5 ms·

Oh yes. It's literally to the point that even saying "it's okay to be white" is considered alt-right and white supremacist. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%

Oh yes. It's literally to the point that even saying "it's okay to be white" is considered alt-right and white supremacist. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white

NullPrefix 5y ago
It's not?
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Case in point. It is okay to be who you are. It doesn't matter your race or nationality, your sex or gender or creed. It's okay to be white. It's okay to be black. It's okay to be Asian. It's okay to be First Nations, Native, Indigenous. It's okay to be male or female or intersexed or trans. It's okay to be Catholic or Protestant or Sunni or Shia or Jewish or Orthodox or Baha'i or Zoroastrian or Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist or Shinto or any other creed. For all people everywhere, it is emphatically okay to exist. If you disagree with that, then I think you need to re-examine who is engaging in supremacist politics.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- newswriter99 5y ago
  It's ok to be white.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  I was around on the internet when this was happening, so I can tell you the real story. Some people went around posting those signs, printed at home on A4 paper, around college campuses during a time when social justice issues were at a fever pitch in popular culture. Some very sensitive-to-social-justice-issues and sensitive-to-potential-indicators-of-people-being-insensitive-to-social-issues people saw them and became upset on Twitter. I think the signs usually got taken down, but that's what usually happens to signs. Some people took this as a sign that an evil fifth column was going around trying to win an invisible cultural battle by putting up signs that had no racist content but that implied that someone around town would be willing to put up a racist sign if they had had the chance and the chutzpah. Other people took this as a sign that the evil first through fourth columns were in such active pursuit of dissenters that they would get mad on Twitter and take down meticulously inkjetted pieces of A4 paper if they so much as implied that dissent was an option. Few reasonable people took this as a sign that it was, literally, not "OK" to be a white person (what does that even mean? if it's not okay how are they supposed to stop?), but because taking down a sign can be taken to mean that the janitor disagrees with what those cultural mercenaries at Kinko's printed on it, that take got passed around a lot.
  - newswriter99 5y ago
    Look up "fuck white people" (or the variations, "fuck wypipo" and "fuck yt people") on Twitter and tell me how there isn't an inordinate amount of discrimination against whites, which is totally socially acceptable, by the way. Yet if you were to post "fuck black people" or "fuck [insert nonwhite color here] people" your social credit monitors would be alerted, you'd immediately lose your job, and you'd be lucky to find work as a janitor.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    I believe the popularity of the sign lies in its ambiguity. You see, the mainstream discourse never went as far as to say "it is not OK to be white." It was hinted at, in a more or less subtle way, through the "white privilege" (some corporations actually have obligatory trainings on this) and in thousands of indirect ways making white people guilty of the skin they were born in. So for some people the message of that poster was infuriating. You can't openly disagree with the literal meaning, but on the other hand, many people do it internally. They believe that white people as the descendants of slave owners should inherit the collective guilt of their great forefathers (even if it was a family of a third wave of immigrants from Europe that never owned any slaves). The very fact we are even discussing that is telling in itself.
- ratww 5y ago
  It definitely is ok to be white. It’s not ok to be a white supremacist, though. Not everything has to be black and white and divisive.
- myWindoonn 5y ago
  "White" is meaningless, isn't it? At best it's a judgement about skin pigmentation.
stnmtn 5y ago
When any phrase is used exclusively by alt-right groups as a way to dogwhistle and provoke, it makes sense to label it as something that alt-righters use. No one is seriously arguing that devoid on the context and who pushes that specific phrasing, that it's "not ok to be white" You have to intentionally disingenuous to seriously believe that.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  There is only one reason someone from one of those subreddits would say that line, and it's to get HN arguing about whether or not it should be taken literally, or as in indication that someone from one of those subreddits is in the room.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  When that phrase is used to troll people into freaking out at an innocuous phrase, and they do so, that's on them.
  - stnmtn 5y ago
    You just ignored my points entirely. If white supremacists keep saying the phrase "googly moogly" to each other and to others; as a way to identify themselves as alt-right, and push it over and over again, it becomes a dogwhistle. It doesn't matter that minus context, "googly moogly" doesn't mean anything. "Those stupid libs are saying 'googly moogly is racist now! look how far the left has gone! bunch of snowflakes" This is how dogwhistles literally work, and you have to engage with my point about dogwhistles or else you are simplying not having the conversation at all, you are arguing from a point that has no context or meaning. It's more important exactly who is using the phrase and why, than what the phrase is.
    - jimbokun 5y ago
      I think you've clearly gone off the deep end when you are obsessing about what innocuous phrase has secret meaning to white supremacists. Like the freaking out over the "OK" sign, and the Hispanic guy who got fired because he used it without knowing the super secret meaning. Seriously, these white supremacists are twisting you into hysterics and make you look like a fool with your obsession with decoding their secret symbols.
jimbokun 5y ago
> The Guardian columnist Jason Wilson argued that the slogan It's okay to be white was devised by white supremacists in order to stoke overreaction from the left, sow confusion, embed a racist agenda in the mainstream media, and ultimately invite a backlash against anti-racist activism." Well, looks like they were very successful then.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  PSA: If you say it isn't okay to be a race and you attack everyone who says it is okay to be a race, you are not "anti-racist"

