I my view the problem is these objections (though valid at face value) are used to shut down the conversation, not to advance it. I'm not white, does that matter in this instance? Yes, because my lived experience will be very different from yours. But this whole thing is only valuable if I can explain what's missing from your mental model. Lived experience was supposed to give you cover over not knowing racial conditions upfront and give an avenue and tools for us to incorporate more information.
This argument originated to facilitate nuance but is being used to shut it out. That fucking sucks.
As a white person who has been the direct target of racism - physical and emotional abuse, systemic oppression, social isolation, etc, I hope you can understand that what you are saying is very painful to me. You say that because the suffering of people like me is a minority case (the irony), that my desires for all humans who have been wronged to receive support are negligible. I can tell you that writing this comes at no small expense to my mental state. I have lived with the pain that you would likely attribute to a minority. In fact for much of my life I was a minority.
I won’t compare my severity to others, only acknowledge it exists and that it has devastated my life to this point in various ways. I cannot trust society. I cannot trust my partners. I cannot trust my bosses and coworkers (who knows, maybe that’s a perk). I lose many relationships with people I deeply care about because I grew up having to protect myself, and that meant never allowing myself to grow attached to someone less they turn on me too.
I’m not writing this to you to convince you to change your mind. I’ve learned long ago that people who can’t conceive of white people being victims of racism, and who refuse to acknowledge their needs, are not going to change their minds. They will only dig and dig until the white victim is broken enough to not voice their concerns. At least, that has been my overwhelming experience. From strangers to friends to romantic partners. Everyone who can’t entertain these thoughts and who immediately jump to “where’s your evidence? White people aren’t victims!” - they don’t want a conversation. They want to validate their long held beliefs about how racism “really works”.
I don’t write this for you, I write this as a form of catharsis to myself and to hope that I can be strong enough to improve my situation and help others who are marginalized but rejected. I have cried the entirety of writing this. Having this relentless pressure for defending the idea that whites are the victims of racism too is agony.
You claim “Racism against white people is not a serious problem”. Every time I have to fight this I relive those experiences. Every time I have to go back to those memories to articulate myself, it awakens that pain. But I won’t stop talking about this pain because stopping means that racism against white victims, the disregard and disbelief of their struggle, will continue unchecked and likely grow.
That is not acceptable. Racism in any form is not acceptable. All humans deserve a fair and healthy life. And there’s no fucking reason that in the age of big data and globalized computational efforts that we can’t do better than lumping people into groups of tens of millions and saying “well that’s all the better resolution we can get”. It’s irresponsible. It’s evil. And it’s so terrible that that is the world we have decided is acceptable. Care about all humans. Not just the ones that make you feel good to care about.
So if someone says their lived experience is pain and suffering from the existence of cancel culture, you fully embrace that and want to do everything you can to help them stamp out cancel culture?
Or how about this one: what if someone says their lived experience has always been a negative interaction with every member of some specific racial group. You then believe them and accept their racist views as legitimate?
I just can't accept that you actually believe what you are claiming. We all must evaluate and judge so called lived experience on its merit, not blindly accept it as legitimate.
Woking ourselves to societal disillusionment and eventual collapse. Saying this as a colored person who never saw myself “colored”. Did I face indirect racism ? Yes a hell lot more than I can count. But I ignore / stay away from people who don’t like me. That’s where it ends. I don’t want to be judged by the color of my skin but by the content of my character to borrow the phrase from a famous activist everyone knows.
I don’t like where the society is headed canceling ourselves back into the history and then into the future until there is nothing left.
That is not the starting premise of all who oppose racism. It's not even the starting premise of the majority. It's the starting premise of a few loudmouths who unfortunately were given a microphone. They're doing their cause more harm than good by saying stuff like that.
Why are they doing more harm than good? Because, after a claim like that, the conversation is over. There's absolutely no point in talking to someone who makes claims like that. And it makes you less likely to be willing to talk to the next person, either. So the net amount of whites willing to learn and talk about race and racism goes down when people say stuff like this.
(It's also factually untrue, blatantly unfair, and bigoted...)
How so? I’ve engaged in numerous conversations about race and its suffusing everything in this country with non-white close friends and casual acquaintances alike who’ve never made the suggestion you make. This isn’t an issue of them being hesitant to challenge me (lawd knows they don’t show any hesitation to challenge in other areas of race-related conversation we engage in: I’d be surprised if this were the one issue that weren’t true for).
I'm not objecting to talking about racism. I'm objecting to seeing race as a significant part of what makes a person. It's possible to do one without the other.
I don't see how it's useful to note that something didn't work when there is no evidence to suggest that the alternative works any better. I don't understand how talking more about race as a characteristic could possibly help to reduce racism or racial inequality. It seems to me much more likely to do the opposite.
These arguments have been going on for nearly a century, and you're trotting out the same tired old arguments. Either you're trolling me, or are ignorant of the ongoing debates/discussions/history of this issue. That's specifically what I mean when I say you're ignorant. Your words display zero awareness of the larger context.
