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I understand the context of “it’s okay to be white” but it’s a broken clock right twice a day kind of thing. The people who criticize the phrase “it’s okay to

I understand the context of “it’s okay to be white” but it’s a broken clock right twice a day kind of thing. The people who criticize the phrase “it’s okay to be white” are actually racists and ad hominem doesn’t make them not racist. Going on about how even asking the question is racist is a lame criticism. A bunch of white supremacists touched a nerve and revealed a bunch of anti-white racism in the population. It is how it is. The only way to fight against their propaganda is not to defame the people saying this - it’s to not be racist and to point out that mildly racist views on white people don’t nessecarily amount to much of anything in the real world.

acdha 4y ago
You’re begging the question of whether the people objecting to that phrase are reacting to the surface message or the well-known subtext. Unless you have that data, it’s an error to assume it’s saying anything about anti-white racism. For example, if you asked me whether it was important to secure a future for white children, I’d react negatively even though I am white because I know that phrasing and the related belief structure is tightly bound to the white supremacist movement. That doesn’t mean I don’t want white children to have a great future - as a father that’d be abhorrent - but I want that for all children and I specifically don’t want anything I say or do to be construed as supporting the kind of people who rally around the 14 words.
- junofan 4y ago
  You pick your reactions based on 4chan?
  - acdha 4y ago
    Only in the sense that if I recognize something came from there I do not assume the question is being asked in good faith.
    - junofan 4y ago
      What question?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Fair enough I did make the same point elsewhere that this poll is worthless due to the effect described. It’s too politically loaded. As to the “14 words” somehow I feel those are more loaded because it’s a pretty explicit historical reference to WWII German wartime expansionism which genuinely killed loads of people, which makes the word “secure” in the 14 words feel very uncomfortable. We know exactly what “secure” means and it caused much death.
seba_dos1 4y ago
> The people who criticize the phrase “it’s okay to be white” are actually racists and ad hominem doesn’t make them not racist. That's only true if you're painfully context-blind, or if you live in a non-white-dominated society that's well known for centuries of discrimination towards whites (which you don't). I am white and while the phrase taken at its face value is obviously true, I can't think of a context where I could use it without intentional racist subtexts - and that's without even considering the origin of the phrase.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  I don’t treat racial groups as homogenous wholes and think that because some white people in 1870 had it pretty great an individual white person can’t either be the victims of racism or be self-hating racists with self-esteem issues. I don’t look at your experience as a white person and go “wow you must understand hundred of millions of peoples experience” What I have seen is people who aren’t privileged and aren’t successful will hate themselves because they believe they are privileged and because they’re not successful that makes them bad even relative to other similarly unsuccessful people. Poor white boys in Britain have the worst educational outcomes in the country. I’ve heard countless times how affirmative action isn’t a problem because of legacy admissions mostly being held by whites, and it never dawns on people that this means the non-legacy spots for white students must’ve reduced if one is to maintain racial equity (which must of course be done because of centuries of privilege), resulting in a unique problem for people at the intersection of being poor and white which doesn’t happen to poor people in general. Same things happen in the workforce, if you try to achieve equity in a disproportionately white workplace without firing a bunch of white people, think about it, WHICH white people take the hit? Despite what I describe not showing that while people collectively are hard done by, my point is that looking at the collective situation is misleading and underestimates the potential for a white person to get screwed for having the wrong skin BECAUSE of the privilege of other whites! There is one context in which I will say words to the effect of “it’s okay to be white” which is to counteract the toxic effects of treating whites as a homogenous whole with “white privilege” which can destroy peoples self esteem when they don’t live up to that privilege and think dark things about themselves and people who look like them.

acdha 4y ago

You’re begging the question of whether the people objecting to that phrase are reacting to the surface message or the well-known subtext. Unless you have that data, it’s an error to assume it’s saying anything about anti-white racism. For example, if you asked me whether it was important to secure a future for white children, I’d react negatively even though I am white because I know that phrasing and the related belief structure is tightly bound to the white supremacist movement. That doesn’t mean I don’t want white children to have a great future - as a father that’d be abhorrent - but I want that for all children and I specifically don’t want anything I say or do to be construed as supporting the kind of people who rally around the 14 words.

junofan 4y ago
You pick your reactions based on 4chan?
- acdha 4y ago
  Only in the sense that if I recognize something came from there I do not assume the question is being asked in good faith.
  - junofan 4y ago
    What question?
faeriechangling 4y ago
Fair enough I did make the same point elsewhere that this poll is worthless due to the effect described. It’s too politically loaded. As to the “14 words” somehow I feel those are more loaded because it’s a pretty explicit historical reference to WWII German wartime expansionism which genuinely killed loads of people, which makes the word “secure” in the 14 words feel very uncomfortable. We know exactly what “secure” means and it caused much death.

seba_dos1 4y ago

> The people who criticize the phrase “it’s okay to be white” are actually racists and ad hominem doesn’t make them not racist. That's only true if you're painfully context-blind, or if you live in a non-white-dominated society that's well known for centuries of discrimination towards whites (which you don't). I am white and while the phrase taken at its face value is obviously true, I can't think of a context where I could use it without intentional racist subtexts - and that's without even considering the origin of the phrase.

faeriechangling 4y ago
I don’t treat racial groups as homogenous wholes and think that because some white people in 1870 had it pretty great an individual white person can’t either be the victims of racism or be self-hating racists with self-esteem issues. I don’t look at your experience as a white person and go “wow you must understand hundred of millions of peoples experience” What I have seen is people who aren’t privileged and aren’t successful will hate themselves because they believe they are privileged and because they’re not successful that makes them bad even relative to other similarly unsuccessful people. Poor white boys in Britain have the worst educational outcomes in the country. I’ve heard countless times how affirmative action isn’t a problem because of legacy admissions mostly being held by whites, and it never dawns on people that this means the non-legacy spots for white students must’ve reduced if one is to maintain racial equity (which must of course be done because of centuries of privilege), resulting in a unique problem for people at the intersection of being poor and white which doesn’t happen to poor people in general. Same things happen in the workforce, if you try to achieve equity in a disproportionately white workplace without firing a bunch of white people, think about it, WHICH white people take the hit? Despite what I describe not showing that while people collectively are hard done by, my point is that looking at the collective situation is misleading and underestimates the potential for a white person to get screwed for having the wrong skin BECAUSE of the privilege of other whites! There is one context in which I will say words to the effect of “it’s okay to be white” which is to counteract the toxic effects of treating whites as a homogenous whole with “white privilege” which can destroy peoples self esteem when they don’t live up to that privilege and think dark things about themselves and people who look like them.