People in the majority have rights, absolutely, but that's not a problem and it's a distraction from the serious issues.

zpeti 5y ago
Except you are lumping in all white people as powerful. Which I profoundly disagree with as per my point in the first comment, what about someone who's white but has been generationally poor? It is absolutely ridiculous to call these people powerful or free or having a voice even. There might be racism in society but that doesn't mean you get to lump all white people together as more powerful than all black people. There are plenty of powerful black people, and plenty of zero power white people. What you are doing is basically race based identification and judgement, aka racism.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > There might be racism in society but that doesn't mean you get to lump all white people together as more powerful than all black people. There are plenty of powerful black people, and plenty of zero power white people. What you are doing is basically race based identification and judgement, aka racism. I agree factually in some respects, but I think that argument is a distraction. Obviously we must generalize somewhat; we can't write out every detail, and no matter what level of detail we include, someone can point out more that we omit. We could list the status of every individual in the country, but then we would be omitting their histories. On the other hand, generalizing about race is something I think we should be very careful about. So yes, there are disempowered white people. There are disempowered disabled people and short people and immigrants and poor people, etc. There are disempowered rich white male in SV, for various reasons. But I strongly disagree in this respect: We are talking about power resulting from skin color (what a concept to write - it's just absurd, but it's true!), not from other things. And all white people are much more powerful than black people in that regard. White people can go anywhere, buy anything, get any job, walk down any street, rent an Airbnb, interact safely with police, all simply by power conveyed by their skin color. It even affects where you can go in cyberspace: Look at popular Tik Tok videos; from what I've seen (not a lot, but compilations on YouTube), 98% white, some Asian and Hispanic, I'd guess 0.1% black. Join a gaming forum and make it known that you are black, and see what happens (based on what I understand). To catalog everyone else who is disempowered is like talking about every other disease at a cancer conference.