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Acknowledging a possible privileged position is not being called "the root of all problems in society and the world".

by rhcom2 5y ago

scohesc 5y ago
Shaming people who had no hand in being brought into that privileged position is what's actually going on even though the institutions don't acknowledge it.
- luffapi 5y ago
  It’s not “shaming”. It’s teaching history. Should they not teach kids about slavery, colonialism…? This is especially relevant in Canada where they have been uncovering mass graves of indigenous children at Catholic schools designed to convert Natives: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653 That’s definitely something that needs more discussion and investigation. Edit: it’s absolutely appalling to downvote this. HN is trying to sweep genocide under the table now? This place is a toilet of reactionary racists.
  - newswriter99 5y ago
    Go back to Reddit.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    It's not history - it's a wild leftist interpretation of history that tries to use "just history" as a defense. We have taught children for the last 100 years about the Civil War without needing to talk about how white people are still responsible today implicitly and have racial guilt.
    - luffapi 5y ago
      It’s not history that Europeans committed genocide on Natives? Colonialism isn’t historical fact? Slavery didn’t happen? Those kids bodies aren’t real? What kind of anti-intellectual position is that to take?
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        What sort of anti-intellectual position is it to take that white people today bear responsibility for the sins of their ancestors? We criticize societies where children are punished for their parent's crime. Not when it comes to race apparently. That's just "history."
        luffapi 5y ago
        You didn’t answer my questions. Are you suggesting we don’t teach those very real historical facts I mentioned because some sensitive racists may take it personally? Since when is that a reason to distort the truth? Edit: HackerNews has decided to throttle me because I’m not a hivemind reactionary. I’m really close to highlighting what’s really going on in this “community” in a more public forum dang.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        Teach all the facts you want. That's very different than Critical Race Theory, which teaches racism to cure racism.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        All parent talked about was teaching facts and you're the one equating that with some form of shaming and oppression, for which you have demonstrated no evidence other than that said facts are indeed taught.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        As I said above: Teaching facts is fine. But the method these facts are now taught with, the way to interpret the facts, and the system of applying these facts to the world is inflammatory and racist itself and was not previously present in the curriculum, being a recent addition. And if you say there's no evidence of that, you remain willfully ignorant of what colleges, high schools, and even middle schools are teaching.
    - ratww 5y ago
      Not disagreeing with you at all, but: It’s not really “leftist”. It’s just “american leftist” if anything. As far as some traditional leftists go, this whole discussion is a distraction from looking at class problems: “poor white men” can’t be oppressed by being white or men, but can be oppressed by being poor. This seems a strange concept for some on the American side of the pond.
      - colpabar 5y ago
        You hit the nail on the head. It is so frustrating that every single social movement has to be exclusively focused around some innate quality that cannot be changed. Sex, race, sexuality, everything except class. We spend all this time arguing amongst ourselves instead of collectively asking the ultra-rich why socialized healthcare is too expensive but spending 20 years destroying a country for no reason isn't. I just don't get how an american leftist can see every single fortune 500 company paying lip service to every single american leftist cause and not wonder if maybe something else is going on. And sure, I'm well aware that it's all meaningless PR maneuvers to curry favor among the public. But I firmly believe that these companies avoid any sort of class-based issue like the plague because that might lead to questions about why corporations can make so much money and pay so little in tax while the rest of us make peanuts and are forced to give the government 1/3 of it.
        scohesc 5y ago
        What a surprise - Someone finally gets it!
