7 ms·

Well this is an issue. If only 53% of white people thought it was ok to be black, or any other minority, that would be seen as a problem. I don't see why the

• throwawaysleep 4y ago
  The problem isn't the idea. The problem is that "it's ok to be white" is a known racist slogan.
  • teddyh 4y ago
    Every snappy slogan eventually becomes a slogan “widely known” for being a dog whistle for extremist opinions. You can’t express any nuanced opinion without eventually being lumped together with crazy extremists.
    • throwawaysleep 4y ago
      Nuanced opinions are very rarely expressed with snappy slogans.
      • teddyh 4y ago
        Every proponent of an opinion with a snappy slogan will gladly explain how their opinion is very nuanced. Take, for instance, “defund the police”. It can be explained as a reasonable nuanced opinion, and not the literal interpretation. The same can be applied to most every slogan.
        • freejazz 4y ago
          You really like using words such as "every" where they have no reason to be used. Why are you making these kind of in-equivocal statements when they are clearly baseless and are just an expression of your political feeling. Good, express your political feelings. Telling people how everyone in a group of people does xyz is the exact problem you are complaining about.
          • teddyh 4y ago
            > Telling people how everyone in a group of people does xyz is the exact problem you are complaining about. No, in this case it is actually the opposite. The problem I am complaining about is people ascribing negative aspects (extreme opinions) to people uttering snappy slogans. What I did was ascribe a positive aspects to these same people, namely that they can all describe their opinion as being nuanced. (Obviously the words “every” and “all” do not literally mean “every” and “all” in the mathematical sense, but that’s just how language works.)
            • freejazz 4y ago
              I'm sorry, but you don't think "every" means "every" but instead actually means "some"?
              • teddyh 4y ago
                That’s how language works, yes. Otherwise, every sentence with the word “everybody” in it would be false.
                • freejazz 4y ago
                  No, that is not how language works and you are a poor communicator. This is the definition of the word "every": eve·ry | ˈev(ə)rē | determiner (preceding a singular noun) used to refer to all the individual members of a set without exception: the hotel assures every guest of personal attention | [with possessive determiner] : the children hung on his every word. >Otherwise, every sentence with the word “everybody” in it would be false. No. "Everybody over there" is not false if it refers to everybody over there for example. If you use everybody to refer to some people, then that is your poor word choice.
    • krapp 4y ago
      There are plenty of nuanced opinions that aren't associated with crazy extremists - by definition, crazy extremists tend to lack nuance. However some statements, like "a man is not a woman" and "it's OK to be white" do not represent nuanced opinions, but are purposely vague restatements of extremist positions. It's a game right-wing trolls like to play, pretending that context doesn't exist and the "wokes" or whomever are disagreeing with the general statement rather than the extremist position it represents. Then they express faux shock and outrage at how "you can't even say it's OK to be white anymore."
      • teddyh 4y ago
        What you describe could also be applied to the slogan “Black lives matter”; the argument is valid both ways.
        • krapp 4y ago
          Except the people who interpreted the slogan "Black Lives Matter" to mean "White lives must not matter" or somesuch were never doing so in good faith - that slogan was not the anti-white dog whistle it was claimed to be.
          • teddyh 4y ago
            Yes; I mean, you’re making my point for me: A person saying “Black Lives Matter” will be lumped together with extremists.
            • freejazz 4y ago
              By you. Probably not by most people.
              • teddyh 4y ago
                Certainly not by me. But a lot of other people will, is what I’m saying. ’I’m not!’ Walsh shouted futilely. ‘I’m not a Purist and I’m not a Naturalist! You hear me?’ Nobody heard him. — The Chromium Fence, Philip K. Dick (1955) <https://web.archive.org/web/20150419173332/http://american-buddha.com/dick.phildickreader.20.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20150419173332/http://american-b...>
    • freejazz 4y ago
      > You can’t express any nuanced opinion without eventually being lumped together with crazy extremists. How is that even remotely true? Even just in the context of race...
    • acdha 4y ago
      When was this ever a nuanced position? It’s not like there’s any sizable group of people questioning whether it’s okay to be white — the focus for centuries has been on gaining access to the lifestyle and respect white people have, and dealing with the aftermath of discrimination. Statistically nobody is asking for new discrimination, just an end to the old system. This is not an uncommon tactic, I’ve noticed. For example, fundamentalist Christians often like to pretend they’re oppressed because it’s an effective recruiting and retention strategy even though it makes no literal sense when you look around the country and see how much power they have. Any time I see someone in a dominant group painting themselves as a victim, I know to ask what bill of goods they’re trying to sell me.
      • teddyh 4y ago
        Then how do you explain the opinion poll results?
        • oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
          This entire discussion has justified the rejection of the poll results, imo. The question is so meaningless/biased/irrelevant that it's not possible to "explain" the results - they might as well be random and attempts to draw conclusions from them are quite likely only done with racist motivation.
        • acdha 4y ago
          It’s a loaded poll which can’t distinguish between people who are genuinely racist and people who are not racist but recognize the phrasing as one preferred by white supremacists. We can’t draw any meaningful conclusions without better data, which could most easily be obtained by not using a white supremacist prompt. It’s also worth thinking about why the Republican Party’s favorite polling company is pulling material from 4chan and consider whether whoever is behind that might have had other questions in the poll which primed the cannier portion of the people being polled to be suspicious.
