• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

News Why It's So Hard To Talk To White People About Racism

Status
Not open for further replies.
I am editing most of what I said for those who may have read it already. I was too impulsive with it, and it kinda of derailed your thread. The more i thought about what I wrote the more I worried that it may have invalidated others experiences, and I don't want to do that.

To better sum up the part I have deleted is that privilege is the wrong word. I am not sure what a better replacement would be at the moment, but I do know there has to be a more fitting word.

Is a woman of color born into a impoverished area at a clear disadvantage than a white male born to middle class parents in a gated community? Yes. The reverse however is true. A white male born too a couple of crack heads and lives in a trailer park, is going to be at a greater disadvantage than the black daughter of middle class parents.and attends private school.

Every group has their own set of challenges, some better and some worse. I am not saying other skin colors don't have a set of unique problems that I don't have to face, they do. Privilege exists. but it isn't limited by skin color. You would think by now we could get past skin color, but the media won't let it go.

Please do not take this as if I am discounting all the effort you have put into this. You have done a marvelous job. The thought and effort put into this is clear whether I agree with everything or not.
 
Last edited:
One of the great things about America is everyone has the opportunity to work hard and achieve or in some cases the ability to fail. I wouldn't put all of the onus on the media.
Man is inherently afraid of things different. It's part of the survival instinct. Every human being is capable and internally programmed to discriminate. The challenge is to overcome the programming and not reinforce it.
I just want an even playing field. Like Dr. King said judged by the content of their character.
 
I would have to say economics. Most minority groups just happen to be stuck in a cycle of poverty. My husband is a teacher who has worked in moth inner city schools very poor neighborhoods and in wealthier neighborhoods. He'll be the first to tell you that poor children do not get the same education. Without a good education it is nearly impossible to pull yourself out of poverty.

Here is a dirty little secret I never knew until I met him. Schools get extra funding If the child is a minority, they get extra funding if the child comes from a family that qualifies for the free lunch program, but the real kicker is that they get even more funding if these children are labeled as special needs. So the schools saddle them with a learning disability they most likely do not have, but are struggling do to a poor home environment and poor learning environment.

There kids graduate without a proper education and if they do make it to college, they flunk out because they were never prepared. The schools additude is to pass them up the line so that they are someone elses problem.

So yeah, I would say it's economics, these kids aren't ever given a chance. America has a caste system but we are all in denial. But tell me, does the average middle class kid get the same quality of education as an upper middle class kid? And does the upper middle class kid get the same education as the kids of wealthy? Nope!
 
stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Unfortunately it is often a self imposed cycle. If the parents do not value a good education the emphasis isn't past on to the child. Why is it that some children thrive regardless of the circumstances? In some third world countries children learn despite having to sit on a bench on a dirt floor sharing a book that's older than I am.

I agree the public system has become an incestuous monster that thrives on bureaucracy and neglect. We keep throwing money at it and the funds are eaten before they every reach the children. It's the reason many have given up and started home schooling. It's also the reason the bureaucratic beast keeps fighting vouchers.
 
I disagree that the root of white (or any color, but in America we are talking white) privilege is economics. As @Bill Dickerson points out, economics can on some level be resolved by the individual, and race privilege is not determined by the individual, it is something that society as a collective actually creates.

Economics then become a factor, but they are not the cause. It doesn't have to do with privilege in the sense of benefits - it's about what problems you are not subjected to. Everyone can be subjected to economics. But, as has been seen in studies, and in amateur 'experiments', a minority race doing 'x' will encounter additional obstacles, more than the majority race doing the same 'x'.

And it can get confusing because minority does not always mean lowest population. When looking at race privilege, you need to look at minority vs. majority power-holders/policy makers. If you know the book Animal Farm (Orwell), that's another easy way to look at it. The pigs did not outnumber the rest of the animals - they simply created a power structure that gave them 'pig privilege', so to speak.

(The classic quote there is that the animals start with the credo, 'all animals are equal', but then that changes into 'all animals are equal; but some animals are more equal than others').

Animal Farm is really about the rise of capitalism, not race war. But it's a good analogy for this topic.

Affirmative action, preferential treatment - the things that the white working poor get really pissed off about (and I do understand why) - have got to be understood as attempts to put balance into an unbalanced system. They are meaning to level the playing field. And those attempts are sloppy, and sometimes wrong-headed, accidentally exclusionary. But if someone can come up with a better idea, well, they haven't yet (is my point).

We can't be a meritocracy because we are not all starting from the same line - because systemically, going way, way, way back, blacks in America have been seen as lesser than white. So have Native Americans - and really, every immigrant group except the white europeans.

I think we are in an historic time, though - there hasn't been this much open conversation about race in America since the height of the civil rights movement, I don't think. Or maybe, a different way to look at it - there's a huge movement towards equality across the board that we are seeing right now, and maybe it will make some big changes. Also, there's that prediction that in not too long, the vast majority of the population of America will be mixed-race; then, maybe it all rights itself by default. I don't know.
 