  - bmeski 5y ago
    You don't think every race in some part of the world has committed an atrocity at some point? Your view of history is so small.
    - luffapi 5y ago
      No. I’m talking about events that have shaped modern Western Society. We’re talking about Canadian schools. Again, are you saying that we shouldn’t teach the facts I listed?
  - scohesc 5y ago
    ANY educational theory or doctrine that criticizes anybody or anything using race as the excuse is inherently racist. I don't care. PEOPLE put those children in unmarked graves. Not white people. That is a VERY important distinction to make when educating easily influenced subjects like children.
    - rhcom2 5y ago
      You can't just completely divorce the racial overtones of WHY those children ended up in graves though. It's an important part of the history.
      - scohesc 5y ago
        I agree with you on that note. We do need to know which people perpetrated the horrific acts and for what justifications they had at the time - if only to ensure it doesn't happen again, no matter what race.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - jimbokun 5y ago
    I still haven't seen proposals actually banning the discussion of specific historical events in schools. Even all of the anti-CRT legislation being proposed in the US, puts restrictions on what kinds of judgements you can state about people of specific races living today, not on historical events. Granted, a lot of the wording of those proposed laws is way too vague, like not causing white kids to feel guilt or anguish or whatever. Maybe certain historical facts will make white kids feel bad, regardless or any editorializing. But if you have specific proposals or legislation that explicitly bans teaching certain historical facts, I'd like to see it.
eplanit 5y ago
It is saying "due to your race, you are a bad person". It's naked racism, insultingly labeled as "justice".
- rhcom2 5y ago
  That is absolutely not what it is saying. It is saying due to history and socio-economical factors you have "access to, or enjoying rights or advantages, simply by membership of a particular group or identity".
  - chucksta 5y ago
    "Eat your dinner, there are starving kids in Africa" is the same sentiment, and is meant to guilt you into finishing the meal. The same sense of guilt is implied here
    - rhcom2 5y ago
      I don't see it that way at all. It's meant to examine the current system we have. Eating your dinner doesn't affect African kids at all but the system that originally privileged white people still has effects today and examining that isn't about guilt or shame.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
gjhh244 5y ago
Privilege is primarily about money, not race. If you want to help poor people, then tax the rich more regardless of race and underprivileged minorities will benefit naturally more. All this obsession with race is just a way for the elites to urn attention away from actual solutions which would hurt their profits.
- rhcom2 5y ago
  > Privilege is primarily about money, not race. In the United State our history makes it absolutely about race too. The legacy of slavery and racial segregation didn't magically disappear in 1965. The limited amount I know about Canadian history is that something similar could be said about the treatment of First Nations.
  - gjhh244 5y ago
    Of course discrimination has greatly affected wealth distribution in the past. Still, I believe wealth re-distribution through Scandinavian style welfare state is the answer, not lectures about white-privilege and minority quotas. These days simply being white doesn't make you privileged if you were born into poor family, and being black doesn't automatically make you underprivileged if your parents happen to be wealthy.
    - rhcom2 5y ago
      There are privileges that come from race completely independent of wealth. Henry Gates Jr. getting arrested for "breaking in" to his own home while black is an anecdotal example of the kind of thing I'm talking about but it is shown in the data on policing and race too. If you agree the US has a history of slavery and racial segregation, of course it will still offer privileges to white people because that's historically how the system was setup. When do you think that stopped affecting black people?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Mary-Jane 5y ago
"Hey Whitey! Check your privilege!" You're right, there's no insult intended when people say that. Apparently whiteys have thin skin too!
- dang 5y ago
  Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Acknowledging a possible privileged position is not being called "the root of all problems in society and the world".