The "We aren't racist or sexist, we're colour-blind and gender-agnostic, we're a meritocracy, and it just happens to be the case that our country club is full of white people isn't important, and you people are racists/sexists for constantly trying to disrupt our happy existence" is old. If you know that, you need to do more than whip it out, you need to acknowledge the many, many arguments against it and explain why you don't think they apply.
If you don't know that, you are ignorant of the subject matter. If you know it but do not address it, you are trolling. Some people call that being "intellectually dishonest," but I prefer to say trolling.
Of course I identify myself by all of the my characteristics that have a significant contribution to my life's experience. I have size 11 feet, but that has never meant much to me, so I don't think of myself as a "Size 11 Guy." I've been assaulted on the street and called a "Nigger" and "Spook" by strangers, so guess what? My skin colour does contribute to defining my experience.
When you call that racist, you're either ignorantly redefining the word "racist" or trolling me. I prefer to think you're ignorant of the implications. Conflating having a life experience that has been affected by his skin colour with white supremacism and Jim Crow laws is wrong. It's also deeply offensive.
I'm offended. I choose to be offended. I choose to speak out against it. That's not the same thing as being "Jerry Springer" angry with you, or curling up in a fetal ball and sobbing, but it is enough to motivate me to act.
And let me tell you flat out, this "I'm not being offensive, you're just choosing to be offended" argument is nonsense, it's like that Simpson's episode where Bart windmills his arms and says "I'm just windmilling my arms, and walking forward, if you get hit that's your problem."
Do yourself a favour, and remove it from your toolbox of arguments.
I realize that people often choose to read more into their words than should be read. I'm explicitly arguing against this. The "social context" means that there are ideas we can't discuss without being socially lumped in with deplorable people - for instance the fact that blacks don't pay back their loans as much as whites, that they are more likely to be deadbeats/defaulters/etc. (As tptacek noted, there is no similar stigma about observing that whites are deadbeats relative to Asians.)
This creates a significant level of friction on one side of a discussion, and makes it harder for us to come to truth.
This also means that the only people who do discuss these issues are the deplorable folks. I explicitly want to reclaim the unpleasant facts so that the deplorable folks don't have a monopoly on truth.
I want to say "we should import hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, a few hundred white girls will be raped as a result, and tens of thousands of lives will be saved. Good tradeoff." I want to say "black on white crime is the most common form of interracial violence, but we should still treat black people as equal citizens with civil rights. However our expectations of equal levels of police violence against blacks and whites might be unreasonable."
Lying/shaming/attacking the people speaking the truth isn't sustainable. When you lie to people and they notice the truth, they start to turn to turn to UKIP/Jobbik/other such folks. As a globalist and a universalist I don't want to live in that world.
We aren't really having a conversation now. I explained why I don't think it could/should be interpreted as racist. You had an opportunity to share with me why it could be, allowing me to perhaps be enlightened and form a new opinion; however, you chose to throw insults and shut down the convo.
The person I was responding to was not the experiencer of the racism, as you meant it. Yes this is a good guideline in general, but there are also times when probing further is necessary for an actual meaningful discussion.
There's something about the topic of institutional racism that cuts white people very deep. We simply aren't comfortable discussing it, even in a polite way.
You're right that stories like this and comments like yours don't lead to enlightened discussion on HN, but they are necessary. Racism doesn't just hurt black people; it hurts white people, too - not in the sense that white people are targeted, but in the sense that it lulls us into a false sense of social stability and desensitizes us to the human cruelty embedded in that stability. It conditions us to accept that cruelty as just part of some natural equation of society. So IMO anything we can do to combat it is admirable, even just as small as just discussing it and therefore acknowledging that it's a problem.
People should not fear talking about it. But steer away from phrases like “by that logic” —- it’s neither convincing nor rational to seek a more-logical view on race. It is only embedded in social fabric and not found elsewhere.
How about we start with the blatantly racist assumption that I'm white? And the fact that such behavior is being normalized by BLM and allies, and I'm being held hostage for not going along with a movement which I believe is about to set race relations back by a hundred years?
This isn't about me. This is about the country running off a cliff. And it's the fact that I'm not even allowed to question your presumptions about how the system benefits whites at the expense of blacks - which is statistically unsupported, but that's beside my point.
Again, it's the fact that I risk being unpersoned for even bringing it up.
For what it's worth, I agree with you. But if you've ever discussed racial disparities in anything you know that asking for more information that might not fit neatly with the established narrative, is likely to just get you called a Nazi or something.
My primary objective is to never normalize racism, no matter the context. I see it all the time here, and the subtle stuff constantly slips by and is given a pass. I don't care the community or context, this is never okay. All spaces are politicized whether it is convenient to you or not. By aggressively downvoting anti-racism or simply ignoring the racists the members of the community send an implicit message that racism is acceptable here as long as you look respectable and follow the group conversation rules.
I'm probably missing something essential about your argument, but does this thread require a proof that racism is bad? Observing that various parties benefit from it is not an admission that it is of general benefit.
Explain how the parent can be called racist please. I get that he may have assumed a culture (distinct from race) based on social cues. Stop yelling racism at everything, it waters down a very real issue. Half the comments in this thread are like yours, virtue signalling without critical thought.
This argument originated to facilitate nuance but is being used to shut it out. That fucking sucks.
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