@joeylittle I agree with what you said, but as I said before, what you are talking about I believe deserves a different term than privilege. Privilege to me only relates to class and economics. The challenges people do or do not face due to skin color in my humble opinion deserves different terminology.

The word privilege automatically puts people who have had a less than easy life on the defensive. Especially, since it is something seen as class.

As I said, I don't what word would be more appropriate, I just don't think the word privilege fits here. Perhaps advantage would be a better word?
 
Animal Farm is really about the rise of capitalism

I didn't think that sounded right. Wikipedia relates....According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union

there hasn't been this much open conversation about race in America since the height of the civil rights movement

The Civil Rights movement was about equal rights. The conversation now is more about victimization and has been hijacked by some who drive people apart rather than together. When an unfortunate incident occurs which should be addressed in a calm objective manner, it is descended on by activists and anarchists who fans the flames of divisiveness and anger.
 
Wikipedia relates....According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union
OMG, you are totally right. Where the hell is my head? Thank you.
The Civil Rights movement was about equal rights.
I know - I just think there's some truth to it not actually being over yet.
As I said, I don't what word would be more appropriate, I just don't think the word privilege fits here. Perhaps advantage would be a better word?
It's a good point. I think we are a little stuck with what's already been coined and is in common usage. Though I think there will be an argument with whatever word there is, to be honest. It's a complicated, personal, hot subject.
 
The fight for Civil Rights AKA Equal Rights is a forever ongoing process due to the human condition. I think many are confusing Civil Rights with the thought police. People are going to hate Black Panthers, KKK, Skinheads, Etc. are always going to exist. They have the right to hate... we live in America. Even the most hated speech (and thought) no matter how distasteful is protected.

understood as attempts to put balance into an unbalanced system. They are meaning to level the playing field.

Leveling it one way means un-leveling it for others. How is it right to have minority set asides for city contracts for instance. That benefits one and discriminates against the other. I understand the intellectual reasoning that it's to balance for past discrimination. I never participated in institutional racism. Exactly how many generations does this go on.

(I'm like Dirty Harry I just hate everybody equally.)
 
I have just written a 2000 word essay on my Whiteness and the construction of my White identity. I found...
I have just written a 2000 word essay on my Whiteness and the construction of my White identity. I found...

Your statement "I am white. I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race," is faulty.

Where does society proclaim that race is meaningless? In my personal life, it's meaningless. I've coached 43 seasons of youth sports and I've always had minority children on my teams. I've had boys, girls, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and both American Indians and India Indians on my teams. At no point did I treat any of the children or their parents differently. Coaching was my world.

Back to your premise. Our government and race-baiters in the USA refuse to let the world run like my coaching world. Our government has spent 23 Trillion Dollars on the War on Poverty and what has it gotten us? We have raised several generations of children that are told by the government that they can't succeed without the government's help. Most of them believe that "Whitey" is keeping them down. Well, Whitey is keeping them down with the very social programs that are intended to help them. The War on Poverty had good intentions but as we all know, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

No one ever gave me a thing for free in my life. My dad, who was a single parent, raised me to believe that hard work was the only way to be successful. If we would slowly phase out all government welfare, except for the few that truly need help, we could be a great country again.
I have just written a 2000 word essay on my Whiteness and the construction of my White identity. I found...
 
John...if you appear Caucasian? You did get something for free.

An advantage that was more likely to get you a job. More likely to get you higher pay. More likely to keep you in a job. More likely to get you promoted. More likely to keep you out of warranted or unwarranted legal trouble ( No offense meant, mr Dickerson, but some police officers are not able to deal professionally and impartially with the public, as we would all wish them to. ) An advantage that probably made it VERY much easier to get a FHA home loan ( look up the term " redlining", just because housing discrimination's illegal now does not mean it doesn't happen all the time anyway), easier to get a car loan, easier to build credit, possibly easier to get into the college of your choice.

In short? Being a white guy in the United States hands you the above, unless you screw it up for yourself.

You don't see it because you've had it from birth. But you have it. Other people do not.

...As far as government handouts go...much of the growth since the 1970's has gone straight to the top .01%? I remember hearing that if minimum wage had been indexed to keep pace with inflation since 1973? Minimum wage would have gone to $19 an hour.

If (a) we started practicing strategic trade, (b) we adopted a policy of actual progressive taxation like we had in the 1960's, and (c) we provided a living wage for working Americans, then people *might* not be so strapped, desperate, and depending on government assistance.

I mean, we've systematically smashed many of the ladders for people to climb out of working poordom. This disproportionally hurts nonwhite people, but it hurts everyone. Even well-off people...shivering, locked and loaded, in their gated communities or their hulking SUV's...
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top