by rhcom2 5y ago

Acknowledging a possible privileged position is not being called "the root of all problems in society and the world".

Shaming people who had no hand in being brought into that privileged position is what's actually going on even though the institutions don't acknowledge it.

luffapi 5y ago
It’s not “shaming”. It’s teaching history. Should they not teach kids about slavery, colonialism…? This is especially relevant in Canada where they have been uncovering mass graves of indigenous children at Catholic schools designed to convert Natives: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653 That’s definitely something that needs more discussion and investigation. Edit: it’s absolutely appalling to downvote this. HN is trying to sweep genocide under the table now? This place is a toilet of reactionary racists.
- newswriter99 5y ago
  Go back to Reddit.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  It's not history - it's a wild leftist interpretation of history that tries to use "just history" as a defense. We have taught children for the last 100 years about the Civil War without needing to talk about how white people are still responsible today implicitly and have racial guilt.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    It’s not history that Europeans committed genocide on Natives? Colonialism isn’t historical fact? Slavery didn’t happen? Those kids bodies aren’t real? What kind of anti-intellectual position is that to take?
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      What sort of anti-intellectual position is it to take that white people today bear responsibility for the sins of their ancestors? We criticize societies where children are punished for their parent's crime. Not when it comes to race apparently. That's just "history."
      - luffapi 5y ago
        You didn’t answer my questions. Are you suggesting we don’t teach those very real historical facts I mentioned because some sensitive racists may take it personally? Since when is that a reason to distort the truth? Edit: HackerNews has decided to throttle me because I’m not a hivemind reactionary. I’m really close to highlighting what’s really going on in this “community” in a more public forum dang.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        Teach all the facts you want. That's very different than Critical Race Theory, which teaches racism to cure racism.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        All parent talked about was teaching facts and you're the one equating that with some form of shaming and oppression, for which you have demonstrated no evidence other than that said facts are indeed taught.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        As I said above: Teaching facts is fine. But the method these facts are now taught with, the way to interpret the facts, and the system of applying these facts to the world is inflammatory and racist itself and was not previously present in the curriculum, being a recent addition. And if you say there's no evidence of that, you remain willfully ignorant of what colleges, high schools, and even middle schools are teaching.
  - ratww 5y ago
    Not disagreeing with you at all, but: It’s not really “leftist”. It’s just “american leftist” if anything. As far as some traditional leftists go, this whole discussion is a distraction from looking at class problems: “poor white men” can’t be oppressed by being white or men, but can be oppressed by being poor. This seems a strange concept for some on the American side of the pond.
    - colpabar 5y ago
      You hit the nail on the head. It is so frustrating that every single social movement has to be exclusively focused around some innate quality that cannot be changed. Sex, race, sexuality, everything except class. We spend all this time arguing amongst ourselves instead of collectively asking the ultra-rich why socialized healthcare is too expensive but spending 20 years destroying a country for no reason isn't. I just don't get how an american leftist can see every single fortune 500 company paying lip service to every single american leftist cause and not wonder if maybe something else is going on. And sure, I'm well aware that it's all meaningless PR maneuvers to curry favor among the public. But I firmly believe that these companies avoid any sort of class-based issue like the plague because that might lead to questions about why corporations can make so much money and pay so little in tax while the rest of us make peanuts and are forced to give the government 1/3 of it.
      - scohesc 5y ago
        What a surprise - Someone finally gets it!
- bmeski 5y ago
  You don't think every race in some part of the world has committed an atrocity at some point? Your view of history is so small.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    No. I’m talking about events that have shaped modern Western Society. We’re talking about Canadian schools. Again, are you saying that we shouldn’t teach the facts I listed?
- scohesc 5y ago
  ANY educational theory or doctrine that criticizes anybody or anything using race as the excuse is inherently racist. I don't care. PEOPLE put those children in unmarked graves. Not white people. That is a VERY important distinction to make when educating easily influenced subjects like children.
  - rhcom2 5y ago
    You can't just completely divorce the racial overtones of WHY those children ended up in graves though. It's an important part of the history.
    - scohesc 5y ago
      I agree with you on that note. We do need to know which people perpetrated the horrific acts and for what justifications they had at the time - if only to ensure it doesn't happen again, no matter what race.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- jimbokun 5y ago
  I still haven't seen proposals actually banning the discussion of specific historical events in schools. Even all of the anti-CRT legislation being proposed in the US, puts restrictions on what kinds of judgements you can state about people of specific races living today, not on historical events. Granted, a lot of the wording of those proposed laws is way too vague, like not causing white kids to feel guilt or anguish or whatever. Maybe certain historical facts will make white kids feel bad, regardless or any editorializing. But if you have specific proposals or legislation that explicitly bans teaching certain historical facts, I'd like to see it.

eplanit 5y ago

It is saying "due to your race, you are a bad person". It's naked racism, insultingly labeled as "justice".

rhcom2 5y ago
That is absolutely not what it is saying. It is saying due to history and socio-economical factors you have "access to, or enjoying rights or advantages, simply by membership of a particular group or identity".
- chucksta 5y ago
  "Eat your dinner, there are starving kids in Africa" is the same sentiment, and is meant to guilt you into finishing the meal. The same sense of guilt is implied here
  - rhcom2 5y ago
    I don't see it that way at all. It's meant to examine the current system we have. Eating your dinner doesn't affect African kids at all but the system that originally privileged white people still has effects today and examining that isn't about guilt or shame.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

gjhh244 5y ago

Privilege is primarily about money, not race. If you want to help poor people, then tax the rich more regardless of race and underprivileged minorities will benefit naturally more. All this obsession with race is just a way for the elites to urn attention away from actual solutions which would hurt their profits.

rhcom2 5y ago
> Privilege is primarily about money, not race. In the United State our history makes it absolutely about race too. The legacy of slavery and racial segregation didn't magically disappear in 1965. The limited amount I know about Canadian history is that something similar could be said about the treatment of First Nations.
- gjhh244 5y ago
  Of course discrimination has greatly affected wealth distribution in the past. Still, I believe wealth re-distribution through Scandinavian style welfare state is the answer, not lectures about white-privilege and minority quotas. These days simply being white doesn't make you privileged if you were born into poor family, and being black doesn't automatically make you underprivileged if your parents happen to be wealthy.
  - rhcom2 5y ago
    There are privileges that come from race completely independent of wealth. Henry Gates Jr. getting arrested for "breaking in" to his own home while black is an anecdotal example of the kind of thing I'm talking about but it is shown in the data on policing and race too. If you agree the US has a history of slavery and racial segregation, of course it will still offer privileges to white people because that's historically how the system was setup. When do you think that stopped affecting black people?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Mary-Jane 5y ago

"Hey Whitey! Check your privilege!" You're right, there's no insult intended when people say that. Apparently whiteys have thin skin too!

dang 5y ago
Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html