4 ms·

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions surviv

by alxjrvs 13y ago

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive. When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind of makes you sound like an asshole, because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. True, any given white person might not be some sort of evil society architect, but white people are clearly those who most benefit from this society. Blaming this on political correctness is a cowardly and conservative move that stems from a false sense of equality between people. As progressive and bottom-up our community can be, we are not a meritocracy, and everyone is not equal.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly. But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic. Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) and still face disadvantages, despite being largely equal in most facets, this does not make their racial pride any less "asshole"-ish. Pride is reserved for things once has accomplished, not ones that you're inherently born with. Just by that alone, racial pride is frivolous. Even further, by setting up this double standard, you are actually contributing to the extension of racism. Why? You're giving people carte blanche to keep focusing more and more on racial characteristics as being essential to them as people. "It's bad to be racist, but we still must be preoccupied with race and being inoffensive at all costs." That is only slowing progress down. You go from a society that is maddeningly obsessed with race as a way to persecute people they don't understand to a society that is maddeningly obsessed with a race as a way to kiss ass, idolize and never question those majestic black people who can clearly do no wrong and deserve to have double standards because they have suffered injustices throughout their history. Yet so have all races and cultures, honestly. Black people do not hold a monopoly on persecution.
- gress 13y ago
  You make it sound as though racism against black people is a largely resolved old issue rather than an active and present problem. I invite you to take a walk around Oakland and SF and see if you think that is still true.
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    It's not resolved, but it has improved drastically. There's still barriers, primarily in socioeconomic status and tendencies to cluster in ghettos as a result, but it is still far better than one could have ever imagined. If you want a crippling issue, go for homophobia. Homophobia is still very much rampant in the USA and it is still completely fine for politicians to be openly homophobic for reasons like "preserving family values". Yet when was the last time you heard a US politician make openly racist and white supremacist statements? When has a white supremacist been elected? David Duke is the most recent example I can name of, and he was reviled. Racism for US politicians is an instant career killer, no question. Race is a touchy issue and the moment a representative says something unfavorable concerning race, they get annihilated by press and public advocacy. Not the same for homophobia. It's time people stop with their persecution complexes. The past is the past. No one owes you anything.
    - gress 13y ago
      > It's time people stop with their persecution complexes. The past is the past. No one owes you anything. So really you are claiming that racism is over as a problem. Nice.
      - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
        No, I'm not. You're twisting my words to fit your agenda. By dividing complex social issues into dichotomies of "oppressor versus oppressed" and allowing double standards as a perverse form of reparation for past injustices that current generations no longer have to suffer from, you are exacerbating the issue of race. The ultimate goal should be to render race as a non-defining characteristic, one that should not cloud peoples' judgement or fuel their insensitivity. Instead, what's going on is that we're turning race into an emotional circus. The fact is that being white by itself does not mean your ancestors were involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Mine were too busy being under Ottoman rule. Conversely, being black does not make you exempt. Many tribal warlords traded slaves with the Europeans voluntarily. There were some few thousand or so black slave owners in the USA before abolition. People are not responsible for what their ancestors perpetrated in the past, and the world does not revolve around the West. Yet these ideologies of white guilt and reparation act like it's exactly that way. What you're doing is turning race into a novelty.
nailer 13y ago
> because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. Thinking of 'white' as a single group of people who are always middle class is a fantastically ignorant thing to do. Does the white kid whose parents are Ukrainian janitors deserves a leg up less than the black kid whose parents are an English professor and a photographer?
- wcummings 13y ago
  People frequently confuse class and race. We should really be thinking about the former (though obviously the two are related to a degree). Full disclosure: my grandfather was an uneducated Ukrainian immigrant (:
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >Does the white kid whose parents are Ukrainian janitors deserves a leg up less than the black kid whose parents are an English professor and a photographer? Nope, but he's going to get one as a white person who lives in America.
  - nailer 13y ago
    In Texas at least the opposite will happen.

by alxjrvs 13y ago

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly. But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic. Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) and still face disadvantages, despite being largely equal in most facets, this does not make their racial pride any less "asshole"-ish. Pride is reserved for things once has accomplished, not ones that you're inherently born with. Just by that alone, racial pride is frivolous. Even further, by setting up this double standard, you are actually contributing to the extension of racism. Why? You're giving people carte blanche to keep focusing more and more on racial characteristics as being essential to them as people. "It's bad to be racist, but we still must be preoccupied with race and being inoffensive at all costs." That is only slowing progress down. You go from a society that is maddeningly obsessed with race as a way to persecute people they don't understand to a society that is maddeningly obsessed with a race as a way to kiss ass, idolize and never question those majestic black people who can clearly do no wrong and deserve to have double standards because they have suffered injustices throughout their history. Yet so have all races and cultures, honestly. Black people do not hold a monopoly on persecution.

gress 13y ago
You make it sound as though racism against black people is a largely resolved old issue rather than an active and present problem. I invite you to take a walk around Oakland and SF and see if you think that is still true.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  It's not resolved, but it has improved drastically. There's still barriers, primarily in socioeconomic status and tendencies to cluster in ghettos as a result, but it is still far better than one could have ever imagined. If you want a crippling issue, go for homophobia. Homophobia is still very much rampant in the USA and it is still completely fine for politicians to be openly homophobic for reasons like "preserving family values". Yet when was the last time you heard a US politician make openly racist and white supremacist statements? When has a white supremacist been elected? David Duke is the most recent example I can name of, and he was reviled. Racism for US politicians is an instant career killer, no question. Race is a touchy issue and the moment a representative says something unfavorable concerning race, they get annihilated by press and public advocacy. Not the same for homophobia. It's time people stop with their persecution complexes. The past is the past. No one owes you anything.
  - gress 13y ago
    > It's time people stop with their persecution complexes. The past is the past. No one owes you anything. So really you are claiming that racism is over as a problem. Nice.
    - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
      No, I'm not. You're twisting my words to fit your agenda. By dividing complex social issues into dichotomies of "oppressor versus oppressed" and allowing double standards as a perverse form of reparation for past injustices that current generations no longer have to suffer from, you are exacerbating the issue of race. The ultimate goal should be to render race as a non-defining characteristic, one that should not cloud peoples' judgement or fuel their insensitivity. Instead, what's going on is that we're turning race into an emotional circus. The fact is that being white by itself does not mean your ancestors were involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Mine were too busy being under Ottoman rule. Conversely, being black does not make you exempt. Many tribal warlords traded slaves with the Europeans voluntarily. There were some few thousand or so black slave owners in the USA before abolition. People are not responsible for what their ancestors perpetrated in the past, and the world does not revolve around the West. Yet these ideologies of white guilt and reparation act like it's exactly that way. What you're doing is turning race into a novelty.

nailer 13y ago

> because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. Thinking of 'white' as a single group of people who are always middle class is a fantastically ignorant thing to do. Does the white kid whose parents are Ukrainian janitors deserves a leg up less than the black kid whose parents are an English professor and a photographer?

wcummings 13y ago
People frequently confuse class and race. We should really be thinking about the former (though obviously the two are related to a degree). Full disclosure: my grandfather was an uneducated Ukrainian immigrant (:
pessimizer 13y ago
>Does the white kid whose parents are Ukrainian janitors deserves a leg up less than the black kid whose parents are an English professor and a photographer? Nope, but he's going to get one as a white person who lives in America.
- nailer 13y ago
  In Texas at least the opposite will happen.