  • _-david-_ 4y ago
    The problem is when people said they didn't like Black Lives Matter due to the organization they were told it doesn't matter because black lives matter. This is a double standard.
    • freejazz 4y ago
      Oh, there was an official statement?
      • _-david-_ 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you are asking. People said disagreeing with the organization of BLM means you disagree that black lives matter. If you disagree with groups that use it is OK to be white, then using the same logic that means you disagree with the phrase as well.
        • freejazz 4y ago
          People were told something? by whom? You act as if there is some sort of authority on this... online, sooner or later, you will see just about any opinion expressed. so when you give the example you did, what value is it? the standard shouldn't be "what someone says online" but what a reasonable person would think.
          • _-david-_ 4y ago
            >People were told something? by whom? I couldn't find the clip, but I think I saw it on CNN. It was one of the mainstream news outlets, might have been ABC or NBC or something like that. >You act as if there is some sort of authority on this... I think you are reading more into my comment than you should. >online, sooner or later, you will see just about any opinion expressed. Sure... Not sure why that matters. I'm not just talking about random posts. > so when you give the example you did, what value is it? the standard shouldn't be "what someone says online" but what a reasonable person would think. The problem is mainstream outlets are pushing this. That influences people and can cause people who were reasonable to become unreasonable. Unless you don't think people watched by millions can influence others?
  • benj111 4y ago
    Is it? I didn't know. I'm still not sure of the wisdom of making the term verboten. The correct answer isn't "it's not ok to be white" I suppose it's the same with black lives matter. I should be able to agree with the statement that black lives matter with out signing up to their politics.
  • 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
    Also, its vagueness conveniently (for the racists) lends itself to equivocating "it's okay [for you] to be white" with "it's okay [for your country] to be white".
  • faeriechangling 4y ago
    Maybe stop reflexively hating ideas based on who said them and you will actually combat racism instead of feeding into it. You could say “well that’s a good notion, it’s okay to be somebody of any race, yet we should be asking if people think if it’s okay to be trans or okay to be black as well” yada yada. Like something not racist like that instead of going “look at this a white supremacist said this it’s a dog whistle fuckin owned everybody who says this is a closet racist now” I’m just so frustrated with people who are so obsessed with who is saying something and guilt by association that what is being said is secondary.
• dpkirchner 4y ago
  It's only an issue if you ignore the context and origination of the phrase. If you read it literally then sure, it seems like an innocuous phrase. The alt-right folks are counting on people to naively interpret the phrase literally.
  • Laaas 4y ago
    What is the non-naive interpretation?
    • eesmith 4y ago
      A bit over a year ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29173357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29173357 linked to "Basingstoke 'It’s okay to be white' posters spark investigation" at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-59179914 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-59179914 . > Posters saying "It's okay to be white" have sparked a police investigation. ... > Hampshire Constabulary was alerted to the posters by a resident on Thursday and said they were being treated as a "hate incident". ... > Resident Priya Brown said: "These tactics are divisive and they have no place in today's world. They're tactics that are used to divide deliberately by neo-Nazi groups and white supremacy groups. It started in the US but we have seen it here in the UK."
      • Laaas 4y ago
        So what's the interpretation? What does it mean?
        • eesmith 4y ago
          Have you read acdha's answer at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34940530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34940530 ? That seems like a good summary of the non-naive interpretation. As my link shows, the UK police interpreted posting fliers of that phrase to be a "hate incident", and not the "innocuous phrase" of the naive interpretation. The description from that link is in lign with acdha's interpretation.
  • 4y ago
• silverwasthere 4y ago
  It goes both ways in that until recently whites even said a black was less than a person _in the law_, so certainly they deserve to feel slighted by white people insisting racism is over and racial issues need to be considered from a made up position, and we need to do what we can to allow healing to make it right.
  • benj111 4y ago
    how long should this free pass last for? slavery is still a talking point. Should black people get another century and a half after equality is achieved to hold it against white people? Do white people then get another century and a half to hold that against black people? If the goal is equality, holding grudges and special treatment doesn't work. Women got the vote, they didn't get 1.5 votes to make up for past injustices. And I'm not suggesting we have perfect equality now. But if that's the goal, there's no room for revenge.
    • freejazz 4y ago
      [flagged]
      • benj111 4y ago
        Embittered about what? The fairest thing for everyone is equality. I'm signed up for that. I don't support equality and a little bit more. If you want special treatment for your group, black, white or anything else, I won't support that, except potentially to further the goal of equality.
        • freejazz 4y ago
          I don't know what you are bitter over, but your word choice clearly reflects what I described. >The fairest thing for everyone is equality. I'm signed up for that. I don't support equality and a little bit more. I mean yeah, that's one way to characterize it. I don't think it's fair to characterize things as 'equality and more' and, to be honest, nothing you've said makes it seem like you are reasonably assessing any of this. >If you want special treatment for your group, black, white or anything else, I won't support that, except potentially to further the goal of equality. Not sure how you square this with the previous statement, but okay.
• dudul 4y ago
  The goal posts have been moved again though. Now that we have equality its not enough, it's equity. It used to be same chances, but now they want same outcomes. Racism is just a business at this point. The self proclaimed diversity experts have no desire to fix anything since this is how they sell their books and diversity trainings.