“White people get so angry at the phrase, “You cannot be racist towards white people.”I will never understand why. Why are you so angry that you are being treated as actual human beings? You are not reduced to caricatures, but portrayed as characters. You are treated fairly, judged not by your skin tone, but by the ways that you carry yourselves, by your actions.
Why do you want to experience racism so badly? It is not fun to be mocked, dehumanized, attacked, killed, incarcerated simply for daring to exist. It is not fun to know nothing of your history or family because it was torn apart, whether through distance or death. It is not fun to hear, at every turn, comments reminding you of your lesser status as humans.
Do you really want to turn on the tv, open a magazine, watch a movie, play a video game, and not see yourself? Or, even better, to only see yourself as a criminal, as a drunk, a mocking stereotype, or as someone to be killed off? Or would you rather see fleshed out, well-written characters with lives and personalities and feelings? I know which I’d rather pick.
If I were a white person, the phrase, “You cannot be racist towards white people,” would be the best thing I could ever hear.”
— i finally put some thoughts into words // thedeathcats
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2 comments
December 2, 2014 at 1:06 pm
VR Kaine
If I were a white person, the phrase, “You cannot be racist towards white people,” would be the best thing I could ever hear.”
But they aren’t white, so putting their “there’s no way you can understand us unless you’re one of us”, this person isn’t allowed under their own rules to even begin to try and put themselves in the shoes of another person of different race or gender, apparently. Such a double standard you all entertain.
And we’re still on the WP bandwagon? “White Privelege” is white guilt – nothing more, nothing less. The only the reason the mere idea of it has gotten any legs is because of liberal whites feeling guilty about what they have yet still being selfish enough not to give any of it away to those who haven’t.
Do all us crackers have an advantage in the US and Canada? Absolutely, but there’s an advantage that comes with being the majority. That’s life. In Japan my “privilege” goes away as soon as I step off the plane and so does it in China, Africa, Thailand, Brazil, neighborhoods in London and even certain streets about 2-3 blocks from my home in Las Vegas where I quickly become very clearly the minority with zero rights and zero power whatsoever. I invite any one of you to spend some time in those neighborhoods (which are still middle class, btw) and tell me where all your “White Privilege” is. Have any of you ever even lived in these neighborhoods? Or do you figure you don’t need to because you watched a documentary or two, or watched the news coverage of Ferguson?
Don’t get me wrong – I do hate guys like Bill O’Reilly all rich and up on their ivory tower trying to say what they know what minorities think and know what they “need to do” having never been among them. I could do a huge rant on that, but a bunch of white losers whining about “White Privilege” just to ease a bunch of the whiny guilt feelings they have over what they have vs. others is almost as bad, imho. While not as bad as the redneck confederate “old white boys club” I tend to run into from time to time, the disingenuous guilt and manufactured outrage is just as bad because you’re bullshitting everyone saying you’re all about “equal”. i don’t see any liberal giving anything up for this so called equality they say they’re longing for – all they seem to do is simply try and find whatever lame way they can to jealously knock down those with more than them which does ZERO to boost what the people they’re PRETENDING they want to help already have. If it’s an ego boost they want, they win every time, but if it’s results they want this is why they always lose.
If you’re really about getting rid of “White Privilege”, then I suggest getting in amongst minority business owners anywhere on this continent, or get amongst those who are truly eager and willing to get off welfare and ask them what they think about racial divides and white liberals trying to “help” them with all their “White Privilege” crap, treating them as helpless and their constant race-baiting from the comfort of their little white blogs and circles. If you’re truly in those circles with people you consider equal, color never comes up because you’re with like-minded and like-hearted people who couldn’t give a shit about some white person’s guilt somewhere, or how privileged some group of white people seem to think they are, and neither do I.
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December 5, 2014 at 9:14 am
The Arbourist
@Vern
I’m not sure how your statement applies to what has being said. The author states and questions why would white people want to experience the racism and her lived reality of being not white in society. She is not claiming ownership of the ‘white experience’ persay, but rather detailing what it could be like on the short end of the racism stick.
It also sounds like you have a bone to pick with people that say “you don’t really know what its like to be “x” because you are not a member of “x”. I guess the question is Vern – Do we listen to people who, because of their race and class, experience society in a different way? Is their cultural narrative any less relevant and important than yours?
Fascinating idea, but I think probably grounded in a knee-jerk defense of happening to be in the dominant class of society. Our society systematically favours, rewards and encourages people who happen to look and act like us – straight white males. Dismissing this as white guilt ignores the real systemic racial problem that exists in our society(-ies).
And this is somehow a good situation because others do it too?
If your friend said that jumping off a bridge was the best thing ever would you do it as well? Pointing out that racism exists in other societies is not a justification for racism. If you think it is please stay as far away from bridges as possible, otherwise I’ll worry about you.
Fortunately, there are no liberal authors on this blog. For the most part everyone here that writes is to the left of the NDP in Canada and that would make us social democrats who have little time for “equality”, but focus on the actual just redistribution of wealth and power in society.
I would suggest that instead of imposing solutions on oppressed minorities from above, we listen to what they have to say and respect their requests.
To date, that hasn’t happened much in Canada and even less so in the United States.
Plugging your ears and ignoring racism doesn’t make it go away. If the activity described above makes *you* feel better, have at it, but your choice has little effect on changing the discriminatory institutional fabric of society.
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