NullPrefix 5y ago

It's not?

torstenvl 5y ago
Case in point. It is okay to be who you are. It doesn't matter your race or nationality, your sex or gender or creed. It's okay to be white. It's okay to be black. It's okay to be Asian. It's okay to be First Nations, Native, Indigenous. It's okay to be male or female or intersexed or trans. It's okay to be Catholic or Protestant or Sunni or Shia or Jewish or Orthodox or Baha'i or Zoroastrian or Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist or Shinto or any other creed. For all people everywhere, it is emphatically okay to exist. If you disagree with that, then I think you need to re-examine who is engaging in supremacist politics.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
newswriter99 5y ago
It's ok to be white.
whatshisface 5y ago
I was around on the internet when this was happening, so I can tell you the real story. Some people went around posting those signs, printed at home on A4 paper, around college campuses during a time when social justice issues were at a fever pitch in popular culture. Some very sensitive-to-social-justice-issues and sensitive-to-potential-indicators-of-people-being-insensitive-to-social-issues people saw them and became upset on Twitter. I think the signs usually got taken down, but that's what usually happens to signs. Some people took this as a sign that an evil fifth column was going around trying to win an invisible cultural battle by putting up signs that had no racist content but that implied that someone around town would be willing to put up a racist sign if they had had the chance and the chutzpah. Other people took this as a sign that the evil first through fourth columns were in such active pursuit of dissenters that they would get mad on Twitter and take down meticulously inkjetted pieces of A4 paper if they so much as implied that dissent was an option. Few reasonable people took this as a sign that it was, literally, not "OK" to be a white person (what does that even mean? if it's not okay how are they supposed to stop?), but because taking down a sign can be taken to mean that the janitor disagrees with what those cultural mercenaries at Kinko's printed on it, that take got passed around a lot.
- newswriter99 5y ago
  Look up "fuck white people" (or the variations, "fuck wypipo" and "fuck yt people") on Twitter and tell me how there isn't an inordinate amount of discrimination against whites, which is totally socially acceptable, by the way. Yet if you were to post "fuck black people" or "fuck [insert nonwhite color here] people" your social credit monitors would be alerted, you'd immediately lose your job, and you'd be lucky to find work as a janitor.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  I believe the popularity of the sign lies in its ambiguity. You see, the mainstream discourse never went as far as to say "it is not OK to be white." It was hinted at, in a more or less subtle way, through the "white privilege" (some corporations actually have obligatory trainings on this) and in thousands of indirect ways making white people guilty of the skin they were born in. So for some people the message of that poster was infuriating. You can't openly disagree with the literal meaning, but on the other hand, many people do it internally. They believe that white people as the descendants of slave owners should inherit the collective guilt of their great forefathers (even if it was a family of a third wave of immigrants from Europe that never owned any slaves). The very fact we are even discussing that is telling in itself.
ratww 5y ago
It definitely is ok to be white. It’s not ok to be a white supremacist, though. Not everything has to be black and white and divisive.
myWindoonn 5y ago
"White" is meaningless, isn't it? At best it's a judgement about skin pigmentation.

stnmtn 5y ago

When any phrase is used exclusively by alt-right groups as a way to dogwhistle and provoke, it makes sense to label it as something that alt-righters use. No one is seriously arguing that devoid on the context and who pushes that specific phrasing, that it's "not ok to be white" You have to intentionally disingenuous to seriously believe that.

whatshisface 5y ago
There is only one reason someone from one of those subreddits would say that line, and it's to get HN arguing about whether or not it should be taken literally, or as in indication that someone from one of those subreddits is in the room.
refenestrator 5y ago
When that phrase is used to troll people into freaking out at an innocuous phrase, and they do so, that's on them.
- stnmtn 5y ago
  You just ignored my points entirely. If white supremacists keep saying the phrase "googly moogly" to each other and to others; as a way to identify themselves as alt-right, and push it over and over again, it becomes a dogwhistle. It doesn't matter that minus context, "googly moogly" doesn't mean anything. "Those stupid libs are saying 'googly moogly is racist now! look how far the left has gone! bunch of snowflakes" This is how dogwhistles literally work, and you have to engage with my point about dogwhistles or else you are simplying not having the conversation at all, you are arguing from a point that has no context or meaning. It's more important exactly who is using the phrase and why, than what the phrase is.
  - jimbokun 5y ago
    I think you've clearly gone off the deep end when you are obsessing about what innocuous phrase has secret meaning to white supremacists. Like the freaking out over the "OK" sign, and the Hispanic guy who got fired because he used it without knowing the super secret meaning. Seriously, these white supremacists are twisting you into hysterics and make you look like a fool with your obsession with decoding their secret symbols.

jimbokun 5y ago

> The Guardian columnist Jason Wilson argued that the slogan It's okay to be white was devised by white supremacists in order to stoke overreaction from the left, sow confusion, embed a racist agenda in the mainstream media, and ultimately invite a backlash against anti-racist activism." Well, looks like they were very successful then.

torstenvl 5y ago
PSA: If you say it isn't okay to be a race and you attack everyone who says it is okay to be a race, you are not "anti-racist"